Jordan
Fuller.
Jordan
Fuller.
Ohio St.· 6'2"· 203 lb· 4.67s 40
"A two-time Ohio State captain and three-time Academic All-American who ran the communication for the nation's top pass defense, a rangy, reliable safety whose value lived in alignment, angles and tackling."Pre-draft read
Fuller plays primarily as a deep safety who can rotate to the middle of the field or split the halves in two-high looks. His defining trait is processing: he reads the quarterback's shoulders and the route distribution, communicates checks to the corners, and arrives on time rather than early. His pedal is patient and his breaks are efficient, so he limits explosives more than he creates them.
Against the run he is a willing, sound fill player who takes disciplined angles and wraps up in space instead of launching. He is not a twitchy eraser who flips his hips and closes on a dime, so his ceiling is set by functional range. The signature is reliability: he rarely busts, rarely misses a tackle and keeps everything in front of him.
Two-high, quarters- and Cover-6-based defense that rewards communication, disciplined rotation and sound tackling from the deep safeties.
Year 1: rotational safety and core special-teamer who handles the calls. Ceiling: multi-year starting deep safety in a two-high shell.
Aggressive man-heavy Cover-1 scheme that asks him to play true center field alone or carry slot receivers across the field.
His ceiling is starter, not star; the scheme needs to value correctness over splash.
2020 NFL Draft: Ohio State Buckeyes DB Jordan Fuller Highlights | B1G Football
Big Ten Network draft reel of his Ohio State tape, showing the deep-safety rotation and tackling.
Jordan Fuller Ohio State highlights! Safety 2016-2019
Four-year college cut-up covering his run as a starter and captain in the Buckeyes secondary.
Rookie Safety Jordan Fuller Stuffs Cowboys on 4th Down
Rookie-year NFL clip of the downhill fill and sure tackle that matched his pre-draft profile.
Fuller entered the process as the rare Day 3 safety who looked like a future starter because of his mind rather than his athletic profile. He was a four-year contributor and three-year starter at Ohio State, twice voted captain, and the defensive backfield's primary communicator. Teams were buying a coverage-first safety who could line up the secondary on day one and grow into a starting role.
He took over as a starter in 2017 and held the job for three seasons, tying for the team lead in tackles as a junior while handling both rotation and single-high responsibilities. As a senior he anchored a unit that finished first nationally against the pass. The concerns were about juice: he was more smart than fast, rarely produced splash plays, and did not look like a player who would erase mistakes with pure recovery speed.
Evaluators generally graded him as a Day 3 safety with a high floor, special-teams value and a path to rotational snaps. Los Angeles took him in the sixth round at 199 overall, the eighth Buckeye selected in the draft, betting that his preparation and football character would outweigh an athletic profile that never jumped off the page.
- 01
Pre-snap command
handles the secondary's checks and communication, aligns corners and rarely lets a coverage bust develop on the back end.
- 02
Reliable tackler
breaks down under control in space, wraps and drives through ball carriers rather than launching for a highlight hit.
- 03
Route anticipation
reads the quarterback's eyes and route combinations to arrive on time and limit explosive completions over the top.
- 04
Scheme versatility
played single-high, split-field halves and some underneath robber, giving a defense multiple ways to deploy him.
- 05
Football character
two-time captain and three-time Academic All-American whose preparation made him a coaching extension on the field.
- 01
Limited twitch
lacks the explosive hip flip and short-area burst to recover when he is beaten or caught flat-footed in man coverage.
- 02
Modest ball production
five interceptions across four seasons suggested a player who prevents plays more than he takes the ball away.
- 03
Range questions
functional rather than elite speed limited his margin as a pure single-high safety against vertical-heavy offenses.
- 04
Man-coverage limits
asked to carry slot receivers or athletic tight ends, he can struggle to mirror sharp breaks and stay attached.
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
- 4.67sp50
- Vertical
- 35.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.27sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Ohio State | 12 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Ohio State | 13 | 70 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2018 | Ohio State | 13 | 81 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| 2019 | Ohio State | 14 | 62 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Career | — | 52 | 224 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 0 |
Sports-Reference (Ohio State, 2016-2019), bowl games included, cross-checked against Ohio State's official release (224 tackles, 5 INT, 10 PBU). Sports-Reference lists 3 INT for 2017; the official Ohio State career total of 5 interceptions supports 2 in 2017, which is used here. Season totals sum exactly to the career line.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Starting-caliber safety with sound tackling and good instincts whose production is capped by availability.
The upside: a smart, versatile deep safety who becomes a long-term starter by being in the right place every snap.
Serviceable rotational defensive back who fills in as a starter but profiles best as depth.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Fuller beat the draft slot immediately. He started all 12 games he played as a rookie in 2020, making 60 tackles and three interceptions despite a shoulder injury, then started every game in 2021 under Raheem Morris with 113 tackles for the Super Bowl LVI champions. A hamstring injury limited him to three games in 2022, but he rebounded in 2023 with 17 starts, 94 tackles, three interceptions and three forced fumbles. He signed with Carolina in 2024 and made nine starts before another hamstring injury, then joined Atlanta in 2025, where a knee injury and Xavier Watts' emergence limited him to depth and special-teams snaps before a December release and practice-squad return.
In hindsight the sixth-round price was a steal: the Rams got three seasons of starter-level play from a player most teams viewed as depth. The evaluation was right about his brain and tackling and right about the ceiling, because his lack of splash kept him from becoming a difference-maker. Durability, not talent, is what ultimately shortened his run as a full-time starter.