Position

NFL Draft Defensive Tackle Rankings

How the draft market prices defensive tackles, what evaluators weight, and every class we cover ranked within the position.

Compiled by the NFL Mock Draft Simulator research desk

How the market prices the position

Interior defensive line splits sharply. A penetrating three-technique who wins as a pass rusher is priced near premium, because interior pressure collapses a pocket faster than edge pressure. A run-stuffing nose tackle is priced well below his grade, because the role is part-time in a league that passes this much. Same position on a depth chart, very different markets.

What evaluators actually weight

Get-off and hand length for the pass rusher; anchor, leverage and the ability to hold two gaps for the run defender. Evaluators care a great deal about whether an interior lineman can convert speed to power, since that is what turns a first step into a collapsed pocket.

The recurring failure mode

Interior linemen are the group where conditioning and snap counts most often limit an otherwise good player. A dominant player at 25 snaps a game is a rotational piece, priced accordingly.

How the defensive tackle groups compare

• 2027: 56 ranked so far, 5 inside the top 32 of the board and 10 inside the top 100. 5 are currently projected into the first round, though the class has not been drafted. Justin Scott leads the group at No. 11 overall.
• 2026: 45 ranked, 2 inside the top 32 of the board and 8 inside the top 100. 25 were drafted, 2 in the first round. Peter Woods led the group at No. 24 overall.

Read the top-of-board numbers before the counts. Depth at a position is common and cheap; a genuine top-of-the-draft player at one is not. The best defensive tackle we have ranked across these classes sits at No. 11 overall in 2027, against No. 24 in 2026, and that gap explains far more about how the two drafts will be shaped than the difference in how many players each class carries.

Defensive Tackles by draft class

Each class's rankings are a separate page, frozen once that draft is complete.

How to read these rankings

Three numbers appear on the class pages and they answer different questions. Board rank is the prospect's slot on the consensus big board, across every position: it is the closest thing to an objective statement of how good the industry thinks he is. Positional rank is his place within this group alone, written DT1, DT2 and so on, which is what matters to a team that has already decided it is drafting a defensive tackle. Projected range is where published mock drafts actually have him going, and it is the only one of the three that prices in positional value.

The gap between the first and the third is the whole subject of this page, and for defensive tackles it runs in a consistent direction. A defensive tackle ranked 40th on the board who is projected into the fifties is not being underrated by us: he is being priced down by a market that has decided it can find adequate play here later, and that discount is the single most reliable thing about how defensive tackles are drafted. The gap is not a mistake by either party, and reading the two numbers together tells you more than either does alone.

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