Khalid
Kareem.
Khalid
Kareem.
Notre Dame· 6'4"· 268 lb
"A Notre Dame captain who set a hard edge and graded as his defense's best player, a power rusher without the bend to finish, and with an injury history teams had been logging for four years."Pre-draft read
Kareem is a 6-4, 265-pound strongside defensive end who wins with power and hand strength rather than bend. He sets a hard edge, stacks tight ends at the point of attack, and his most repeatable rush is a long-arm that walks a blocker into the pocket.
The pass-rush production came in bursts rather than as a steady drip, and the tape shows why: he lacks the ankle flexion to flatten around the corner and has to win early with hands or a bull. He played the final third of his senior year hurt and still graded as his defense's top player, which speaks to a motor scouts trusted. The signature is his run defense — he was a base-down edge setter who could rush on early downs, not a designated third-down weapon.
A four-man front that needs a base-down strongside end to two-gap against tight ends and rush from a wide-nine only situationally.
Year 1 rotational run-down end and special-teams contributor, with a ceiling as a steady base starter who gets six sacks on effort and leverage.
A speed-rush scheme that asks its ends to win outside the tackle on the edge in obvious passing situations.
@NDFootball | Khalid Kareem Highlights
The school's own cut-up of the captain's edge-setting and power rush.
Khalid Kareem Notre Dame DE 2018 Highlights
His breakout junior year, including the Walter Camp performance against Michigan.
Notre Dame's Defensive End Khalid Kareem at 2020 NFL Scouting Combine
Combine work from the pre-draft cycle that his injury and canceled pro day cut short.
Kareem was a top-100 recruit out of Harrison High School in Detroit, the city's defensive player of the year after a sixteen-sack senior season, and he chose Notre Dame over Michigan and Alabama, enrolling early in January of 2016. He played in four games as a true freshman, then in all thirteen as a reserve in 2017 with 21 tackles, 5.5 for loss and three sacks.
The last two years made him a draft pick. He started all thirteen games as a junior in 2018 with 42 tackles, 10.5 for loss, 4.5 sacks and five pass breakups, and he announced himself with Walter Camp National Defensive Player of the Week honors after eight tackles against fourteenth-ranked Michigan in the opener. As a senior captain in 2019 he started all thirteen again with 46 tackles, 10 for loss, 5.5 sacks, eleven hurries, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery returned for a touchdown to seal the finale at Stanford, finishing as the highest-graded Irish defender at 85.1 with an 86.6 pass-rush grade. He left with 43 games, 26 starts, 109 tackles and thirteen sacks on a team that went 23-3 over his two years as a starter.
The concerns were consistency and health: minor injuries pulled him off the field repeatedly, surgery followed the senior year, and the pandemic wiped out his pro day. Cincinnati took him at 147.
- 01
Edge setting
Holds the point against tight ends and tackles at 265 pounds and keeps outside runs from getting the corner on him.
- 02
Hand power
Wins with a long-arm and heavy strikes, resetting a blocker's pads rather than trying to run around him.
- 03
Senior-year grading
Finished as the highest-graded defender on his own defense at 85.1 with an 86.6 pass-rush grade from Pro Football Focus.
- 04
Ball disruption
Forced four fumbles and recovered two in college, including an end-zone recovery that sealed the regular-season finale at Stanford.
- 05
Toughness and leadership
A team captain who played the final third of his senior year hurt and still took the field in the bowl game.
- 01
Lack of bend
Cannot flatten around the corner, which caps his ability to threaten the edge against NFL tackles on obvious passing downs.
- 02
Inconsistent production
Flashed against Michigan and Virginia and then disappeared for stretches, never turning strong grades into steady sack totals.
- 03
Durability pattern
Repeatedly taken in and out of games with minor injuries at Notre Dame before offseason surgery after his senior year.
- 04
Missing workout data
An injury and the canceled pro days left teams without complete athletic testing on a player whose traits were already in question.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Notre Dame | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Notre Dame | 13 | 21 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Notre Dame | 13 | 42 | 4.5 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| 2019 | Notre Dame | 13 | 46 | 5.5 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Career | — | 43 | 109 | 13 | 0 | 8 | 4 |
Career totals (43 games, 26 starts, 109 tackles, 13 sacks, four forced fumbles, two recoveries, eight pass breakups) come from the Bengals signing release; season lines come from the Notre Dame athletics bio and the Bengals draft story. Season tackles sum exactly to the career total (21 + 42 + 46 = 109) and sacks sum exactly to 13.0. His 2016 freshman season is listed with four appearances and no published statistics, and the two pass breakups unaccounted for across 2018-19 belong to unpublished earlier seasons, so those cells are left empty rather than zero-filled. Career tackles for loss were not published as a total.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A big-bodied rotational end who holds a job for years on run downs without becoming a pass-rush threat.
The ceiling: a power-based Bengals end whose hands make him a double-digit-sack starter despite limited bend.
A mid-round edge who never earns a rotation and bounces across rosters as a depth body.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cincinnati got sixteen games out of him as a rookie in 2020, mostly on rotation and special teams, with eighteen tackles, one sack and a kick return. From there the injuries that had flickered in college took over. He played seven games in 2021 with eight tackles, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery on a team that reached the Super Bowl, and that was the end of his Bengals tenure.
The rest has been a journeyman circuit: four games with Indianapolis in 2022, one with Chicago in 2023, two with Atlanta in 2024, four more with Atlanta in 2025, and two with San Francisco in 2026. Through seven seasons he has 36 total games and 43 tackles with a single career sack. The scouting report's two worries — that the pass rush would not translate and that he would struggle to stay available — both came true at once, and a fifth-round edge who never found a rotational job is exactly the outcome that range risks.