Bradlee
Anae.
Bradlee
Anae.
Utah· 6'3"· 257 lb· 4.93s 40
"Anae is the rare college pass rusher whose technique was ahead of every tackle he faced and behind every tackle he was about to face."Pre-draft read
A technician on the edge rather than an athlete, Anae wins with hands, leverage and a plan. He plays with a low pad level off the snap, attacks the outside half of the tackle, and strings together a real move menu — long-arm, chop-rip, inside counter — instead of relying on one rush. He sets a hard edge in the run game and never gives ground willingly.
The second trait is consistency of effort and technique snap to snap, which is how he led Utah in sacks three years running. What he does not have is explosion: the get-off is average, he does not flatten around the corner, and he plays closer to the ground than above it. The signature is refinement, not upside.
Four-man front that plays a heavy rotation and asks its base end to win with hands and leverage rather than speed off the edge
Year 1 rotational base end and special-teams contributor; ceiling is a 500-snap strong-side starter who defends the run and pressures on schedule.
An attacking wide-9 front that isolates its ends in space and demands vertical speed and corner flexion as the primary rush win.
NFL Draft Highlights: Utah defensive lineman Bradlee Anae
The official pre-draft cutup of the consensus All-American season and the hand-technique wins.
Bradlee Anae (Utah EDGE) vs. BYU (2019)
A full-game rush study against BYU, the clearest look at his move menu and counters.
Bradlee Anae named Pac-12 Defensive Player and Lineman of the Week
The signature senior-year performance that carried him toward the Morris Trophy.
Anae is one of the most productive pass rushers in Utah history. He came out of Kahuku, Hawaii, played six games as a freshman, then put together three straight seasons leading the Utes in sacks: 7.0 as a sophomore, 8.0 as a junior, and 13.0 as a senior, when he was named a consensus All-American and won the Morris Trophy as the Pac-12's best lineman.
The numbers are the argument. He finished with a school-record 30 sacks and 42 tackles for loss in 47 games, and the tape backed the production up — this was not a scheme-created rusher feasting on stunts but a player winning one-on-one with technique. The problem was the athletic testing and the frame. At 6-foot-3 and 257 pounds he ran 4.93 with a 31-inch vertical and 32 1/8-inch arms, numbers that put him well below the bar for a standard NFL edge.
Boards split him hard. Some had him as a third-round value based purely on production and hand skill; others had him as a fifth-round rotational end with a defined ceiling. Dallas, needing edge depth behind DeMarcus Lawrence and Aldon Smith, took him at 179 and got the consensus All-American at a discount.
- 01
Pass-rush plan
a genuine move menu with counters off the long-arm and chop-rip, rare polish for a college edge and the basis of his 30 career sacks.
- 02
Production at scale
he led Utah in sacks three consecutive seasons and set the school career record, all against Pac-12 competition.
- 03
Hand strength and placement
he strikes first, controls the blocker's chest and stays clean, which is why he rarely got stuck on blocks.
- 04
Edge integrity
he sets a firm edge against the run and squeezes down on inside zone, a legitimate early-down player, not a pass-rush specialist.
- 05
Consistency
42 tackles for loss across his career, with splash production spread across the schedule rather than concentrated in two games.
- 01
Explosiveness
a 4.93 forty, 31-inch vertical and 7.44 three-cone put him in the bottom tier of edge athletes at the position.
- 02
Length
32 1/8-inch arms let NFL tackles get into his frame first, taking away the hand-fighting advantage that carried him in college.
- 03
Bend
he cannot corner or flatten to the quarterback, so pressures that arrive late get run past the pocket instead of finishing.
- 04
Scheme ceiling
without the length or burst to hold up as a full-time NFL starter, the realistic role was rotational, which caps the return on the pick.
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
- 4.93sp50
- Vertical
- 31inp50
- Broad jump
- 115inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.44sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.43sp50
- Bench
- 25repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Utah | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Utah | 13 | 39 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 2018 | Utah | 14 | 51 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| 2019 | Utah | 14 | 41 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Career | — | 47 | 135 | 30 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
Sports-Reference season lines including bowl games; the four seasons sum exactly to the 47-game, 135-tackle, 42-TFL, 30.0-sack, six-forced-fumble career total, which is the Utah school record for career sacks. Starts are not published by season, so they are left blank rather than estimated.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational base end who lives on special teams and spot starts without ever becoming a pass-rush answer.
Short-armed, technique-driven rusher who overcomes testing to become a double-digit-pressure NFL starter.
College sack leader whose lack of length and burst leaves him bouncing between practice squads and spring football.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The traits caught up with him immediately. Anae dressed for five games as a rookie in 2020, mostly on special teams, and appeared in six more in 2021 before Dallas waived him in November and re-signed him to the practice squad. Across those two seasons he played 11 games with two total tackles on 56 defensive snaps and 170 special-teams snaps. He signed a reserve/future deal with the Jets in January 2022, was promoted from the practice squad for the season finale, spent 2023 on injured reserve, signed with Atlanta in May 2024 and returned to the Jets practice squad that December. He played for the UFL Birmingham Stallions in 2025, signed with San Francisco, was placed on injured reserve in August 2025 and reached an injury settlement. He has not appeared in a regular-season NFL game since 2021.
In hindsight this is a bust, and a predictable one. The production was real and the technique was real, but the athletic floor was too low: NFL tackles neutralized the hands with length he could not overcome, and there was no speed rush to fall back on. Dallas paid a fifth-round price for a consensus All-American, which was correct value on paper. The lesson is the one the testing already told everyone — college sack totals do not survive first contact with pro tackles when the burst and the arms are both below the line.