2025 NFL Draft consensus position rankings: EDGE

There are a bunch of great pass rushers in this year’s NFL Draft, be it defensive end or outside linebacker.

This year’s class of pass rushers is very deep, and the 2025 NFL Draft could see a record number of defensive ends and rushing outside linebackers come off the board.

Normally we’d rank the top 10, but that might not even make it to the end of Round 2 this year, so we expanded to include the top 14 players at the EDGE position — all the players who received votes in the top 10 from our collection of draft experts from our 32 NFL team sites.

We should note that we are grouping together pass rushers as EDGE rushers, which means you might find some players labeled as defensive end and some labeled as outside linebacker.

The top EDGE rushers in the 2025 NFL Draft

14. Josaiah Stewart, Michigan

The Massachusetts native originally began his college football career at Coastal Carolina, where his teammate Isaiah Likely — now with the Baltimore Ravens — also joined the team. After earning back-to-back All-Sun Belt honors, he transferred to Michigan in 2023. At just 6’1” and 249 pounds with 32” arms, he was never able to recapture the magic of his 12.5-sack freshman season at the Big Ten level, but he is an interesting, though undersized, pass-rushing prospect. He never worked out at the combine due to a hamstring issue and didn’t run at Michigan’s pro day in March, so we might never get an answer on how athletic he really is — a potential red flag.

13. Kyle Kennard, South Carolina

Kyle Kennard sort of came out of nowhere last season. After recording 12.5 sacks over four years with Georgia Tech, Kennard posted 11.5 sacks in his lone year with South Carolina. For that effort, he was rewarded with consensus All-American, SEC Defensive Player of the Year and Bronko Nagurski Trophy honors. While Kennard was a high-level pass-rusher at the college level last season, there are questions about whether his high-effort style of play will translate to the next level. At just 254 pounds, he only ran a 4.73-second 40-yard dash and does not appear to be much of an edge bender on film.

12. JT Tuimoloau, Ohio State

A former five-star recruit who had power conference offers to play basketball, JT Tuimoloau has been on NFL radars for years. In each of his last three seasons, he was named a first-team All-Big Ten player. He’s more bursty than bendy as an athlete, which helps him more against the run than the pass. Still, he finally had a breakout pass-rushing season in 2024, when he shattered his previous record of five sacks in a season to post 12.5. He also does a great job of getting into quarterbacks’ passing lanes at 6’4” with 34” arms. Tuimoloau doesn’t have any elite traits, but he’s a solid all-around defensive end.

11. Landon Jackson, Arkansas

Originally a defensive tackle for LSU, Landon Jackson transferred to Arkansas after playing just five games as a true freshman in 2021. The Texarkana product dropped down to 264 pounds by the scouting combine, which allowed him to put up an incredible 40.5” vertical and a more than decent 4.68-second 40-yard dash. The 6’6” defensive end has a lot of Lukas Van Ness in his game, which makes you wonder why he’s not considered a first-round pick in this class. Sure, this edge class is deep, but usually, players with his size and athleticism don’t last to Day 2 of a draft, no matter how many defensive ends are expected to go in the first round. He never posted more than 6.5 sacks in a single season at Arkansas, but he did earn first-team All-SEC honors in 2023 and second-team honors in 2024, in part due to his run game prowess. Ultimately, he’s a young and long quality run defender who has the athletic upside to grow as a pass rusher.

10. Jack Sawyer, Ohio State

Jack Sawyer is going to be a player that teams with a 3-4 scheme value more than 4-3 teams, simply because he’s a more all-around player than a true edge bender. The fact that Sawyer can set a decent edge and can actually drop into coverage at 6’4” and 260 pounds will make him a tier more valuable for teams that want to use him in a Preston Smith-like role in a 3-4 scheme. Sawyer was a former five-star recruit who was able to earn back-to-back second-team All-Big Ten honors over the last two seasons. While he never hit double-digit sacks in college, he will have a role at the next level.

9. Princely Umanmielen, Mississippi

After spending four years at Florida, Princely Umanmielen transferred to Ole Miss in 2024, where he earned All-SEC honors for the second time in his college career. He’s the second of three college defensive linemen among his brothers, with Pricewill, a Nebraska transfer, following Princely’s footsteps with the Rebels for the 2025 season. Princely is a quality pass-rushing option after the wave of first-rounders come off the board. While he won’t wow you with elite athleticism, on the relative scale of NFL starters, he consistently finds ways to get after the quarterback. That’s one reason why he was able to rack up 17.5 sacks over the last two years, mostly against SEC play, despite running a 7.33-second three-cone during the pre-draft process.

8. Donovan Ezeiruaku, Boston College

The most unique pass rusher in this class is Boston College’s Donovan Ezeiruaku, who sort of plays like a sawed-off Chandler Jones. Instead of being the 6’5” with 35” arms that Jones was, though, Ezeiruaku is 6’2” with 34” arms. He’s more of a slow-burn pass rusher than you would expect for someone under 250 pounds, as he doesn’t have a great first step. That’s usually a game-ender for smaller ends, but he’s such an advanced and crafty pass-rusher that he was able to post 16.5 sacks in 2024, earning him All-American honors. The 21-year-old is a bit of a gamble, only because we’ve never seen a lengthy Euro-step pass-rusher come in a 6’2”, 248-pound package before, but his technical skill can help him overcome his weight and first-step knocks.

7. Nic Scourton, Texas A&M

Coming into 2024, there were high expectations for Nic Scourton, who was one of the biggest transfers in the portal. At Purdue, Scourton was named an All-Big Ten player after he led the conference with 10 sacks in 2023. At A&M, he only posted five sacks, which was highly disappointing relative to his preseason hype. He was listed by the Aggies at 285 pounds, which is the weight he appeared to carry on film, but he cut down to 257 pounds for the combine. In truth, he probably carried too much “bad weight” to play a run-first role in Texas A&M’s scheme last year. If you really want a feel for the bull rusher, you have to dig back into his 2023 tape at Purdue, as NFL teams will almost certainly want him to play closer to his combine weight at the next level.

6. James Pearce Jr., Tennessee

While the majority of the top edge defenders were played out of position at the college level, one player who benefitted from being put in the right position on a down-to-down basis was James Pearce Jr. of Tennessee. Tennessee went out of their way to make sure that Pearce was the “open” end — playing one-on-one against tackles rather than to the side of the tight end — to an extreme extent. When tight ends motioned across the formation, the Volunteers would frequently flip their entire defensive box so that Pearce could get one-on-one opportunities. Pearce was also allowed to play in a wide-9 technique, making him an every-down pass-rusher more than a true defensive end. At only 245 pounds, he might just end up settling into a designated pass-rusher role at the NFL level, where his 4.47-second speed could provide more value to teams. He’s more of a clean-up player — a good one because of his speed — than someone who creates pressure quickly in passing downs.

5. Mike Green, Marshall

Originally recruited as a pass-catcher at Virginia, Mike Green ended up leading the FBS in sacks in 2024 with 17 for Marshall. As a pure designated pass-rusher, Green is probably the second-best player in this class behind only Penn State’s Abdul Carter. For a 6’3”, 251-pound end from a Group of Five program, he’s a better run defender than you would expect, in part because he plays like his hair is on fire every down. At the combine, Green addressed two sexual assault allegations, dating back to his time in high school and Virginia. Green claims he’s never been questioned by law enforcement and that he did “nothing wrong.”

4. Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M

One of the players with the widest range of outcomes in this draft is Texas A&M’s Shemar Stewart, who has all the traits you would ask for out of a defensive end but none of the production. In three years, the former five-star recruit posted just 4.5 sacks. While he improved as a run defender every year at A&M, the defense primarily focused on stopping the run rather than getting after the quarterback, which often showed on play-action and RPO reps — a good amount of the passes that the Aggies faced in the SEC. With that being said, Stewart’s first step is the best in the class at 6’5” and 267 pounds. He posted a 4.59-second 40-yard dash and 40” vertical jump at the combine, both incredible numbers for a player his size.

3. Mykel Williams, Georgia

Once Travon Walker was drafted first overall, the Georgia Bulldogs essentially plugged in five-star recruit Mykel Williams into their 4i role in the Bulldogs’ defense immediately. Williams often played on the defensive interior for Georgia, just due to the structure of their defense, but isn’t expected to play there much at 6’5” and 260 pounds at the NFL level. The 20-year old is an athletic player who was twice named an All-SEC player off of the strength of his run defense. He has a toolbox of counter pass-rushing moves but doesn’t have a calling card for beating tackles around the edge. The hope is that he can develop a go-to outside move at the next level.

2. Jalon Walker, Georgia

One of the toughest projections in the draft is whether or not Jalon Walker will be played on the edge full-time. At 6’1” and 243 pounds, he doesn’t have the frame on paper or the strength on film to consistently hold the edge at the NFL level. With that being said, he was named a first-team All-American and second-team All-SEC player in 2024, playing a hybrid pass-rushing linebacker role. In truth, his best role might be an off-ball linebacker on run downs who can play the “spinner” role, lining up over the center as a stand up player in pass-rushing situations. He has pass-rushing juice, but the question is simply whether or not he’s an every down defensive end, something that could limit how many pass-rushing opportunities he’s going to have in his NFL career.

1. Abdul Carter, Penn State

The consensus top pass-rusher in this class and likely top-five selection is Penn State’s Abdul Carter, who just one year ago was an off-ball linebacker for the Nittany Lions. In his first year on the edge, he was able to earn 12 sacks and an FBS-leading 24 tackles for loss on the way to All-American and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors. Carter isn’t expected to be a premier edge setter at just 6’3” and 250 pounds, but his athleticism makes him a prime pass-rushing candidate. 3-4 teams should fall in love with the prospect, as he also was a Freshman All-American and First-Team All-Big Ten player as a true linebacker, giving him value as a dropper in base defense looks.