Khalil
Davis.
Khalil
Davis.
Nebraska· 6'1"· 308 lb· 4.75s 40
"A discus-throwing All-American in spikes and a late-blooming senior sack producer in pads, Davis is the rare 308-pound interior lineman whose get-off is genuinely elite and whose height is the reason he lasted."Pre-draft read
A compact, powerfully built interior lineman who plays with a launch off the ball that few guards can match. He wins the first step, gets under pads because of his natural height advantage in leverage terms, and converts that early advantage into backfield penetration before a block can settle. His hands are heavy and he jolts blockers on contact.
As a rusher he works a quick swim and a push-pull, and his closing burst for a man his size shows up when a quarterback drifts. The trade-off is reach: he struggles to disengage once a longer blocker latches on, and he can be washed out of run lanes when he is not the one dictating. The separating trait is raw explosiveness, the product of a genuine throws background.
Attacking one-gap front that turns interior linemen loose on passing downs and does not ask them to two-gap on early downs.
Year 1: passing-down interior rusher on 15 to 20 snaps. Ceiling: a full-time rotational three-technique in an attacking front.
A two-gap scheme that asks him to read and hold blockers, where his short arms leave him locked up and unable to disengage.
The shorter he is allowed to stay and the faster he is allowed to move, the more valuable he becomes.
2020 NFL Draft: Nebraska DL Khalil Davis Highlights
Conference draft reel showing his get-off and interior pass rush.
Khalil Davis vs. Wisconsin (2018)
Every-snap film against a heavy, downhill Big Ten run offense.
Khalil Davis vs. Purdue (2018)
Full-game cut-up against a pass-first spread attack.
Davis is the most athletic late-round interior lineman in the class and also one of the most limited by build. He arrived at Nebraska as a four-star recruit, redshirted in 2015 and needed four more years to become a starter, then broke out as a fifth-year senior with 11 tackles for loss and eight sacks, both team highs, and earned third-team All-Big Ten honors from the coaches.
The athletic evidence is unusual. He was an honorable-mention All-American in the discus for Nebraska's track team and an eight-time letterwinner across two sports, and that explosiveness is visible on every snap of his 2019 tape: five tackles and two tackles for loss against Ohio State, a career-high eight tackles with 1.5 sacks at Purdue, and 2.5 sacks at Maryland. He also served a one-game Big Ten suspension that cost him the Northwestern game. His twin brother Carlos played beside him on the same line.
The flags were structural. At 6-1 with short arms and a 308-pound frame, he lacks the length teams want at three-technique, and the production came in one season out of five. Evaluators graded him as a rotational penetrator whose value lives on passing downs and whose run defense would be scheme-dependent. Tampa Bay, with an interior rotation already stocked, took him at 194 as a developmental piece.
- 01
Elite get-off
His first step off the snap is the best among interior linemen in the late rounds and produced most of his eight senior sacks.
- 02
Track-level explosiveness
An honorable-mention All-American discus thrower whose lower-body power translates directly to bull rushes.
- 03
Natural leverage
At 6-1 he starts every rep under the pads of taller guards and can drive them backward before they anchor.
- 04
Heavy hands on contact
He jolts blockers with his initial punch rather than catching them, which buys the half-second his rush needs.
- 05
Senior-year production
Led Nebraska with 8.0 sacks and 11 tackles for loss and was the program's Defensive Lineman of the Year twice.
- 01
Short arms and frame
His length is below the NFL interior threshold, so once a longer guard latches on he cannot shed and finish.
- 02
One-year producer
Four of his five college seasons were rotational, and 10 of his 23 career tackles for loss came in the final year.
- 03
Run defense is reactive
He gets washed from run lanes when he is not penetrating, which caps his early-down snap count.
- 04
Rush plan is limited
He leans on quickness and a swim move, and NFL guards who survive his first step neutralize the rep.
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
- 4.75sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 32repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Nebraska | 12 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Nebraska | 12 | 15 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | Nebraska | 12 | 41 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | Nebraska | 11 | 44 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Career | — | 47 | 105 | 13 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Sports-Reference totals with bowl games included; the four seasons sum exactly to the career line of 47 games, 105 tackles, 23 tackles for loss and 13 sacks. He redshirted in 2015, so no season is listed for that year. Nebraska credits him with 45 tackles and 12 tackles for loss in 2019 and 11 career starts; the small differences come from official scoring and are noted rather than blended. Interceptions are not verified and are left blank.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational interior body who sticks for years on effort and situational snaps.
Undersized, explosive interior penetrator who turned leverage into a starting career.
His twin, a late-round interior athlete who never secured a consistent role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The NFL career was five years of surviving on the margins. Tampa Bay kept him as a rookie in 2020, where he appeared in two games with two tackles and collected a Super Bowl LV ring, then waived him in October 2021. Indianapolis claimed him, he played one game, and he spent the next stretch on the Steelers, Rams and Buccaneers practice squads. He rebuilt his value in the USFL, winning a 2023 championship with the Birmingham Stallions and posting 15 tackles and a sack, which earned him a contract with Houston.
Houston gave him the only real role of his career. He appeared in 24 games across parts of two seasons and played a career-high 41 percent defensive snap share in 2023 before being traded to San Francisco ahead of the 2024 deadline. He retired in July 2025 at 28, finishing with 46 tackles, three sacks and two passes defensed across 34 regular-season and postseason games, plus just over $4 million in earnings. Grading the pick honestly: the evaluation was right that the explosiveness was real and that the length would cap him. A sixth-rounder who lasts five seasons and wins a ring is not a miss, but he never became the rotational rusher the traits suggested.