Tanner
Muse.
Tanner
Muse.
Clemson· 6'2"· 227 lb· 4.41s 40
"A two-time national champion safety who ran 4.41 at 227 pounds, jumped two rounds up every board on that number alone, and never had a position waiting for him."Pre-draft read
Muse is a 6-2, 227-pound safety who plays like a linebacker with track speed, and the Combine confirmed it: a 4.41-second forty at that weight, with a 34.5-inch vertical and a 124-inch broad jump. He lives in the box and the alley, filling downhill against the run and delivering the kind of hits that change a ball carrier's posture.
Clemson also trusted him deep, and he produced there, with seven career interceptions including a 64-yard pick-six and a 63-yard fumble return for a score. But he is a straight-line athlete who struggles to flip his hips against sudden route breaks. The signature is collision speed, a big safety arriving at full velocity, which is why the projection was part-time defender and full-time special-teams weapon.
A zone-heavy defense that keeps him in the box as a dime linebacker and lets him play forward, paired with a special-teams staff that treats coverage units as a roster priority.
Year 1 core special-teamer and sub-package box defender, with a ceiling as a starting strong safety in a downhill defense.
A man-heavy scheme that asks safeties to travel with slot receivers and tight ends and win on sudden route breaks.
Tanner Muse NFL Draft Tape | Clemson Safety
Conference-produced pre-draft reel covering the box work, the range and the ball production.
Clemson S Tanner Muse Highlight Reel - 2019 Season
Full cutup of his All-ACC senior season, including the four-interception year.
Tanner Muse Takes the Fumble 63 Yards to the House
The 2017 fumble return touchdown that showcased his straight-line speed at 227 pounds.
A four-star recruit out of Belmont, North Carolina who chose Clemson over Michigan, Louisville and Northwestern, Muse redshirted in 2015 and then never left the field. He appeared in all fourteen games in 2016 with 19 tackles and a 64-yard interception return for a touchdown, added 57 tackles and a 63-yard fumble return score in 2017, and became a full-time force as a junior with 61 tackles, three for loss and two interceptions.
The senior year made him a name. He was a permanent team captain, a Thorpe Award semifinalist, third-team AP All-American and first-team All-ACC, leading the team with four interceptions while adding six tackles for loss and two sacks. By the time he finished, his 59 career games tied the most in Clemson history, and he had two national championship rings from the 2016 and 2018 title teams.
Then Indianapolis reframed the entire evaluation. A 4.41 forty at 227 pounds made him a testing outlier, and teams began discussing him not as a safety but as a converted linebacker or a core special-teams player. Scouts liked the physicality, the production and the pedigree, and questioned whether the hips and change of direction could hold up against NFL route runners. Las Vegas took him at 100, well ahead of consensus, betting on the traits.
- 01
Rare size-speed combination
A 4.41-second forty at 6-2 and 227 pounds, testing numbers that make him a matchup outlier at safety.
- 02
Downhill physicality
Fills the alley without hesitation, takes on blockers and finishes runs with the force of a box defender.
- 03
Ball production
Seven career interceptions including a 64-yard pick-six, plus a 63-yard fumble return for a touchdown.
- 04
Championship pedigree
Two national titles, a permanent captaincy and 59 career games, tied for the most in Clemson history.
- 05
Special-teams profile
Size, speed and willingness that project immediately to every coverage unit in the league.
- 01
Tight hips
Labors to flip and redirect, which shows up any time a route breaks suddenly underneath or across his face.
- 02
Straight-line athlete
The speed is real going forward but the short-area quickness and change of direction lag well behind it.
- 03
No clear position
Too stiff to cover as a safety and light for linebacker, leaving teams guessing where to line him up.
- 04
Drafted above consensus
Most boards had him in the fifth round or later, which set expectations his role could never meet.
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
- 4.41sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 124inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 20repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Clemson | 14 | 19 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2017 | Clemson | 14 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 2018 | Clemson | 15 | 61 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 |
| 2019 | Clemson | 15 | 55 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 0 |
| Career | — | 58 | 192 | 4 | 7 | 14 | 1 |
Season and career lines from Sports-Reference with bowl games included; the four seasons sum exactly to the 58-game, 192-tackle career total, and Tankathon carries the identical figures. Clemson official bio credits him with 237 career tackles over 59 games, a higher count because school tackle charting differs from the conference-verified figures; the Sports-Reference numbers are used throughout for consistency. His seven interceptions include a 64-yard return for a touchdown in 2016, and he added a 63-yard fumble return for a score in 2017.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A big safety who carves out a long career as a special-teams staple and situational sub-package defender.
The ceiling teams dreamed on: an oversized box safety whose collisions and presence define the identity of an entire defense.
A testing standout without a position who bounces between rosters and never finds defensive snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The career never got started. Muse missed his entire rookie season in Las Vegas with a toe injury that required surgery, then was waived before the 2021 season without playing a snap for the team that drafted him. Seattle claimed him and he spent two seasons there in a pure special-teams role, which is where all of his professional production came from. He spent an offseason with Pittsburgh, signed with the Chargers for 2023 and appeared in ten games logging one tackle before a knee injury in Week 11 put him on injured reserve.
Jacksonville signed him in July 2024 and released him that November, his fifth organization. His career line reads 23 tackles and one pass deflection. In hindsight this was the pick that reads worst in the whole third round: a fifth-round grade taken at 100 on testing numbers, whose rookie year was erased by a toe surgery and who never recovered the developmental runway a positional convert needs. He has since worked as a fueler in NASCAR, which is its own kind of answer about what the speed was always for.
Data note: from New England