Matt
Hennessy.
Matt
Hennessy.
Temple· 6'4"· 307 lb· 5.18s 40
"A converted guard who never snapped a ball before college, then started 36 games at center and allowed zero sacks and four pressures as a senior, the best rate of any center in the country."Pre-draft read
Hennessy is an athletic zone center who wins with movement, angles and timing instead of raw mass. He fires off the snap with balance, reaches defenders on stretch plays and climbs fast enough to cut off linebackers in space. Combination blocks look clean because he knows who to pass off and when.
In pass protection he is technically sound and quick to pick up games and stunts, and his college pressure record was the best in the country at his position. The concern is the anchor. Against a heavy nose tackle lined up over him he can get walked back into the quarterback, and short-yardage displacement is not part of his game. The signature is intelligence with mobility: he plays fast because he processes fast.
Outside and inside zone running game with a quick-rhythm passing attack, where a center is asked to reach and climb rather than displace.
Year 1 interior backup and guard competitor while learning the protection calls, with a ceiling as a long-term starting zone center.
A gap-and-power offense with a two-gapping nose tackle over the ball, which exposes his anchor on every single snap of the game.
The intelligence and the flexibility make him worth a roster spot regardless of scheme; the starting job only exists for him in a zone system.
Matt Hennessy vs UConn
Isolated game cutup of his snaps at center, the cleanest view of his reach blocking.
2020 Draft Target: C Matt Hennessy
Draft-cycle breakdown covering the protection record and the anchor questions.
Temple Offensive Line vs UCF 2018
Line-wide all-22 against the best front on the schedule, useful for judging him against real interior power.
Hennessy came to Temple as a left guard who had never snapped a ball and left as a Rimington Trophy finalist. He redshirted, played two games at left guard with one start in 2016, then took over at center and never gave it up, starting 12 games in 2017, 11 in 2018 and 12 in 2019, a three-year run of 36 total starts. Teammates voted him a single-digit jersey, the program's honor for its toughest players.
His senior tape produced the number every evaluator repeated: zero sacks allowed and four total pressures across the season, a 0.8 percent pressure rate that ranked first among all centers in the country per Pro Football Focus. He was named second-team All-American and first-team all-conference in the AAC, and he bypassed his final year of eligibility to enter the draft after graduating with a finance degree and a 3.7 grade point average. He was heavily scouted at the Senior Bowl.
The profile was 6-3 and a half, 307 pounds, 23 bench reps and a 5.18 forty, and evaluators universally slotted him as a zone-scheme starter rather than a power-blocking center. Atlanta, with Alex Mack entering his final contract year, took him at 78 to play left guard first and inherit the pivot.
- 01
Pass protection record
Allowed zero sacks and four total pressures as a senior, a 0.8 percent pressure rate that led every center in the country.
- 02
Zone mobility
Reaches defenders on stretch plays and climbs to the second level quickly, which is the core requirement of an outside zone center.
- 03
Processing speed
Identifies games, stunts and blitzes fast and passes defenders off cleanly on combination blocks without hesitation.
- 04
Positional flexibility
Started at left guard before moving to center and can play either, which gives a roster real value from one spot.
- 05
Toughness and makeup
Awarded Temple's single-digit jersey by teammate vote, graduated with a finance degree and a 3.7 grade point average.
- 01
Anchor against power
Gets walked back by heavy nose tackles lined up directly over him, the single biggest question about his professional projection.
- 02
Short-yardage displacement
Cannot move a defender off the spot, so a gap-scheme offense loses the plays it needs most in the red zone.
- 03
Level of competition
Faced American Athletic Conference fronts rather than weekly Power Five interior talent, which inflates the clean pressure numbers.
- 04
Frame and play strength
At 307 pounds with average length he is near his physical ceiling and has limited room to add functional mass.
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
- 5.18sp50
- Vertical
- 30inp50
- Broad jump
- 110inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.45sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.60sp50
- Bench
- 23repp50
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Temple | 4 |
| 2017 | Temple | 12 |
| 2018 | Temple | 11 |
| 2019 | Temple | 12 |
| Career | — | 39 |
Offensive linemen carry no statistical line, so only games and starts are recorded. Season starts sum exactly to the 36 career starts confirmed by his draft-day biography, with the lone 2016 start coming at left guard before he moved to center permanently. Game counts come from the national database and total 39; one newspaper profile lists 38 appearances. Pro Football Focus charted zero sacks and four total pressures allowed in 2019.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Smart interior lineman who starts at center for stretches and holds value as a flexible backup everywhere else.
The ceiling version, and the player he was literally drafted to replace: an athletic zone center who starts for a decade.
Interior lineman whose lack of anchor keeps him as a depth piece who rarely sees meaningful snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Hennessy got exactly one full season as a starter and could not hold it. He played 13 games with two starts as a rookie in 2020 behind Alex Mack, then started all 17 games at center in 2021 when Mack left, the year the pick was drafted to produce. Atlanta was not satisfied: he lost the job and appeared in 11 games with three starts in 2022, spent the entire 2023 season on injured reserve, and signed with Philadelphia in the 2024 offseason before returning to the Falcons late that year, playing four games for Atlanta and two for San Francisco.
The 49ers signed him to a two-year deal in December 2024 and he rebuilt his value as a swing interior lineman, appearing in all 17 games in 2025 with two starts, 173 offensive snaps, zero penalties and zero sacks allowed, and a 68.8 Pro Football Focus grade. Dallas signed him in March 2026 in line to start, then he needed neck surgery and went on injured reserve. In hindsight this is a modest return on a third-round pick: 64 games, 24 starts and a long, useful career as a backup. The evaluation was right that he could protect and right that the anchor would decide it, and the anchor decided it.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.