Daniel
Hardy.
Daniel
Hardy.
Montana St.
"A junior college transfer who spent the canceled 2020 season rebuilding his body, came back to post the fourth-best sack season in Montana State history, and turned pick 235 into four Chicago seasons on coverage units."Pre-draft read
A bendy, relentless edge who spent two years at outside linebacker before a staff change moved him to defensive end in a four-man front, and the fit was immediate. At a pro day 6-2 1/8 and 239 pounds with 33 1/2-inch arms, he ran 4.69, jumped 40 inches and posted a 6.71 three-cone, elite change of direction for a rusher.
His 2021 tape is a motor reel: 24.5 tackles for loss and 16.5 sacks, third and fourth in Montana State history for a single season. He wins with get-off, a flat corner and a plan, not power. Against bigger tackles he can be locked out and walked past the pocket, and his anchor against down blocks in the run game is average, which is why FCS production of that scale still landed him in the seventh round.
A four-man front that keeps him as a situational speed rusher and pairs it with a full four-phase special teams role.
Year 1: core special teamer with 10 pass-rush snaps a game. Ceiling: a designated third-down rusher in a rotation.
A two-gap front that asks him to set a hard edge against tight ends and pulling guards on early downs, where his weight simply is not enough.
Chicago found the honest version of the role, including the occasional snap at fullback.
Daniel Hardy, late-round gem, 2021 Montana State highlights
The 16.5-sack season that got him drafted.
Daniel Hardy's career day at Weber State
The 3.5-sack Big Sky Player of the Week performance.
Daniel Hardy gets the draft call from the Rams
The moment Los Angeles took him 235th overall.
Hardy grew up in the Portland area and played at Valley Catholic School in Beaverton, Oregon, before starting his college career in 2017 at the College of the Siskiyous, a junior college in Northern California. Jeff Choate recruited him to Bozeman from there, and Choate later said that had Hardy stayed in the junior college ranks another year, Pac-12 and Mountain West programs would have been in the race for him.
He arrived at Montana State in 2018 and played two rotational seasons at outside linebacker. The 2020 FCS season was canceled by the pandemic, and he used the year as an unplanned redshirt, adding weight, size and explosiveness while the Bobcats had no games to play.
The 2021 season was the payoff, and it came after a coaching change moved him to a conventional defensive end spot in a 4-3. He piled up 24.5 tackles for loss and 16.5 sacks in 15 games, sixth in the FCS in sacks and ninth in tackles for loss, with a 3.5-sack Big Sky Player of the Week performance at Weber State and a forced fumble against South Dakota State in the semifinal that sent Montana State to the FCS title game. He was a second-team FCS All-American and first-team All-Big Sky, played in the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, and said he was surprised when the Rams called at 235.
- 01
Elite bend and change of direction
a 6.71 three-cone and a 40-inch vertical at 239 pounds are first-round athletic markers at the position.
- 02
One of the great FCS pass-rush seasons
16.5 sacks and 24.5 tackles for loss, third and fourth in Montana State's single-season history.
- 03
Positional versatility from two schemes
two years at outside linebacker in a three-man front before thriving with a hand in the dirt.
- 04
Self-made development curve
he turned the canceled 2020 season into a full year of body transformation and came back a different player.
- 05
Wrecking-ball special teams tape
his kickoff coverage work in 2021 was the clearest evidence of an NFL role from day one.
- 01
Undersized for defensive end
at 239 pounds he gets locked out by tackles who land their hands first and walked past the quarterback.
- 02
FCS competition curve
the Big Sky tackles he beat are not the pass protectors he will face on Sundays, and the production inflates accordingly.
- 03
Average run anchor
he can be displaced by down blocks and reach blocks when the play comes directly at his edge.
- 04
Late-blooming production
one dominant college season out of four, and two of the others were rotational years without a defined role.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Montana State | 15 | 0 | 16.5 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Career | — | 15 | 0 | 16.5 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Only the 2021 season is tabulated. Montana State plays in the FCS, which has no cfbstats or Sports Reference player pages, and the school's own statistics portal no longer serves the 2018 and 2019 cumulative files; the sacks, tackles-for-loss and program-ranking figures here come from Montana State's own June 28, 2022 feature on him, and the games, forced fumbles and fumble recovery from the 2021 game log. His 2018 and 2019 seasons at outside linebacker were rotational and the surviving box-score coverage is partial, so they are left out entirely rather than published as incomplete rows, and total tackles are not tabulated for any season because no verified cumulative source exists. He spent 2017 at the College of the Siskiyous, a junior college with no published statistical archive, and 2020 was canceled by the pandemic.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational edge body who stuck on rosters through effort and coverage-unit value.
Light, bendy edge who turned athletic traits and special teams work into a starting pass-rush role.
Athletic front-seven player whose testing never translated into defensive production.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The Rams drafted him and lost him immediately: he went on injured reserve on September 1, 2022, was designated to return November 30, activated three days later and played six games with four assisted tackles. Los Angeles waived him on August 29, 2023 and Chicago signed him to the practice squad two days after that, elevating him once during the season before giving him a reserve/future deal in January 2024.
With the Bears he became what the Montana State writers predicted. He played all 17 games in 2024 with 12 tackles and a forced fumble, logging 370 special teams snaps against 31 on defense, then all 17 again in 2025 with his first career start. In Week 17 against San Francisco he lined up at fullback and blocked for a 22-yard D'Andre Swift touchdown. Chicago re-signed him on March 12, 2026 to a two-year, $4.97 million deal. Through 2025 he had 40 games, 38 tackles and a forced fumble. The pass rusher who dominated the Big Sky never became an NFL pass rusher, but a junior college kid from Oregon turned the 235th pick into four seasons and a real contract.