Marlon
Davidson.
Marlon
Davidson.
Auburn· 6'3"· 303 lb· 5.04s 40
"A four-year SEC starter who spent three seasons holding the point on the edge and one season proving he was actually a power rusher from the inside, where his hands and leverage finally had room to work."Pre-draft read
Four-year starter who lined up at end in Auburn's four-man front and slid inside on passing downs as a senior, where the bulk of his disruption came from. Plays with a heavy, wide base against the run, stacks and controls tackles with strong hands, and constructs his rush around a long-arm and a club-rip rather than bend or burst off the edge.
His best trait is power converted through contact: he walks blockers backward and collapses the pocket from the B-gap instead of running an arc. Against the run he is a stack-and-shed defender who holds ground and rarely gets displaced. Athletic ceiling is limited, but the length, punch and block-deflection instincts that produced three blocked kicks in 2018 give him a real, if narrow, signature.
Four-man front, one-gap penetrating scheme
Year 1 rotational interior lineman on early downs who kicks inside on passing downs; ceiling is a full-time three-technique starter who wins with power and holds up against the run on every snap.
A two-gap 3-4 defense that asks him to play nose and read blocks, or a wide-nine scheme that needs its ends to threaten the edge with speed — he has neither the block-reading patience nor the corner.
Best value comes when a defensive coordinator commits to one position instead of sliding him along the front week to week.
Auburn DE Marlon Davidson 2019 Highlights
Senior-season reel showing the interior power rush and run-game anchor that produced 13 TFL and 7.5 sacks.
Marlon Davidson VS John Simpson (Reese Bowl Practice)
Senior Bowl one-on-one work against an SEC guard, the clearest look at his hands and knockback inside.
Marlon Davidson: Road to the Pros | Episode 1
Pre-draft feature covering his Auburn career and the move inside that drove his senior breakout.
A 6-3, 303-pound interior-leaning defensive lineman from Greenville, Alabama who started 51 games in four seasons at Auburn and grew from a base end into a disruptive three-technique. He is a power player first: heavy hands, a strong anchor, and enough length to keep blockers off his frame. The identity is straightforward and durable rather than explosive.
Production backs the shift inside. He posted 38, 43 and 46 tackles in his first three seasons with 2.5, 3.5 and 3.5 sacks, then broke out as a senior with 48 tackles, 13 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks, earning first-team All-SEC and second-team All-America honors alongside a team captaincy. Career totals of 175 tackles, 31 TFL and 17 sacks put him eighth in Auburn history in sacks. The flags were the three years of modest rush production before that senior jump, and a body type that asked which position he would actually play in the NFL.
The board read him as a second-round interior disruptor with pass-rush upside and no clear scheme limitation in a four-man front. Atlanta took him at 47 as a bet that the senior tape was the real player and that a full-time move to three-technique would unlock the rush he only showed once.
- 01
Functional power
Converts a strong base and heavy hands into knockback, walking tackles and guards into the quarterback's lap instead of relying on an edge arc.
- 02
Run-game anchor
Stacks and sheds blockers at the point of attack, rarely gets displaced off his gap and squares up to finish in the box.
- 03
Inside-out versatility
Played base end for three seasons and three-technique on passing downs as a senior, giving a four-man front several alignment answers.
- 04
Block deflection
Elite hand timing at the line of scrimmage produced three blocked kicks in 2018, which led the SEC and ranked second nationally.
- 05
Senior-year production
48 tackles, 13 TFL and 7.5 sacks with first-team All-SEC honors showed the rush finally matched the physical tools.
- 01
Late bloomer
Three seasons of 2.5, 3.5 and 3.5 sacks before the senior spike leave real doubt about whether the 2019 tape is the baseline or the outlier.
- 02
Limited bend
Plays stiff through the hips and does not corner the edge, so any rush win has to come straight through the blocker rather than around him.
- 03
First-step quickness
Gets off the ball on time but without the twitch to threaten guards laterally, which narrows his counters to power moves.
- 04
Positional tweener
Heavy for an edge and short-armed for a classic nose, so the value depends on landing in a front that plays him as a three-technique.
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
- 5.04sp50
- Vertical
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- Broad jump
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- Three-cone
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- Shuttle
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- Bench
- 21repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Auburn | 13 | 38 | 2.5 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| 2017 | Auburn | 13 | 43 | 3.5 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | Auburn | 13 | 46 | 3.5 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2019 | Auburn | 12 | 48 | 7.5 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Career | — | 51 | 175 | 17 | 0 | 9 | 4 |
Sports-Reference totals include bowl games; season sums match the career line exactly (175 tackles, 31 TFL, 17.0 sacks, 9 PD, 4 FF, 4 FR). Auburn's official bio lists 29.5 TFL and 175 tackles over 51 career starts.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A sturdy early-down interior body who plays a defined role, holds his gap and contributes a modest handful of pressures.
The version where the senior-year rush is real and he becomes a starting three-technique who wins with leverage and hands.
A rotational lineman whose snap count depends on health and scheme fit rather than production, with little pass-rush equity.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Atlanta never got the player it drafted. His rookie year ended with eight games and eight tackles around an October injured-reserve stint, and 2021 was the only season where the inside bet looked reasonable: 11 games, 21 tackles, his first sack and an interception returned for a touchdown. A 2022 injured-reserve designation before the opener wiped out the season and Atlanta released him that October. He signed with San Francisco in 2023, was cut, spent time on the practice squad, was released again, and finished that year playing five games and three starts for Tennessee. A single appearance with Houston in 2025 has been the extent of his football since, and he entered 2026 without a regular-season role.
In hindsight this was a late-breakout profile priced at its best game. The senior season was real, but it was one year of rush production stacked on three years of solid, unspectacular run defense, and once the injuries started there was no athletic margin to fall back on. A second-round pick on a power player with no bend needs health and a stable role to pay off, and he got neither. The Auburn tape still holds up as a strong, functional SEC lineman; the NFL asked for an interior disruptor who could stay on the field, and that player never showed up.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.