Darian
Kinnard.
Darian
Kinnard.
Kentucky· 6'5"· 322 lb· 5.31s 40
"A consensus All-American right tackle whose Jacobs Blocking Trophy and 39 straight starts could not answer the only question teams cared about, which was whether his feet could survive outside in the NFL."Pre-draft read
Kinnard is a mountain of a right tackle who plays the position like a guard in disguise. At 6-5 and 345 pounds in college with 35-inch arms, he blocked for Kentucky's record-setting run game by walling off the edge and driving defenders off the ball, and his knockdown totals were the currency his coaching staff used to describe him.
Power is the entire identity. He generates movement in the run game as well as any tackle in the class and has the mass to stall a bull rush cold once his hands land. In pass protection he is a wide, heavy anchor rather than a mirror artist, best when he can set short and let rushers run into him. The signature is the finish: he blocks through the whistle and looks for someone to bury.
A gap and power run scheme that pulls and doubles at the point of attack, letting him win with mass and leverage on short tracks instead of asking him to reach defenders in space.
Year 1: swing interior lineman and jumbo package blocker. Ceiling: a multi-year starting right guard on a power running team.
A wide-zone offense that requires its linemen to reach-block a three-technique and climb to linebackers on the move, where his heavy feet would be exposed on nearly every run call.
His value is entirely tied to a team that wants to run behind a mauler rather than one that wants to run around defenders.
Darian Kinnard Official Highlights
Career cutup of his right tackle work at Kentucky, heavy on run-game finishes.
Darian Kinnard, OT, Kentucky - 2021 Outland Trophy Semi-Finalist Highlight Video
Award-submission reel from his consensus All-American senior season.
Darian Kinnard Senior Bowl 1v1 Film (OT/OG Kentucky #70)
Senior Bowl one-on-one pass sets, the reps that shaped his guard projection.
Kinnard was a four-star recruit from Saint Ignatius in Cleveland who found the field as a true freshman, playing nine games and starting two of the last three at left tackle. He then started 39 consecutive games at right tackle across three seasons on a Kentucky offensive line that was recognized for the Joe Moore Award four straight years, and he helped set single-season school records of 3,624 rushing yards and 36 rushing touchdowns as a sophomore.
The 2021 season was the résumé. He led the Big Blue Wall with 30 knockdowns, won the Jacobs Blocking Trophy as the SEC's best blocker, was an Outland Trophy semifinalist and became a consensus first-team All-American, Kentucky's first offensive lineman to reach that status since Sam Ball in 1965. Pro Football Focus graded him among only three Power Five tackles at 85 or better as both a run and pass blocker.
The projection is where teams disagreed with the honors. He measured 6-5 3/8 and 322 pounds at the combine and ran 5.31 with an 8.11 three-cone, testing that flagged the lateral quickness NFL edge rushers attack. The consensus was guard, not tackle, and moving a decorated college tackle inside always carries a discount. Kansas City, needing power in the interior, took him at 145.
- 01
Run-game power
moves defenders off the ball in the ground game and led Kentucky with 30 knockdown blocks as a senior on a record-setting rushing offense.
- 02
Mass and length
322 pounds with 35-inch arms and a nearly 6-11 wingspan, so rushers have to travel a long way to get into his frame.
- 03
Anchor
once his hands land he stalls bull rushers cold, and there is almost no path to walking him back into the quarterback's lap.
- 04
Durability and availability
46 career games with 39 consecutive starts at right tackle, never missing time through three full seasons in the SEC.
- 05
Finishing temperament
plays through the whistle looking for a defender to bury, a demeanor that travels directly to an interior NFL role.
- 01
Lateral quickness
a 5.31 forty with an 8.11 three-cone confirmed what the tape suggested about recovering against speed off the edge.
- 02
Pass sets
sets high and wide rather than efficiently, and NFL edge rushers with a plan can beat him around the corner before he resets.
- 03
Position change
the entire projection required moving a decorated college right tackle inside to guard, which is never an automatic transfer.
- 04
Body control in space
heavy-footed climbing to the second level, and he misses moving targets that a lighter interior blocker would reach.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.31sp50
- Vertical
- 25inp50
- Broad jump
- 99inp50
- Three-cone
- 8.11sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.96sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Kentucky | 9 |
| 2019 | Kentucky | 13 |
| 2020 | Kentucky | 11 |
| 2021 | Kentucky | 13 |
| Career | — | 46 |
cfbstats does not publish participation data for offensive linemen, so games and starts come from Kentucky's official biography, which documents nine games with two starts as a freshman in 2018, all 13 games started at right tackle in 2019, all 11 games started in 2020, and a career line of 46 games with 39 consecutive starts. The 2021 season is the remainder of that career total and is consistent with Kentucky's 13-game schedule. Offensive linemen do not accumulate statistical production, so no counting stats are carried; knockdown blocks and grading figures cited in the evaluation come from the same official school releases. The four seasons sum exactly to 46 games and 39 starts.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A big-bodied swing lineman who fills in at tackle and guard, gets a stretch of starts and holds real roster value.
The ceiling: a powerful, durable right guard who starts for a decade and quietly anchors good run games.
The downside: a college tackle whose feet never allow a clean position conversion and who lives on practice squads and depth charts.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He never became a fixture anywhere, but he kept showing up in the right rooms. He played one game as a rookie in Kansas City, was waived and re-signed to the practice squad in 2023, then signed with Philadelphia in 2024 and made his first career start in the season finale. Green Bay traded a 2027 sixth-round pick for him in August 2025 and he appeared in all 17 games with four starts, the largest role of his career. He re-signed with the Packers in 2026, was released at final cuts, and joined the Giants practice squad.
Four seasons produced 20 games and five starts. He also became the second player in NFL history, after Ken Norton Jr., to win three consecutive Super Bowls, with Kansas City in LVII and LVIII and Philadelphia in LIX. Looking back, the evaluation was right about the limitation and wrong about nothing else: the power was real, the feet were the problem, and the guard conversion never produced a starting job. For the 145th pick, a durable swing interior body who lasts four years on contending rosters is a reasonable but modest return on a consensus All-American.