Neville
Gallimore.
Neville
Gallimore.
Oklahoma· 6'2"· 304 lb· 4.79s 40
"A Canadian defensive tackle who remade his body from 330 pounds to 300, then ran 4.79 at the combine and turned into the one-gap penetrator Oklahoma had been waiting four years to see."Pre-draft read
Gallimore is a quick-twitch interior defender whose whole game runs through his first step. At 6-2 and 304 he ran 4.79 with a 1.71 ten-yard split, rare numbers for a nose-sized body, and he beats guards into the backfield before the block lands. He plays with heavy hands and a violent swim, and when he times the snap he is through the gap untouched.
The trade-off shows up when he has to hold ground. He plays with inconsistent pad level and can get moved off the spot by double teams, and his anchor never matched his explosiveness. The signature is the penetrating three-technique rep: he is at his best firing upfield on a pass down, not two-gapping on first and ten.
Attacking one-gap front that lets him fire into a gap on passing downs and keeps him out of two-gap responsibilities against power run games.
Year 1 rotational three-technique on 35 to 45 percent of snaps who generates interior pressure, with a ceiling as a solid every-week starter in a penetrating front.
A two-gapping 3-4 that asks him to read and hold the point on early downs, which attacks his anchor and wastes the one trait that makes him worth a pick.
Oklahoma DT Neville Gallimore Highlights
Career cutup centered on the first-step penetration that defined his senior season.
Oklahoma DL Neville Gallimore Highlight Reel - 2019 Season
Full senior-year reel at the slimmed-down 300-pound playing weight.
Neville Gallimore eludes block, gets sack against Baylor (2019)
Single rep showing the swim move and the burst through the gap against a Big 12 guard.
Gallimore is an Ottawa, Ontario native who came to Oklahoma through Canada Prep Academy and spent four years figuring out what kind of body he wanted to play in. He redshirted in 2015, played all thirteen games as a redshirt freshman with 40 tackles, then dipped as a sophomore with 28 tackles and two tackles for loss while bouncing between weights.
The junior year at 330 pounds produced 50 tackles, five tackles for loss and three sacks but not the disruption the staff wanted. So he remade himself, arriving for his senior season around 300 pounds, and the burst came with him. As a team captain in 2019 he set career highs with eight tackles for loss and four sacks in fourteen games, was named second-team All-Big 12 and turned into the interior penetrator the Sooners had been waiting on. He finished with 148 tackles, 19 tackles for loss and nine sacks in 52 games.
The combine confirmed the traits. He ran 4.79 at 304 with a 1.71 ten-yard split and put up 23 bench reps, testing like an edge rusher in a nose tackle body. The board read him as a one-gap penetrator with an unfinished technical game and a short track record of dominance, and Dallas took him at 82 hoping the senior-year version was the real one.
- 01
Explosive first step
Ran 4.79 with a 1.71 ten-yard split at 304 pounds, elite get-off numbers for an interior defender and the core of his value.
- 02
Penetration ability
Beats guards into the backfield before the block lands, producing a career-high eight tackles for loss as a senior.
- 03
Heavy, active hands
Works a violent swim and club to clear contact quickly rather than absorbing and shedding.
- 04
Body remake
Dropped roughly thirty pounds between his junior and senior years and got quicker without losing functional strength.
- 05
Leadership
Named a team captain in 2019 and credited by the Oklahoma staff with setting the tone for the defensive front.
- 01
Anchor against doubles
Gets displaced by combination blocks and does not hold the point the way his listed weight suggests he should.
- 02
Pad level
Plays high on early downs, which negates his leverage advantage and lets bigger guards get under him.
- 03
Late production
Only one genuinely disruptive season in four, with two tackles for loss as a sophomore and five as a junior.
- 04
Pass-rush plan
Wins on quickness rather than a counter sequence, so a guard who matches his first step can stalemate him.
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
- 4.79sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- 7.97sp50
- Shuttle
- 5.01sp50
- Bench
- 23repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Oklahoma | 13 | 40 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | Oklahoma | 12 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2018 | Oklahoma | 13 | 50 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2019 | Oklahoma | 14 | 30 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Career | — | 52 | 148 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
Four playing seasons after a 2015 redshirt; the season lines sum exactly to the career totals of 52 games, 148 tackles, 19 tackles for loss, nine sacks and five forced fumbles. His listed playing weight moved from 305 as a freshman to 330 as a junior and back to 301 as a senior.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational three-technique with real pass-rush value who moves around the league on modest contracts.
The ceiling: a quick interior penetrator who becomes a long-term starter and gets paid twice in free agency.
Interior body who plays a long time as depth without ever producing meaningful disruption.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Gallimore has outlasted almost everyone taken around him. He started nine of fourteen games as a rookie for Dallas in 2020 with 27 tackles, then broke his elbow in the 2021 preseason and was limited to five games. He returned as a rotational interior piece, playing sixteen games in 2022 with 31 tackles and a sack and all seventeen in 2023, never a star but always on the field. Dallas let him walk after four seasons.
Los Angeles signed him for 2024 and got the best football of his career in January: 2.5 sacks in the playoffs, including 1.5 in the wild-card win over Minnesota. Indianapolis paid for that in free agency and he delivered career highs in 2025 across all seventeen games with eight starts, 38 tackles, 3.5 sacks, six quarterback hits and four tackles for loss. He signed with Chicago for 2026 and is in his seventh season with 85 games and 26 starts. In hindsight this is exactly what a good third-round pick is supposed to look like: not a star, but a durable rotational starter who has been worth a roster spot on four different teams and got better in his late twenties.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.