Dj
Davidson.
Dj
Davidson.
Arizona St.· 6'3"· 327 lb
"A 327-pound nose tackle who was second in the country in run stops and last in the conversation on passing downs, which is the honest trade a fifth-round pick is allowed to make."Pre-draft read
Davidson is a true nose tackle, a 6-3 3/8, 327-pound space eater whose job at Arizona State was to occupy the middle of the formation and let the linebackers behind him run clean. He plays with a wide base, absorbs double teams and holds his ground rather than chasing production.
The value is almost entirely on early downs. He was credited with 31 run-defense stops in 2021, second in the FBS among interior linemen, and graded as the best run-defending interior player in the Pac-12. As a rusher he is a bull and nothing else, generating push straight ahead without a counter or the burst to threaten a guard's edge. The signature is anchor: when he is squared up, the ball simply does not go through his gap.
An even front that asks its nose to two-gap on early downs and keep guards and centers off the inside linebackers, with a deep rotation that gets him off the field in sub packages.
Year 1: early-down rotational nose behind an established starter. Ceiling: a starting two-down run plugger playing around 35 percent of snaps for a defense that wants to be stout inside.
A one-gap attacking front that asks its interior linemen to shoot upfield and win as pass rushers on a high snap count, where his lack of a rush plan would leave the defense a man short on third down.
His value is inseparable from a roster that already has an interior pass rusher to play beside him.
DJ Davidson - Arizona State DT Highlights
College cutup of his nose tackle work, heavy on double teams and run stops.
DJ Davidson - NFL 2022 Draft Prospect (Defensive Tackle, Arizona State)
Pre-draft prospect reel assembled ahead of the 2022 class evaluation.
DJ Davidson Highlights
Official school highlight package from his fifth-year season in Tempe.
Davidson came out of Desert Ridge High School in Mesa, redshirted in 2017 and then spent five years in Tempe becoming the kind of player coaches love and box scores ignore. He played eight games as a redshirt freshman before a season-ending injury, started 12 of 13 games at nose tackle in 2019 and returned for a fifth year in 2021 rather than leave early, finishing as the Curley Culp Outstanding Defensive Lineman for the Sun Devils.
The production says role player and the advanced numbers say something better. He finished with 137 tackles and 16 tackles for loss across four playing seasons, but in 2021 he started all 12 games, ranked fifth on the team in tackles, graded as the third-best interior defensive lineman in the Pac-12 and posted the second-most run stops of any interior lineman in the country. That combination of mass and functional strength at the point of attack was the entire case.
Teams knew what the limitations were. He ran 5.22 at the combine with a 7.60 three-cone, tested as the two-down body he looked like on tape, and turned 24 before his rookie season, which shrinks the development runway. The board had him as a fifth to sixth-round nose with a defined role, and the Giants, who needed bodies next to Dexter Lawrence, took him at 147 to rotate on early downs.
- 01
Run anchor
recorded 31 run-defense stops in 2021, second in the FBS among interior linemen, and graded as the Pac-12's best interior run defender.
- 02
Mass and play strength
327 pounds with a wide base and the functional power to absorb a double team without giving ground.
- 03
Gap discipline
stays square and honors his assignment rather than chasing, which is exactly what a nose tackle is paid to do.
- 04
Experience
four playing seasons and 37 games in the Pac-12, including 28 starts, with a full season of every-down snaps as a fifth-year senior.
- 05
Bull rush
23 bench reps and heavy hands let him collapse the pocket straight back when guards catch instead of striking.
- 01
Pass-rush plan
five career sacks in four seasons, with no counter move off the bull and no way to win once his initial push is stopped.
- 02
Lateral agility
a 7.60 three-cone and 4.71 shuttle confirm he cannot redirect, so misdirection and zone runs away from him beat him.
- 03
Age curve
turned 24 as a rookie after a redshirt and a fifth year, leaving less room to grow into more than his current role.
- 04
Snap volume
a two-down body who comes off the field in nickel, capping his value at roughly a third of a defense's total plays.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 28inp50
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- 7.85sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.72sp50
- Bench
- 23repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Arizona State | 8 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019 | Arizona State | 13 | 51 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Arizona State | 4 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Arizona State | 12 | 57 | 0.5 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Career | — | 37 | 137 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The 2018 and 2019 lines come from Arizona State's official player biography; the 2020 and 2021 lines come from cfbstats, which publishes those two seasons for this roster. The four seasons sum exactly to the school's published career totals of 137 tackles and five sacks and to a fumble recovery in 2021. Tackles for loss sum to 15.5 against the biography's stated career figure of 16.0, a half-tackle rounding difference between the two sources, so the verified sum is carried rather than the school's round number. Passes broken up are published only for 2018 and 2021, so the other seasons and the career line are left unverified instead of zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A rotational run-down nose who sticks on rosters for years without ever taking a majority of the snaps.
The ceiling: a true nose who starts on early downs for several teams and makes a long career out of holding the point.
The downside: a heavy body whose limited pass-rush value and injury luck keep him bouncing between the back of the roster and the practice squad.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
His career has been a string of injuries interrupting a role he could hold. He tore his ACL on a punt coverage snap in London during his fifth rookie game and went on injured reserve. He spent most of the 2023 training camp on PUP finishing that rehab, then played 15 games with two starts. His best year was 2024, when injuries to the defensive line, including Dexter Lawrence, pushed him into a bigger role and he set career highs with 23 tackles, 2.0 sacks and two tackles for loss in 12 games before a shoulder injury sent him to injured reserve for the last quarter of the season. He played 15 games in 2025 with minimal production.
Four Giants seasons produced 47 games, 49 tackles and 2.5 sacks as a rotational nose. Washington signed him to a one-year veteran-benefit deal in April 2026. Looking back, the evaluation was right in shape and generous in nothing: he was a two-down run defender, he was drafted to be exactly that, and injuries kept him from ever consolidating the job. For a pick at 147 that is close to par, since a four-year rotational body who plays 47 games is the realistic median outcome at that slot, but the ACL year cost him the runway to become a starter.