A.
J. Epenesa.
A.
J. Epenesa.
Iowa· 6'5"· 275 lb· 5.04s 40
"A 6-6, 280-pound Iowa edge with 26.5 sacks and nine forced fumbles in three seasons whose Combine testing was so heavy and so slow that half the league quietly moved him inside on their boards."Pre-draft read
Enormous, long-armed edge defender who plays in a four-man front and can slide inside on passing downs. Wins with power and leverage rather than speed: the long arm and the bull rush collapse the pocket, and the length lets him disengage late and still make the tackle.
The second trait is his hand usage at the point of attack against the run, where he sets a hard edge and squeezes plays back inside — a genuine early-down asset rather than a liability to be substituted. Nine career forced fumbles came from swiping at the ball as he finished. The pass-rush plan is methodical rather than sudden, and the signature is the rep where a tackle absorbs the first punch and gets walked into the quarterback's lap anyway.
Four-man front that rotates its ends and slides big edges inside on passing downs
Year 1 as an early-down base end who kicks inside on obvious passing downs; ceiling is a full-time starting power end who posts eight sacks and anchors the run defense.
A wide-nine speed-rush scheme that asks him to win the edge with get-off on every snap, which removes everything he is good at.
His snap count has to be managed; he is a 45-snap contributor whose value drops sharply when asked to play 70.
AJ Epenesa 2019 Iowa Highlights
Junior season reel showing the long-arm bull rush and the edge-setting work against the run.
Iowa DE AJ Epenesa 2018 Highlights
The Big Ten-leading 10.5-sack sophomore year that first put him on first-round boards.
AJ Epenesa (Iowa EDGE #94) vs Minnesota 2019
Single-game cut useful for judging the get-off and the bend questions that dropped him.
The son of an Iowa walk-on from American Samoa and the highest-rated recruit ever to sign with a Kirk Ferentz team, he produced from the moment he arrived: 4.5 sacks as a rotational freshman, then a Big Ten-leading 10.5 as a sophomore, then 11.5 as a junior on the way to second-team All-American honors. The frame is unusual even for the position — 6-6 and 280 pounds with the arms to match.
The production stands up to scrutiny. Twenty-six and a half sacks, 38 tackles for loss and nine forced fumbles in 39 games, with All-Big Ten recognition in all three seasons. What worried teams was the testing: he arrived at the Combine noticeably heavy, ran poorly, and confirmed on tape what the numbers said about his get-off and his bend around the corner. The tape shows a power rusher who wins late in the down rather than an edge who threatens the arc.
The board slid him accordingly, from a projected first-rounder in the fall to the middle of the second round in April, with several teams grading him as a base end who kicks inside in sub packages. Buffalo took him at 54, valuing the run defense, the length and the production over the workout numbers.
- 01
Length and power
Long arms and a heavy punch let him control tackles at the point of attack and collapse the pocket without needing to win the corner.
- 02
Three years of Big Ten production
26.5 sacks and 38 tackles for loss with All-Big Ten honors in every season, a rare consistency for a junior declaration.
- 03
Run defense on early downs
Sets a hard edge and squeezes plays inside, so he never has to leave the field in base personnel.
- 04
Ball-stripping habit
Nine career forced fumbles came from finishing with an eye on the football rather than just the tackle.
- 05
Inside-outside versatility
At 280 pounds with that reach he can reduce to a three-technique on passing downs and create a mismatch on a guard.
- 01
Poor athletic testing
He showed up to the Combine heavy and tested badly, confirming the lack of burst that the tape already suggested.
- 02
Limited bend
Cannot flatten around the arc, so his rush wins come late in the down and depend on the pocket holding still for him.
- 03
Slow get-off
The first step does not threaten NFL tackles, which turns most of his pass rush into a long, grinding bull instead of a quick win.
- 04
Conditioning questions
Snap counts were managed at Iowa, and teams wondered how much of the production came from a rotation-friendly workload.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.04sp50
- Vertical
- 32.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 117inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.34sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.46sp50
- Bench
- 17repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Iowa | 13 | 15 | 4.5 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | Iowa | 13 | 37 | 10.5 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| 2019 | Iowa | 13 | 49 | 11.5 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Career | — | 39 | 101 | 26.5 | 0 | 8 | 9 |
Sports-Reference totals include bowl games; season sums match the career line exactly (101 tackles, 38 TFL, 26.5 sacks, 8 pass breakups, 9 forced fumbles in 39 games). His professional team bio lists 36.5 TFL using a different in-house count; the Sports-Reference ledger is used here. He returned a fumble 19 yards for a touchdown in 2018.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A big, productive power end who stacks six-sack seasons without ever being the offense's biggest problem.
The outcome where the length and inside-outside power make him a long-tenured, highly valued starter.
A high-pick lineman with no defined position who becomes a rotational body on early downs.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Buffalo brought him along slowly: one sack as a rookie and 1.5 in year two, mostly as a rotational piece behind veterans. He settled in from 2022 onward as the Bills' steady third or fourth rusher, with 6.5 sacks in 2022, 6.5 more plus an interception returned for a touchdown in 2023, and six sacks while playing all 17 games in 2024. His 2025 season brought 2.5 sacks, two interceptions and 16 appearances. He reached free agency in 2026, agreed to a deal with Cleveland in March that the team walked away from after his physical, and signed with Philadelphia in June, appearing in his first Eagles game to open the season. His career sits at 92 games, 24 sacks, 21 passes defensed and five forced fumbles, plus 17 playoff appearances and two AFC Championship Game runs.
The evaluation was essentially right in both directions. The bad testing was real — he never became a double-digit-sack player and never held a full-time starting job, with 19 starts in six Buffalo seasons — but the length, the run defense and the professionalism made him a six-year contributor on a contender, which is more than most picks in the fifties return. This is the modest, useful version of a second-round edge: not the disaster the workout numbers threatened, not the star the college production hinted at.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.