Mekhi
Becton.
Mekhi
Becton.
Louisville· 6'7"· 364 lb· 5.10s 40
"Planet theory in a jersey: at 6-7 and 364 pounds with feet that belong on a basketball court, Mekhi Becton was the rare blocker whose ceiling was limited only by how long his body would cooperate."Pre-draft read
Becton is the largest athlete in the class and plays like it. He buries defenders in the run game, and when he lands his hands on a defensive end the rep is finished. Louisville ran behind his side on purpose, and the outside zone game worked because he reached defenders a man his size should not reach.
In pass protection the value is mass plus reach. Nothing bull rushes him, and his arms keep rushers from ever touching his frame. The problems are pad level and patience: he plays tall, lunges at rushers he could simply wait for, and his hands are late and wide often enough that counters get him leaning. The body control is startling for the size; the technique is unfinished.
Gap-scheme, downhill run offense that uses double teams and lets a mauler play in a phone booth
Year 1 starting tackle in a run-first offense while the pad level gets fixed; ceiling is a Pro Bowl blindside blocker nobody can rush through
A wide-zone offense demanding repeated long reach blocks and quick lateral movement over four quarters
Guard is a legitimate fallback if the technique in space never catches up to the frame
Mekhi Becton || Louisville Cardinals Offensive Line || 2019 Highlights
First-team All-ACC season at left tackle, including the finishing reps.
Mekhi Becton Every Snap vs Notre Dame | NFL Draft Scouting tape
Full-game all-22 against his toughest 2019 opponent.
Mekhi Becton NFL Draft Tape | Louisville Offensive Tackle
Pre-draft cut-up of the pass sets and the pad-level concerns.
Becton is the highest-variance blocker in the 2020 class and the most physically imposing player in it. The football identity is overwhelming power delivered by a genuinely nimble giant: he moves and bends in ways 360-pound linemen are not supposed to, and he finishes blocks with an aggression that offensive line coaches love. He ran 5.10 with 33 5/8-inch arms and a 10 3/4-inch hand at the combine, measurements that put him at the outer edge of the position.
The college resume is three years of starting football at Louisville. He started 11 games as a freshman in 2017, ten at tackle in 2018, and all 13 at left tackle in 2019, his first season on the left side, earning first-team All-ACC and the Jacobs Blocking Award as the conference's best blocker. Thirty-four career starts against ACC competition.
The risk is the body and the technique, in that order. Conditioning has been a running question since he arrived on campus, his weight fluctuated into the 370s, and he plays with high pads and late hands that NFL rushers will punish until he fixes them. Teams that believed in the trainability took him in the top fifteen; teams that worried about the frame holding up over a decade did not. The Jets, needing a franchise left tackle, took him at eleven.
- 01
Rare size and length
6-7 and 364 pounds with 33 5/8-inch arms, a frame no pass rusher can get around or through when he is set.
- 02
Run-game devastation
Displaces defensive linemen off the ball and finishes to the ground; entire ACC games feature multiple pancakes.
- 03
Immovable anchor
Bull rushes simply stop against him, and he absorbs power without giving an inch of the pocket.
- 04
Surprising athleticism
Reaches defenders on outside zone and climbs to linebackers with body control that does not match the listed weight.
- 05
Three-year starting production
Thirty-four career starts, first-team All-ACC and the Jacobs Blocking Award in his only season at left tackle.
- 01
Plays too tall
High pad level lets shorter rushers work under his hands and turn the corner before he can redirect.
- 02
Late, wide hands
Strikes outside the frame and lunges at contact, which draws holding calls and opens counters back inside.
- 03
Conditioning questions
Weight has fluctuated well above 360 pounds, and stamina wavers in the fourth quarter of long drives.
- 04
Raw technique overall
Wins with size rather than sequence, so the transition to NFL rushers depends entirely on coaching taking hold.
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
- 5.10sp50
- Vertical
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- Three-cone
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- Shuttle
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- 23repp50
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Louisville | 13 |
| 2018 | Louisville | — |
| 2019 | Louisville | 13 |
| Career | — | 26 |
Starts by season from Louisville and pre-draft team records: 11 as a freshman, 10 in 2018, 13 at left tackle in 2019, 34 career. Games played in 2018 could not be verified across sources and are left blank rather than estimated.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Top-fifteen tackle with rare physical tools whose technique and consistency never stabilize into a long-term answer.
Enormous tackle who becomes a top-paid starter when healthy and conditioned, dominant in a run-heavy scheme.
First-round tackle who fails on the edge, moves inside to guard and finds a second career there.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Becton started 13 games at left tackle as a rookie and looked like the pick was right. Then the body took over: a knee injury in Week 1 of 2021 cost him the season, another knee injury wiped out 2022 entirely, and although he started 16 games at right tackle in 2023, the Jets declined his fifth-year option and let him leave. Philadelphia signed him for 2024, moved him inside to right guard, and he started every game of a Super Bowl LIX championship run — the best football of his career. That earned a two-year, $20 million deal from the Chargers, where he appeared in 15 games with 14 starts at right guard in 2025, graded near the bottom of the league at the position and was released in March 2026 in a $9.7 million cap move. He entered the 2026 season unsigned.
The evaluation's warnings were the whole story. The talent was never fake — the Eagles year proved a healthy, coached-up Becton is a winning starter — but the knees cost him two full seasons at the Jets and the technique never stabilized enough to survive a scheme change. He has 61 games and 59 starts in six years, a Super Bowl ring, and a position change from left tackle to guard that nobody projected on draft night. Tristan Wirfs went two picks later and became an All-Pro left tackle, which is the shadow this selection lives in.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.