Davon
Hamilton.
Davon
Hamilton.
Ohio State· 6'4"· 320 lb· 5.14s 40
"A 54-game Ohio State veteran with only 17 starts who waited four years, then led all combine defensive linemen with 33 bench reps and produced half his career tackles for loss as a senior."Pre-draft read
Hamilton is a true nose tackle who plays the game between the guards and rarely leaves it. At 6-4 and 320 pounds he holds the point, absorbs doubles without giving ground and keeps his linebackers clean, which is the whole job description at the position. He is difficult to move once he sets his feet.
What made him more than a two-down body was the late-developing push. As a senior he collected six sacks and 10.5 tackles for loss from inside, converting strength into penetration against single blockers. The athletic ceiling is limited, the lateral range is short, and he will not chase a play across the formation. He wins on the first two steps and on the contact, and he is honest about it.
Two-gap or hybrid front that needs a nose tackle to occupy blockers on early downs while the ends and linebackers make the plays.
Year 1 early-down nose tackle in a rotation, with a ceiling as a long-term starting run stopper who anchors a front for a decade.
A one-gap penetrating defense that wants its interior linemen generating pressure on third down, where his lack of a rush plan makes him a substitution.
Draft him for first and second down and be honest about it; the value is in never having to think about the middle of the line again.
2020 NFL Draft: Ohio State Buckeyes DL DaVon Hamilton Highlights
Conference-produced draft reel covering the senior season that made him a pick.
Davon Hamilton, 2019 Ohio State Highlights
Full senior-year cutup showing the point-of-attack anchor and the late-developing interior push.
DaVon Hamilton vs. Indiana (2019)
Single-game all-22 style study, useful for judging how he handled double teams snap to snap.
Hamilton was a three-star Ohio recruit who redshirted and then spent three full seasons as a rotational defensive tackle behind a deep Ohio State front. He played in every game as a redshirt freshman in 2016 with ten tackles, stayed in the rotation through 2017 and 2018, and started only three games as a junior. The waiting was the story of his college career: he was a 54-game veteran with just 17 career starts entering his last season.
The senior year justified it. Starting all 14 games for a team that won its third straight outright Big Ten title, he produced 28 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss and six sacks, earning third-team all-Big Ten from both the coaches and the media. He finished with 21 tackles for loss and seven sacks for his career, meaning half of everything he ever did came in his final season.
The combine confirmed what the tape suggested. He put up 33 bench press reps, the best of any defensive lineman in Indianapolis, in a body built to hold a gap rather than run around one. Teams were evaluating a one-year starter with a clear role and a narrow ceiling: a nose tackle who could play early downs immediately and would never rush the passer for a living. Jacksonville, having moved on from its veteran nose tackle, took him at 73 for exactly that job.
- 01
Point-of-attack strength
Holds his gap against single blocks and absorbs double teams without surrendering ground, which keeps linebackers free to run.
- 02
Raw power
Led all defensive linemen at the combine with 33 bench press reps, and the weight-room strength shows up in his hand strike on contact.
- 03
Senior-year production
Ten and a half tackles for loss and six sacks from nose tackle, proving he could do more than occupy space when given snaps.
- 04
Role clarity
A defined, immediately usable early-down job means he can contribute as a rookie without waiting on a scheme to be built around him.
- 05
Program pedigree
Four years in one of the deepest defensive line rooms in college football under an elite position coach, so the technique is coached up.
- 01
Limited pass rush
The interior production came in one season and against single blocks; there is no developed rush plan to carry into third downs.
- 02
Lateral range
Short area movement is a real limitation, and he will not chase a play down the line or make anything happen outside his gap.
- 03
One year of starting
Just 17 starts in 54 college games, so the sample of him as a full-time player is a single season.
- 04
Athletic ceiling
The testing profile is power without explosion, which caps him as a two-down defender in most defensive fronts.
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
- 5.14sp50
- Vertical
- 29.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 102inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.72sp50
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 33repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Ohio State | 13 | 10 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Ohio State | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Ohio State | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Ohio State | 14 | 28 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 54 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ohio State publishes career totals of 54 games, 17 starts, 21.0 tackles for loss and seven sacks, plus the full 2016 and 2019 season lines. The school never published his individual 2017 and 2018 rotational lines, so those seasons are left blank rather than estimated; by subtraction they account for 8.0 tackles for loss and 0.5 sacks combined. A career tackle total was never published.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Early-down interior anchor who starts for years, holds the point and leaves the field on passing downs.
The ceiling version, where a pure nose tackle becomes a Pro Bowl run defender and the foundation of a top-ranked front.
Powerful but limited nose tackle whose snaps shrink as defenses get lighter and faster around him.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jacksonville got the early-down nose tackle it drafted and kept him for the whole contract and beyond. Hamilton played 11 games with six starts as a rookie in 2020 before going on injured reserve, then grew into a full-time role with eight starts in 2021 and 14 in 2022, when he posted 56 tackles and 2.5 sacks. A back injury cost him most of 2023, limiting him to eight games and two starts. He returned in 2024 to play all 17 games with 14 starts and a career-high 62 tackles, then started all 17 games in 2025. He opened 2026 as the Jaguars' starting nose tackle. Through seven seasons, all with the team that drafted him, he has 63 starts in 88 games with 251 tackles and 5.5 sacks.
In hindsight this is a solid, unglamorous hit. Hamilton has been a durable, seven-year starter at a position that gets no attention, which is exactly what a team asks from pick 73. The limits were correctly priced: the 5.5 career sacks confirm the pass rush never came, and the senior-year burst was not a preview of a new player. But a defense that needed someone to hold the middle got someone who did it for seven straight years without ever being replaced.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.