Austin
Deculus.
Austin
Deculus.
LSU· 6'5"· 321 lb· 5.08s 40
"Austin Deculus played in more games than anyone in LSU history and started at right tackle for a national champion, which bought him a sixth-round ticket and four years of NFL employment without ever buying him a job."Pre-draft read
A heavy, experienced right tackle who anchors first and moves second. Deculus plays with a wide base and real weight-room strength, and against SEC power he was rarely walked backward: he catches the rush, sits down on contact and lets the pocket hold its shape. In the run game he is a displacement blocker on down blocks and duo, generating movement with mass and leg drive rather than with sudden feet.
The limitation is range. His kick-slide is functional but long-strided, and speed rushers who threaten the edge and cross his face can get him leaning. He is a right-side-only projection who needs help against elite bend, but he finishes what he latches onto and almost never gives up the interior half of his gap.
A gap and duo run scheme that asks the right tackle to displace and anchor rather than reach and climb in wide zone.
Year 1: swing right tackle and jumbo package blocker. Ceiling: multi-year starting right tackle on a power-based line.
An outside-zone offense that asks him to reach a three-technique and climb to the second level on the move.
His value is anchor and availability, not range.
LSU OL Austin Deculus Highlights | 2022 NFL Draft
Pre-draft cut-up of his right tackle work: anchor, down blocks and duo movement.
Austin Deculus - Ultimate Highlights
The Cy-Fair tape that made him a consensus four-star tackle in the 2017 class.
LSU Football Film Room with Austin Deculus
Deculus breaking down his own protection reads and hand placement.
Nobody in LSU history played in more games. Deculus appeared in 61 across five seasons, starting 46 of them, and started at right tackle in 46 of the program's last 49 games. He was on the line for the 2019 national championship team — the Joe Moore Award winner as the nation's best unit — and played all 81 offensive snaps in the title game against Clemson, blocking for Joe Burrow and Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
That durability is the evaluation. He never missed time for long, never moved off the right side once he settled there in 2018, and played nearly every snap in stretches: 827 in 2018, 885 in 2019, 829 in 2021. At 6-5 and 321 pounds with 34 3/8-inch arms and 24 bench reps, he brought the frame and the power a pro line wants from a swing tackle.
What he did not bring was athletic upside. His 5.06 forty and 4.99 shuttle at 321 pounds were ordinary for the position, and after five years and 3,400-plus snaps he was close to a finished product. Teams saw a mature, position-specific backup with starting experience against the best competition in college football and a body ready for an NFL camp — a sixth-round value with a clear role and a low ceiling.
- 01
Anchor strength at the point
a 585-pound high school squat translated into an NFL-caliber base, and SEC bull rushers rarely collapsed his pocket over five seasons.
- 02
Elite availability and snap volume
61 career games, the most in LSU history, with 827, 885 and 829 snaps in his three heaviest seasons and no missed SEC snaps in 2021.
- 03
Proven against top competition
started at right tackle in the 2019 national championship win over Clemson on a line that won the Joe Moore Award.
- 04
Displacement power in the run game
generated real movement on down blocks and duo, paving the way for Ty Davis-Price's 287-yard LSU record night against Florida.
- 05
Positional maturity and leadership
a December 2020 graduate, LSU leadership council member and line mentor who arrived NFL-ready mentally.
- 01
Ordinary athletic testing
a 5.06 forty and 4.99 shuttle at 321 pounds put him in the bottom tier of drafted tackles for lateral recovery.
- 02
Long kick-slide against speed
extended edge rushers who threaten the arc and cross his face can get him leaning and reaching outside his frame.
- 03
Right-side-only projection
one career start at left tackle, in week two of 2018, and no sustained reps on the blind side to fall back on.
- 04
Near-zero developmental runway
a fifth-year senior with more than 3,400 college snaps, meaning the player a team drafted was essentially the finished version.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.08sp50
- Vertical
- 28.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 109inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.99sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | LSU | 13 |
| 2018 | LSU | 13 |
| 2019 | LSU | 13 |
| 2020 | LSU | 10 |
| 2021 | LSU | 12 |
| Career | — | 61 |
Games and starts from the official LSU bio (archived at web.archive.org/web/2022/https://lsusports.net/roster/austin-deculus/); the season lines sum exactly to the bio's career totals of 61 games and 46 starts, the most appearances by any player in LSU history. Offensive linemen do not accumulate statistical lines, so snap counts are cited in the narrative instead: 827 in 2018, 885 in 2019 and 829 in 2021.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Big-framed depth tackle who collects starts through attrition and keeps finding camp invitations.
Heavy right tackle who bounced between rosters before settling in as a multi-year starter.
Power-based tackle whose lack of recovery athleticism limits him to practice squads.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Houston took him 205th overall, one of two LSU defenders and linemen the Texans added that weekend alongside first-rounder Derek Stingley Jr., and for four years Deculus has been exactly what a sixth-round tackle usually becomes: employable, replaceable and constantly in motion. The Texans waived him at the end of the 2023 preseason and brought him back to the practice squad; the Jets claimed him off waivers that November; the Saints signed him to their practice squad in August 2024 and elevated him in Week 17 without playing him; Houston signed him back off that practice squad on December 31, 2024. The Chargers traded a conditional 2027 seventh-round pick for him at final cuts in August 2025 — a small but real vote of confidence, since teams do not spend picks on tackles they can claim for free. He signed with Tennessee in March 2026 and was waived at the end of that August. Through the 2025 season he had appeared in 26 games with six starts.
That is not a failed pick, but it is not a return either. Six starts in four seasons from a five-year SEC starter is the middle of the Day 3 distribution: enough pro snaps and enough interest around the league to keep getting signed, never enough to hold a job.