Doug
Kramer.
Doug
Kramer.
Illinois
"One of the best-graded college centers of his era by the numbers, Doug Kramer was also one of the smallest, and the NFL spent four years proving that a 6-2 center with short arms and a long injury sheet has very little room to be wrong."Pre-draft read
A pure center who plays with leverage, timing and intelligence. Kramer is undersized by NFL standards at 6-2 and roughly 300 pounds, but he snaps and fits with his hands inside almost every rep, and his pad level lets him get under bigger nose tackles and turn them. In the run game he is at his best on angles: reach blocks, combos to the second level, and pulls where his short-area quickness beats a heavier man to the spot.
In protection he is a technician. He rarely loses the first punch, resets his feet quickly and passes off twists without panic. His own body is the ceiling. Head-up power from a true zero-technique can stall his anchor, and long-armed three-techniques who reach his frame first can control the rep before his hands land.
An outside-zone or wide-zone running game that asks its center to reach, climb and pull rather than to anchor head-up over a nose.
Year 1: backup center and jumbo package snapper. Ceiling: multi-year starting center on a zone-based line with a two-gap-free front to face.
A gap-scheme offense in a division full of 340-pound nose tackles, where he is asked to anchor head-up every snap.
The scheme that protects his anchor is the only scheme where he starts.
Illini Football | Doug Kramer 2022 NFL Draft
Illinois' own cut-up of his center work, built around reach blocks and second-level climbs.
Illinois Offensive Line vs Nebraska (2021)
The Nebraska opener he was named team offensive MVP for, in full line-only view.
Doug Kramer Highlights
The Bears' own look at the hometown center they drafted in the sixth round.
Kramer is a Hinsdale kid who grew into one of the best college centers of his era by grading, not by traits. Pro Football Focus charted him with the third-best true pass set blocking grade among Power Five centers across 2018-19, and his 14 big-time run blocks in 2019 were the most PFF had ever recorded from a Power Five center. That 2019 season he was the No. 8 graded center in the country and No. 3 in the Power Five at 79.2, did not allow a sack across 751 snaps, and was voted team captain by his teammates.
He was also a six-year starter in everything but name: a redshirt in 2016, then his debut and first career start in the 2017 opener against Ball State, and a starter at center in every game he played after that. His senior year brought second-team All-Big Ten from the coaches, a Campbell Trophy semifinalist nod and the highest GPA of any male graduate student athlete at Illinois.
The issue was always the frame. At 6-2, 301 pounds with 32 1/4-inch arms and a 4.95 forty, he had no length and no margin for error against NFL nose tackles, and no versatility to guard to fall back on. That profile has a real floor as a backup center and a hard cap on the upside, which is exactly where the sixth round lives.
- 01
Elite college pass-protection grading
PFF's third-best true pass set blocking grade among Power Five centers over 2018-19, with zero sacks allowed in 751 snaps in 2019.
- 02
Leverage as a weapon
natural pad level under 6-2 that lets him get beneath and turn nose tackles who outweigh him by thirty or more pounds.
- 03
Second-level and pull agility
a 1.70 ten-yard split and 4.62 shuttle show up on reach blocks and on combos he can climb off cleanly.
- 04
Five seasons of Big Ten snaps at one position
27 consecutive starts at one point, and a starter in every game he played from 2017 through 2021.
- 05
Line-calling intelligence
a team captain, Campbell Trophy semifinalist and the highest-GPA male graduate athlete at Illinois, who ran the front's identifications.
- 01
Undersized with short arms
6-2 and 32 1/4-inch reach means NFL nose tackles get to his chest first and he has no length to reset the block.
- 02
Anchor limitations against head-up power
a true zero-technique can drive him into the quarterback's lap before his help arrives.
- 03
Center-only projection
no meaningful reps at guard, which makes him a roster spot rather than a flexible backup on game day.
- 04
Extensive injury history
missed four games in 2017, three in 2020 and the 2019 Redbox Bowl, ending a 27-start streak, all before his first NFL camp.
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Illinois | 8 |
| 2018 | Illinois | 12 |
| 2019 | Illinois | 12 |
| 2020 | Illinois | 5 |
| 2021 | Illinois | 11 |
| Career | — | 48 |
Season lines from the official Illinois bio (fightingillini.com/sports/football/roster/doug-kramer/12187): eight starts in 2017 after missing four games injured, all twelve regular-season games in 2018 and 2019, five in 2020 after missing three to COVID protocols and injury, and eleven in 2021. The bio lists no consolidated career total, so the career row is the sum of those verified seasons; he started every game he played. 2016 was a redshirt year with no game action and is not listed. Offensive linemen do not produce statistical lines, so his 2019 marks — the No. 8 PFF center grade nationally and zero sacks allowed on 751 snaps — are cited in the narrative instead.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Light center with good grades in college who bounces between backup jobs and practice squads.
Undersized, high-IQ Big Ten center who outlasted bigger prospects on technique and availability.
Interior lineman whose value depends entirely on health and who never settles into one team's plan.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Chicago drafted its hometown center 207th overall, and then injuries ate the career. Kramer went on injured reserve on August 16, 2022, before playing a rookie snap. He was placed on IR again on August 31, 2023, activated on October 21, and finally made his NFL debut in Week 7 — more than seventeen months after the draft. The Cardinals claimed him off waivers on November 6, 2023, released him nine days later, and he was back on the Bears practice squad by November 17, signing a reserve/future deal that January. The 2024 season was his real one: backup center on the opening depth chart, a full year of active-roster snaps, and one moment that outlived everything else — taking a handoff at the one-yard line in Week 8 against Washington and fumbling it, in the game Jayden Daniels ended with a Hail Mary. Chicago re-signed him for 2025 and then waived him with an injury designation that August.
Seattle added him to the practice squad in November 2025 and released him two weeks later. Louisville of the UFL drafted him in January 2026; San Francisco signed him that August and released him at cuts. Eighteen career games from a sixth-round center who could not stay healthy is the outcome the frame concerns predicted.