Robert
Windsor.
Robert
Windsor.
Penn St.· 6'4"· 290 lb· 4.90s 40
"A four-year Penn State rotational tackle whose junior breakout proved he could shoot a gap and finish, Windsor is an effort-and-technique interior defender without the mass to hold up as a true anchor."Pre-draft read
A gap-shooting interior defender who plays with leverage and relentless motor. He fires off the ball low, uses a quick first step to beat a guard's set and keeps his shoulders clean through contact, which is how he stacked tackles for loss without elite power. His hands are active and he counters well when the initial move stalls.
As a pass rusher he wins with quickness and persistence rather than a defined plan, pushing the pocket and chasing quarterbacks from behind when a play extends. Against double teams he can get displaced because he lacks the anchor mass to hold a two-gap assignment. The signature is pursuit: he runs to the ball from the interior as hard as any lineman in the conference.
One-gap penetrating front that turns its interior linemen loose to shoot gaps rather than two-gapping and holding the point of attack.
Year 1: rotational interior defender on 25 snaps a game. Ceiling: a starting three-technique in an attacking front.
A two-gap 3-4 that asks its ends to hold blocks and eat double teams, which is exactly the assignment his mass cannot survive.
Everything about his value depends on being allowed to move forward on the snap.
Robert Windsor DT Penn State 2020 NFL Draft
Pre-draft cut-up of his get-off, hand usage and interior pass rush.
Robert Windsor vs. Iowa (2018)
Every-snap film from the 2018 season against a physical Big Ten interior.
Robert Windsor 2016-17 Highlight Mix
Early-career rotational snaps showing his motor before the junior breakout.
Windsor is a four-year contributor whose evaluation rests almost entirely on one season. He arrived at Penn State as a three-star recruit from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, worked into the rotation as a freshman and did not become a difference maker until his junior year, when he posted 11 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks and looked like the best interior rusher in the Big Ten some weeks. The tape shows a defender who wins early or not at all.
His senior season complicated the picture. He started all 13 games and was named third-team All-Big Ten by the coaches, but the disruption dropped to five tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks as offenses accounted for him and Penn State's edge rushers drew the attention. His best game of the year came against Iowa, where he matched a career high with six tackles and recorded 1.5 sacks.
The flags were about ceiling. At 6-4 and 290 pounds he is neither a true nose nor a premium-bodied three-technique, and his production curve went the wrong direction in his final year. Evaluators liked the motor, the leverage and the four-year résumé in a demanding program, and projected a rotational interior defender on a defense that asks its tackles to penetrate. Indianapolis, a team built exactly that way, took him at 193.
- 01
Explosive first step
He fires out low and beats guards to the spot, the trait that produced 11 tackles for loss in his junior breakout season.
- 02
Relentless motor
He pursues down the line and finishes plays 20 yards from the snap, the kind of effort that keeps a rotational lineman employed.
- 03
Natural leverage
He plays with consistent pad level for a 6-4 lineman, letting him get under blockers instead of catching them upright.
- 04
Active hands and counters
He does not die on a failed first move, working a second rush and knocking guards off balance late in the down.
- 05
Four-year Big Ten résumé
52 games, 21 tackles for loss and 14 sacks against the conference's best interior blocking, plus third-team All-Big Ten honors.
- 01
Lacks anchor mass
Double teams displace him off the point, which limits the down-and-distance situations a defensive coordinator can trust him in.
- 02
Production regressed
His tackles for loss dropped from 11 to five and sacks from 7.5 to 3.5 as a senior, raising questions about the junior spike.
- 03
Rush plan is thin
He wins on quickness and effort rather than a sequenced set of moves, which NFL guards neutralize quickly.
- 04
Tweener body type
At 290 pounds he is heavy for a penetrator and light for a nose, so his role depends entirely on scheme.
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
- 4.90sp50
- Vertical
- 28.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 111inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.47sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.44sp50
- Bench
- 21repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Penn State | 14 | 23 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Penn State | 13 | 19 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | Penn State | 12 | 39 | 7.5 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2019 | Penn State | 13 | 40 | 3.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 52 | 121 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Sports-Reference totals with bowl games included; the four seasons sum exactly to the career line of 52 games, 121 tackles, 21 tackles for loss and 14 sacks. Passes defensed and interceptions are not verified in the available record and are left blank rather than written as zero. Penn State credits him with 13 starts in 2019.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational interior piece whose value is effort and situational snaps rather than volume.
Late-blooming interior rusher who became a productive starter in a penetrating front.
Interior body who never carved out a consistent pass-rush role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The NFL career never got a real chance. Indianapolis kept him on the practice squad for most of his rookie 2020 season, elevating him for two games in which he played nine defensive snaps and recorded two tackles. He then had offseason hip surgery and a groin procedure, and the Colts placed him on injured reserve before training camp in July 2021, ending his second season before it began. General manager Chris Ballard said the hip problem had been bothering him through the offseason and would cost him the year.
In April 2022 Windsor announced his retirement, writing that after two major surgeries and months of rehab he was still not close to being able to compete, and thanking the Colts for taking a chance on him. He finished with two NFL games and two tackles. There is no way to grade this as a hit, but it is also not a scouting miss in the usual sense: the evaluation called him a rotational interior defender who needed a penetrating front, and his body gave out before the projection could be tested. A sixth-round pick who never gets healthy is the risk every late-round board accepts.