Andre
Anthony.
Andre
Anthony.
LSU
"A sixth-year LSU edge rusher who lost two seasons before he played a snap, broke out with 9.0 sacks over his last 13 games, and then never appeared in an NFL regular-season game after a knee injury ended his showcase year."Pre-draft read
A 6-3 1/4, 245-pound edge rusher with long arms at 33 5/8 inches and the kind of first-step burst that only showed up once LSU finally gave him snaps. He wins with length and timing, extending into the tackle's chest and using his frame to keep his hands clean rather than by bull-rushing through a set.
His best football came as a stand-up rusher on passing downs, where his 5.5 sacks in 2020 and 3.5 sacks in three games of 2021 came from bend around the corner and an active inside counter. Against the run he is a leverage player more than a power player at 245 pounds, and his 4.78 pro-day forty and 21 bench reps describe an athlete who is good rather than exceptional by NFL edge standards.
An attacking four-man front that lets a long, lighter edge rusher pin his ears back on obvious passing downs rather than two-gap.
Year 1: designated third-down rusher and core special teamer. Ceiling: a rotational starting edge in a one-gap front.
A two-gap 3-4 that asks him to hold the point of attack against down blocks at 245 pounds, where his length stops being an advantage.
Everything good on his tape happened when the defense told him to go get the quarterback.
LSU football film room with Andre Anthony
He walks through his own pass-rush tape.
Andre Anthony following the McNeese win
From the three-game stretch that ended his college career.
Inside the huddle: Andre Anthony
A program feature on his long road to becoming a starter.
Anthony grew up in New Orleans and played at Edna Karr High School, one of the city's strongest programs. He arrived at LSU in 2016 but redshirted because of issues with his academic transcripts, then lost the 2017 season to a Lisfranc injury. Two years into college football he had not played a snap.
He finally appeared in 2018, playing 13 games with three starts for 14 tackles and half a sack, and he was a rotational piece on the 2019 national championship team, appearing in nine games with two starts for nine tackles and a sack. The breakthrough came as a fifth-year player in 2020: 10 games, 24 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks with four quarterback hurries.
His sixth-year season was the one that would have set his draft stock, and it lasted two and a half games. Through three games he had 8 tackles, 4.0 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, which ranked second on the team, and a fumble recovery returned for a touchdown against Central Michigan. He tore up his knee in that same game and Ed Orgeron ruled him out for the year on September 20, 2021. He worked out at a pro day rather than the combine and Tampa Bay took him 248th overall.
- 01
Length and extension
33 5/8-inch arms let him lock out tackles and control the edge without surrendering his own chest.
- 02
Pass-rush production per snap
9.0 sacks across his last 13 games played, an efficient rate for a part-time starter.
- 03
Bend and corner turn
his sack tape shows a rusher who can flatten to the quarterback rather than run the arc wide.
- 04
Instincts for the ball
the scoop-and-score against Central Michigan was a loose-ball play made at full speed.
- 05
Leadership and persistence
six years in one program and a team leader the head coach named publicly after his injury.
- 01
Injury history
a Lisfranc injury cost him the entire 2017 season and a knee injury ended his sixth-year showcase season after three games.
- 02
Age
he turned 25 in his rookie season after six years of college, with almost no professional development window.
- 03
Play strength
at 245 pounds he gives ground against down blocks and does not set a hard edge against tight-end surfaces.
- 04
Small sample
one full season as a productive starter is thin evidence on which to project an NFL pass rusher.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | LSU | 13 | 14 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | LSU | 9 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | LSU | 10 | 24 | 5.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | LSU | 3 | 8 | 3.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 35 | 55 | 10.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The 2020 and 2021 lines come from cfbstats; 2018 and 2019 come from published season summaries that list games, starts, tackles and sacks only, so tackles for loss, passes defensed and forced fumbles are left unlisted for those two years rather than filled with zeros. He redshirted in 2016 and missed all of 2017 with a Lisfranc injury, so neither year is listed.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A late-round SEC edge who stuck as a rotational piece without ever starting full-time.
A long, lighter Louisiana edge who turned a narrow opportunity into a real starting career.
A rangy edge whose body kept him on the roster margin instead of on the field.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Anthony never played a regular-season snap in the NFL. Tampa Bay took him 248th overall and he did not make the roster out of camp; Chicago signed him to their practice squad on September 12, 2022. That is the entirety of his professional career on the field: no games, no starts, no recorded statistics.
It is hard to read that as a failure of evaluation so much as a career that ran out of time. He lost his first two college seasons to a transcript problem and a Lisfranc injury, spent two more as a rotational player behind NFL draft picks, and then lost the season that was supposed to be his showcase after two and a half games — with 3.5 sacks and a defensive touchdown already on his ledger. A team spending a 248th pick on that profile is buying the 2020 and 2021 tape and hoping the knee holds. It did not hold long enough. Anthony has since gone home to Louisiana, where he is the head coach at Bonnabel High School in Kenner.