Raekwon
Davis.
Raekwon
Davis.
Alabama· 6'6"· 311 lb· 5.12s 40
"He had 8.5 sacks as a sophomore at Alabama and two over his next two seasons combined, which made the evaluation a referendum on whether the flashes or the flatline were the real player."Pre-draft read
Enormous 6-7, 310-pound interior lineman who plays as a two-gap nose or heavy three-technique in an even front. The primary trait is raw mass and anchor: double teams do not move him, and he occupies two blockers on early downs so the linebackers behind him can run free.
The secondary trait is the length, which shows up batting passing lanes and reaching plays across the formation when he gets extension. He is not a pass rusher; the bull rush is his only real move and the get-off is slow. The signature is the short-yardage rep where a guard and a center both hit him and the play still dies at the line of scrimmage.
Even-front defense that asks its nose tackle to two-gap and eat blockers on early downs
Year 1 as a rotational early-down nose tackle taking 30 snaps a game; ceiling is a full-time starting run defender who frees the linebackers behind him.
A one-gap penetrating front that asks interior linemen to get up the field and win one-on-one rushes, which exposes the get-off and leaves him on the bench in sub packages.
Value depends entirely on a defense that still plays base personnel; in a heavy nickel scheme he barely gets on the field.
Alabama DE Raekwon Davis Career Highlights
Full career cut-up, the clearest look at how the role changed after the sophomore year.
Raekwon Davis (Alabama DL) vs. Georgia (2017)
Single-game tape from the peak season against the best offensive line he faced.
Why Raekwon Davis will be the most dominating defensive end in college football
Contemporary breakdown of the hype that followed the 8.5-sack sophomore season.
A Meridian, Mississippi native and four-year letterman at Alabama, he arrived as a rare frame — 6-7 and over 300 pounds with 33 7/8-inch arms and 11-inch hands — and produced immediately on a championship defense. The sophomore season was the peak: 69 tackles, 8.5 sacks, an interception and first-team All-SEC honors as a rotational interior rusher.
Then the production went backwards. Playing more snaps as a two-gap nose over his final two seasons, he posted 1.5 sacks as a junior and half a sack as a senior, with tackle totals sliding from 69 to 55 to 47. Alabama's coaches insisted the role changed and the tape agreed in part, but the film also showed a player who rarely won with anything beyond size and who disappeared for long stretches. The 5.12-second forty and 28-inch vertical confirmed the lack of explosiveness.
The board split between teams that saw a scheme-limited nose tackle and teams that thought the sophomore tape was the ceiling waiting to be coached out. Miami, needing to rebuild an interior defensive line from scratch, took him at 56 as a run-defense floor pick.
- 01
Rare mass and anchor
At 6-7 and over 300 pounds he absorbs double teams without losing ground, which is the whole reason he goes this high.
- 02
Length and extension
Nearly 34-inch arms let him stack blockers at distance and knock down passes when he cannot get home.
- 03
Alabama pedigree
Four years and 32 starts in the toughest interior conference in the country, on multiple championship-caliber defenses.
- 04
Sophomore flash
8.5 sacks and first-team All-SEC in 2017 showed a ceiling as an interior rusher that no other trait on his tape suggests.
- 05
Short-yardage value
Genuinely difficult to displace at the point of attack, which makes him an immediate goal-line and third-and-one answer.
- 01
Production collapse
Two sacks combined over his final two seasons, a fall that no explanation about role changes fully accounts for.
- 02
No pass-rush plan
The bull rush is the only move, and with a slow get-off he offers nothing on obvious passing downs.
- 03
Poor testing
A 5.12 forty and a 28-inch vertical confirm the explosiveness the tape lacks, capping the upside on his projection.
- 04
Inconsistent pad level
The 6-7 frame gets tall out of his stance, which lets smaller interior blockers get underneath 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
- 5.12sp50
- Vertical
- 28inp50
- Broad jump
- 111inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.95sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.86sp50
- Bench
- 24repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Alabama | 7 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | Alabama | 14 | 69 | 8.5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Alabama | 15 | 55 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Alabama | 12 | 47 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 48 | 175 | 11.5 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Sports-Reference totals include bowl and playoff games; season sums match the career line exactly (175 tackles, 20 TFL, 11.5 sacks in 48 games with 32 starts). His professional team bio credits him with one pass defensed across his college career while the Sports-Reference ledger lists none; the zeros shown here follow Sports-Reference. He returned an interception 19 yards in 2017.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A first-two-downs nose tackle who starts for a while, changes teams on modest deals and never affects the passing game.
The outcome where the mass eventually pairs with enough rush to make him a complete, highly paid interior starter.
A rotational run stuffer whose snap count shrinks as defenses spend more time in nickel.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He started 12 games as a rookie in Miami and made the PFWA All-Rookie Team with 40 tackles, the second-most among rookie defensive linemen that year. That turned out to be his best season. The next three years brought 28, 33 and 28 tackles with a combined 2.5 sacks as a run-defense specialist, 48 starts in 63 Dolphins games. He signed a two-year, $14 million deal with Indianapolis in March 2024, played all 17 games with no starts and 15 tackles, and was released in March 2025. He worked out for the Giants in September 2025 while recovering from an illness and has not appeared in a regular-season game since, entering 2026 as an unsigned free agent. His career line reads 80 games, 48 starts, 144 tackles, 2.5 sacks and one pass defensed.
The pick was defensible and the outcome was small. He did exactly what the tape promised — held the point of attack, occupied blockers, played a lot of early downs — and never did anything beyond it, which in a league that pays interior linemen to rush the passer means a five-year career as a two-down body. The warning sign that mattered was the production collapse, not the testing: a player whose only good statistical season came three years before the draft almost never finds that version again.
Data note: from New Orleans