Brandon
Smith.
Brandon
Smith.
Penn St.· 6'4"· 250 lb· 4.52s 40
"A 240-pound linebacker who ran 4.52 and chased plays across the field at Penn State, selling every trait teams covet except the one that decides whether a linebacker plays: reading the run in front of him."Pre-draft read
Smith was a rangy, 240-pound Penn State linebacker who played the game sideline to sideline. He ran a 4.52 at the combine with 34 5/8-inch arms and used that speed to chase plays down from the backside, arriving with force rather than just arriving.
The best snaps came in space and on the blitz. He had a quick first step off the edge, closed on quarterbacks in a hurry and was fluid enough to mirror backs out of the backfield. The problems showed between the tackles: he ran into blocks in chase mode, struggled to stack and shed, and occasionally overran a fit because he was moving faster than he was reading. The signature was raw athletic ability that outran his processing.
Attacking one-gap front that keeps its linebackers clean, lets them run to the football and uses them as blitzers rather than block destroyers.
Year 1: core special teams and sub-package chase linebacker. Ceiling: starting weak-side linebacker in a defense that protects him from guards.
A two-gap front that asks its linebackers to take on pulling guards, hold the point and read run keys before the ball crosses the line.
Brandon Smith career highlights
Three seasons of Penn State tape, heavy on backside chase and blitz pressure.
Brandon Smith 2020 highlights
His first season as a starter, when he led the team with eight tackles for loss in nine games.
Brandon Smith LB 2022 NFL Draft
Pre-draft cut-up focused on the athletic traits that moved him into the top 120.
Smith was a three-year Penn State contributor and two-year starter who looked like an NFL linebacker before he played like one. He appeared in 13 games as a true freshman, started all nine games of the 2020 season with a team-leading eight tackles for loss, then broke out as a junior with 81 tackles, nine tackles for loss and third-team All-Big Ten honors.
The 2021 season had real signature moments: Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week after ten tackles against Auburn, a Butkus Award semifinalist nod, and team-high tackle totals against Ohio State, Maryland and Michigan. Then came the measurements. Six-foot-three, 240 pounds, 4.52 speed, a 37.5-inch vertical and a 128-inch broad jump, a combination that made him one of the most physically gifted linebackers in the class.
The flags were all instincts. Scouts consistently described a player who got out of position on inside run fits, ran into blocks and needed to improve his ability to disengage. He was a junior entry, and the bet was that the traits would eventually catch up to the reads. Carolina traded two fifth-rounders to Washington to move up and take him at 120.
- 01
Sideline range
At 240 pounds he ran 4.52 and chased plays down from the backside, the kind of speed that covers up a defense's mistakes.
- 02
Blitz ability
A quick first step off the edge let him close on quarterbacks, producing four college sacks and consistent pressure in his two starting years.
- 03
Coverage fluidity
He was smooth enough to mirror running backs out of the backfield and match tight ends, rare for a linebacker of his size.
- 04
Tackling force
He gathered and finished in space, delivering punishing hits rather than dragging ball carriers down after a gain.
- 05
Peak production
His junior year produced 81 tackles, nine tackles for loss and third-team All-Big Ten honors in the best conference for linebackers.
- 01
Inside run fits
He got out of position between the tackles, arriving at the wrong gap because he trusted his speed over his eyes on downhill runs.
- 02
Stack and shed
He ran into blocks in chase mode rather than taking them on with hands, and disengaging from linemen was a genuine weakness.
- 03
Play control
He overran plays, taking himself out of fits with angles that were too aggressive for the way the run actually developed.
- 04
Zone awareness
His drops were athletic but not instinctive, and reading route combinations from depth was the least developed part of his game.
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
- 4.52sp50
- Vertical
- 37.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 128inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Penn St. | 13 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Penn St. | 9 | 37 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | Penn St. | 12 | 81 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| Career | — | 34 | 132 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 1 |
2020 and 2021 verified line by line on cfbstats (Penn State team 539, player 1105134); 2019 comes from published season totals cross-checked against the official Penn State bio, which credits him with 13 appearances as a true freshman, because cfbstats does not publish that year for this player. His 2020 fumble recovery is credited in the school bio. Every season total sums exactly to the career line shown here: 34 games, 132 tackles, 19.0 tackles for loss and 4.0 sacks. The zeros here come from full published statistical lines rather than unverified fields.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Athletic Day 3 linebacker whose career runs on special teams rather than defensive reps.
Long, fast linebacker who converts rush and coverage traits into a decade of starting snaps.
Traits linebacker who never converts a rookie roster spot into a second contract anywhere.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He played 12 games as a rookie in 2022 with eight combined tackles, mostly on special teams, before Carolina placed him on injured reserve in December. The team waived him in August 2023 and he spent that season bouncing between Philadelphia's practice squad and active roster, appearing in two games with one tackle. Since then his career has been a series of practice squad stops: Philadelphia into 2024, a New York Jets practice squad stint that ended in a waived-injured settlement in October 2024, then Las Vegas from December 2024 until the Raiders waived him in May 2025. He has 14 regular-season games and nine combined tackles, none after 2023.
In hindsight the flag the entire scouting community named turned out to be the whole story. The traits were real and are still real, but a linebacker who cannot diagnose an inside run and cannot disengage from a block does not get defensive snaps, no matter how fast he runs. Carolina traded up two picks for the measurables and got a special teams rookie year and nothing after it.