Curtis
Brooks.
Curtis
Brooks.
Cincinnati
"He needed six college years to become the best interior rusher on a College Football Playoff defense, and then never played a single NFL snap for any of the three teams that signed him."Pre-draft read
An interior pass rusher who wins under the pads. At 6-2 and 287 pounds with 31 7/8-inch arms and 10-inch hands, Brooks is built low to the ground and plays that way, shooting gaps as a three-technique and attacking one shoulder of a double team rather than absorbing the full force of it. His get-off and his 33 bench reps show up on the same rep.
The athletic testing backs the tape: a 4.44 shuttle, a 7.40 cone and a 35.5-inch vertical at his pro day are legitimate movement numbers for an interior player. What he does not have is length or mass. Tackles and guards with reach can stalemate him before he gets started, and he is not a two-gap nose who will hold the point on early downs against a downhill run game.
An attacking one-gap four-man front that lets its three-technique fire off the ball on passing downs and does not ask him to hold up against double teams on early downs.
Year 1: sub-package interior rusher and rotational depth. Ceiling: a 400-snap penetrating three-technique on a rotation-heavy front.
A two-gap 3-4 that needs its interior linemen to hold the point of attack and occupy blockers rather than penetrate.
He was drafted for one job, and any defense that asks for a second one exposes his size.
Curtis Brooks: Luke Fickell profiles a 2022 NFL Draft hidden gem
His head coach at Cincinnati on what the sixth-rounder did for a playoff defense.
TFON speaks with Bearcats defensive tackle Curtis Brooks
Interview from his All-AAC senior year in Cincinnati.
Colts secure more depth on the defensive line with Brooks
The Indianapolis reaction to the 216th pick in April 2022.
Brooks redshirted in 2016 and took five years to become a star. He played all 12 games as a redshirt freshman in 2017 with 16 tackles, then 12 games and 23 tackles in 2018, useful rotational reps on a Cincinnati defense that was being rebuilt into one of the best in the country. His junior season was the first real step: all 14 games in 2019, two starts, 40 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss and his first two career sacks in a breakout game against UConn.
The 2020 AAC championship season brought four starts in ten games with 27 tackles, three tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks and his first forced fumble at SMU, on a front that led the conference in rushing, scoring and total defense. He came back for a sixth year and made it count. In 2021 he led the Bearcats with 12.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks, added 56 tackles, and earned first-team All-AAC on a defense that ranked fifth nationally in scoring at 16.5 points per game.
That was the College Football Playoff team. He had six tackles against Alabama in the Cotton Bowl semifinal and closed a career of 60 games, 162 tackles, 23 tackles for loss and 12 sacks. His pro day measured 6-2 and 287 pounds with a 4.90 forty. Teams saw a 24-year-old rotational rusher with one elite season and obvious physical limits.
- 01
Leverage as a weapon
a 6-2 frame that lets him get under guards' pads and turn quickness into push on the interior.
- 02
Final-year production
led a College Football Playoff defense with 12.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks in 2021.
- 03
Short-area movement
a 4.44 shuttle, 7.40 cone and 35.5-inch vertical, athletic markers that fit a penetrating three-technique.
- 04
Upper-body power
33 bench press reps, with the grip strength to disengage once his hands land inside a blocker's frame.
- 05
Double-team technique
he attacks one blocker's shoulder instead of absorbing the full force, a habit coaches noted on his tape.
- 01
Short and light for the position
6-2 and 287 pounds with 31 7/8-inch arms, so long interior blockers can lock him out early.
- 02
Not an anchor
he is a one-gap penetrator who gets displaced when asked to two-gap against a downhill run game.
- 03
Very late bloomer
his first dominant season came in his sixth year, after four years of modest rotational production.
- 04
Age at entry
he turned 24 during his rookie season, which shrinks the development runway a sixth-round pick needs.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Cincinnati | 12 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Cincinnati | 12 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Cincinnati | 14 | 40 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2020 | Cincinnati | 10 | 27 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | Cincinnati | 14 | 56 | 7.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Career | — | 60 | 162 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Season lines come from Cincinnati's official bio, which is the only source with his 2017 and 2018 splits; the tackle, tackle-for-loss and sack columns sum exactly to the school's career totals of 162 tackles, 23 tackles for loss and 12 sacks. The bio credits him with 60 career games while the listed season totals add to 62, a discrepancy UC never reconciled, so the official career figure is kept. cfbstats 2021 shows 11.5 tackles for loss against the bio's 12.5 because its table ran through January 10, 2022; the official figure is used. Tackles for loss, sacks, pass breakups and forced fumbles are only listed where a source verifies them rather than filled with zeros.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Day 3 interior lineman who bounced around rotations without securing a defined role.
Undersized, low-leverage interior rusher who became a long-term starter by winning with quickness and hands.
Cincinnati teammate and undersized interior player who took years of practice-squad time to get any snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Indianapolis took him 216th and never got him onto the field. The Colts waived him on August 30, 2022, signed him to the practice squad the next day and released him on December 19. Tennessee signed him to its practice squad on January 4, 2023, gave him a reserve/future contract six days later, then waived him on July 26 before training camp got serious.
Washington signed him on August 3, 2023, and placed him on injured reserve five days later, which ended the closest thing he had to a third chance. He never appeared in an NFL regular-season game. The St. Louis Battlehawks signed him on March 3, 2025, and released him on March 20, closing out the professional résumé with no snaps at either level. The sixth round is where teams buy a specific trait and hope the rest catches up; here the trait was interior quickness on a playoff defense, and the size, the age and the injury timing never let it get tested on a Sunday.