Trevis
Gipson.
Trevis
Gipson.
Tulsa· 6'3"· 261 lb
"He came out of Cedar Hill with exactly one scholarship offer, and he left Tulsa with more forced fumbles than any edge rusher in the 2020 class had a right to."Pre-draft read
Gipson is a long, high-motor edge defender who plays with his hands and hunts the football. Tulsa used him as a hand-in-the-dirt end, and his best reps come when he converts speed to power, gets into a tackle chest and walks him into the pocket. The signature is what happens at the end of the rush: he strips at the ball as a matter of habit, which produced eight forced fumbles in his last three seasons.
The second layer is length and effort in the run game. With nearly 34-inch arms he sets the edge by extending and stacking rather than by mass, and he chases across the formation. He is more of a straight-line power rusher than a bender, and he needed weight and a deeper pass-rush plan, but the traits and the ball production are legitimate.
Four-man front that lets an end rush the passer on early downs without heavy coverage responsibility
Year 1 rotational edge and special teams contributor; ceiling is a starting weak-side end who produces strips and seven to nine sacks
A two-gap front that asks its ends to hold the point at 300-pound power, or a scheme that drops him into zone coverage regularly
He said himself that the Bears move to a 4-3 in 2022 suited him better than the 3-4 outside linebacker role he played his first two seasons.
Most DOMINANT DE in the AAC || Tulsa DE Trevis Gipson Highlights
Senior reel of the speed-to-power rush, the strip habit and edge setting at Tulsa.
Trevis Gipson College Highlights || Welcome To Chicago
Draft-day college package assembled after the Bears traded up for him at 155.
Chicago Football Connection: Trevis Gipson Highlights
Review of his breakout 2021 season, seven sacks and five forced fumbles.
Gipson is a late-blooming edge rusher whose curve pointed straight up. He had one scholarship offer out of Cedar Hill High School in Texas, redshirted, played 13 games as a backup in 2016 and 11 tackles worth of rotation in 2017, then started every game of his final two seasons. As a junior he forced five fumbles, second in the nation, and as a senior he set career highs with 49 tackles, 15 tackles for loss and eight sacks to earn first-team All-American Athletic Conference honors.
The jump between his junior and senior years was deliberate. He credited a summer pass rush summit hosted by Von Miller for teaching him how to study film and build a plan, and the tape shows it: more counters, better hand placement and a converted speed-to-power rush that finally produced sacks rather than only pressures. He finished at 114 tackles, 25.5 tackles for loss, 13 sacks and eight forced fumbles, then earned Senior Bowl and combine invitations.
The board saw a developmental fourth-to-sixth round edge with rare ball production and a thin playing weight. Chicago valued him enough to trade a 2021 fourth-round pick to Minnesota for the 155th selection, converting him to outside linebacker in a 3-4 front behind Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn.
- 01
Ball production
Eight forced fumbles over his final three college seasons, including five as a junior that ranked second nationally, because he attacks the ball on contact.
- 02
Length
Nearly 34-inch arms and an 81-inch wingspan let him extend, stack and shed rather than absorb blocks with his chest.
- 03
Speed to power
Converts a good first step into a bull rush that collapses the edge of the pocket, his most reliable way to get home.
- 04
Improvement curve
Went from 11 tackles as a sophomore to 49 tackles, 15 tackles for loss and eight sacks as a senior after a summer of pass rush coaching.
- 05
Motor
Chases across the formation and finishes plays away from his gap, a trait every staff that coached him mentioned first.
- 01
Playing weight
Measured 254 pounds at the combine, light for an every-down NFL end, and he can get displaced by heavy tackles on down blocks.
- 02
Rush plan
Leans on the bull rush and lacks a reliable inside counter, which showed up when NFL tackles started setting hard to his power.
- 03
Bend
Not a natural ankle-flexing corner rusher, so he has to win with power and effort rather than by turning the edge cleanly.
- 04
Level of competition
Faced American Athletic Conference tackles weekly, and his best tape came against blockers who will not play on Sundays.
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.
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| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Tulsa | 13 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Tulsa | 12 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | Tulsa | 12 | 46 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 2019 | Tulsa | 12 | 49 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Career | — | 49 | 114 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
Redshirted 2015. Season splits sum to the official Tulsa career totals of 114 tackles, 25.5 tackles for loss, 13 sacks and eight forced fumbles. Pass breakups are documented only for 2017 and 2018 and fumble recoveries are not broken out by season, so those cells are left unset rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Power-based Day 3 edge who contributes in a rotation without becoming a premium rusher.
Long, high-effort edge who grew from rotational rusher into a productive starter.
Motor edge defender who bounced between rosters as a depth body.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The rookie year was mostly a redshirt: seven games, four tackles and no offseason program because of the pandemic. Then came the leap. In 2021 Gipson played all 16 games with nine starts and posted 39 tackles, seven sacks, seven tackles for loss and five forced fumbles, four of the sacks and three of the strips coming in the final five weeks, and Chicago named him its Most Improved Player. He held the starting job in 2022 with 17 games and ten starts but slipped to three sacks as the defense collapsed around him. From there he became a journeyman: eight games and a sack for Tennessee in 2023, five games in Seattle in 2024, and 13 games split between San Francisco and Carolina in 2025 before returning to the Panthers.
In hindsight this is a fair return at 155. One legitimate starting season with seven sacks and five forced fumbles is more than most fifth-round edges ever give you, and he is still on rosters in his seventh year. The ceiling never arrived because the pass-rush plan stayed thin and he could not hold up as a full-time starter once he was the focus of protections, but the trade up was justified.