Yetur
Gross-Matos.
Yetur
Gross-Matos.
Penn State· 6'5"· 266 lb
"A 266-pound edge with 34 7/8-inch arms and nineteen career sacks at Penn State, a traits-first rusher whose grade depended entirely on whether a coaching staff could build him a plan."Pre-draft read
Long, loose-hipped edge defender built on length and effort. He won with a first step that stressed the outside shoulder, then used his 34 7/8-inch arms to stack blockers and disengage, which made him more disruptive against the run than most college pass rushers his age.
As a rusher he was more athlete than technician. The bend was good rather than elite, but the length knocked tackles off balance and the motor kept plays alive. The 19 career sacks were built on relentlessness more than a refined plan. The limitation was counters: when the first move failed he ran himself past the quarterback. The signature was chase, running down plays from the backside snap after snap.
Four-man front that lets him play base end on early downs and slide inside to rush on obvious passing downs rather than asking him to win alone off the edge.
Year 1: rotational end for 25 snaps a game. Ceiling: an every-down starting end with eight sacks and elite run-defense grades.
Wide-9 scheme that asks him to be a pure speed rusher with no run responsibility, exposing the lack of a counter move.
He needs a defense that values what he does against the run as much as what he does on third down.
Penn State DE Yetur Gross-Matos Career Highlights
Three seasons of Big Ten production condensed into the pre-draft case.
Yetur Gross-Matos highlights
The length, the chase and the first step that made him a top-40 pick.
Yetur Gross-Matos 2020 Rookie Season Panthers Highlights
The first NFL season in Carolina, where the run defense translated first.
Gross-Matos left Penn State after three seasons as one of the most productive edge defenders in program history. He tied for tenth all-time at the school with 19 career sacks and ranked eleventh with 37 tackles for loss, becoming in 2018 just the twelfth Nittany Lion ever to post 20 tackles for loss in a season.
The junior year cemented the profile. He made 12 starts, ranked seventh in the Big Ten in sacks per game, and collected first-team All-Big Ten honors from the coaches and media along with Phil Steele third-team All-America recognition. He was a Ted Hendricks Award finalist, a Lombardi and Bednarik semifinalist, and won the Reid-Robinson Award as Penn State's outstanding defensive lineman.
The physical profile drove the grade. He measured 6-5 and 266 pounds with 34 7/8-inch arms and an 82 1/4-inch wingspan, ran in the low 4.6s and posted 20 bench reps with a 34-inch vertical. The concerns were consistency and technique rather than traits: he needed a genuine pass-rush plan, his hand work was raw, and his production tended to come in bursts against lesser tackles rather than in the games that mattered most. Boards ranged from mid-first to mid-second, and Carolina, tearing its defense down to the studs under a new coaching staff, took him 38th overall.
- 01
Length
Arms of 34 7/8 inches with an 82 1/4-inch wingspan, letting him control blockers at distance and knock down passing lanes.
- 02
Run defense
Sets a hard edge and sheds, a rare strength for a college edge prospect entering the league this young.
- 03
Relentless motor
Chases from the backside on every snap and finishes plays twenty yards downfield without prompting.
- 04
Elite school production
Nineteen career sacks and 37 tackles for loss, both inside the top eleven in Penn State history.
- 05
Positional versatility
Big enough to reduce inside on passing downs and long enough to stay outside on early downs.
- 01
No pass rush plan
Wins with the first move or not at all, with no reliable counter when the tackle absorbs it cleanly.
- 02
Raw hand usage
Late and imprecise with his hands, letting blockers get into his chest despite the length advantage.
- 03
Average bend
Good but not elite ankle flexion, so he loses ground rounding the arc against quick-setting NFL tackles.
- 04
Production quality
Much of the statistical output came against overmatched tackles rather than the league's best.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 34inp50
- Broad jump
- 120inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 20repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Penn State | — | 17 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Penn State | 13 | 54 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Penn State | 12 | 40 | 9.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 25 | 111 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Season lines include bowl games and sum exactly to the career totals Penn State publishes: 19.0 sacks, tenth all-time at the school, and 37.0 tackles for loss, eleventh all-time. Sources disagree on total games played across the three seasons, so the 2017 and career game counts are left blank rather than guessed, and pass breakups and fumble recoveries are not published by season.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A long-armed starting end who produces steadily without ever carrying a pass rush by himself.
The ceiling: a long, powerful end who dominates the run and grows into a double-digit sack technician.
The downside: a traits-based edge pick who bounces between rotations and never finds a consistent rush plan.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The career has been consistent without ever spiking. He recorded 2.5 sacks as a rookie in 12 games, then 3.5 in 2021, 2.5 across a full 17-game season in 2022, and a career-best 4.5 with 36 tackles in 12 games in 2023 despite missing five games with a hamstring injury. That was enough for San Francisco to sign him in March 2024 to a two-year, $18 million deal with $12.39 million guaranteed. Injuries followed him west: 11 games and four sacks in 2024, then only eight games and no sacks in 2025.
The verdict is a disappointment at the price, though not a collapse. He never became the disruptive starter a top-40 pick should produce, averaging under three sacks a season while never reaching double digits in a single year, and availability compounded the problem with three separate seasons cut short. Everything the file warned about, the absent counter rush and the hand technique, remained unfixed. He was a useful rotational defender for six years, which is a real NFL career, but the second round is supposed to buy more than that.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.