Jaquan
Brisker.
Jaquan
Brisker.
Penn State· 6'1"· 199 lb· 4.49s 40
"Penn State's defensive tone-setter arrived from junior college and left as the safety every Big Ten offense had to account for in the run game."Pre-draft read
Downhill strong safety who plays his best football inside 10 yards of the line. Penn State used him in the box, over the slot and as a robber, and the trait that shows up every snap is contact: he triggers on run keys fast, takes on blockers instead of running around them and finishes tackles with real force. He was the tone-setter on that defense.
In coverage he is more sound than fluid, competent in zone with good eyes and route recognition but a step tight when asked to turn and run with vertical slot threats. The athletic testing backs the tape — a 4.49 forty with a 34.5-inch vertical is solid, not special. The separator is the intensity and the tackling reliability that make him a defensive identity player.
Split-safety or single-high structure that keeps a strong safety in the box on early downs and matches him to tight ends and slots in sub packages
Year 1 starting strong safety on 90 percent of snaps in run support and underneath coverage; ceiling is a defensive tone-setter and communicator in a top-10 unit
A pure single-high system that leaves one safety alone in the deep middle for 60 snaps a game and asks him to erase sideline-to-sideline space
Best paired with a rangier free safety who lets him play forward.
Jaquan Brisker 2021 Highlights | Penn State DB
Senior-year cut-up: box run support, robber reps and open-field tackling.
Jaquan Brisker Penn State Career Highlights
Full college career across box, slot and deep-half alignments.
Highlights: Penn State Defensive Back Jaquan Brisker | Big Ten Football
Big Ten conference cut-up ahead of the 2022 draft.
Brisker is a 6-foot-1, 199-pound safety who came to Penn State from Lackawanna College and turned into the heartbeat of a Big Ten defense. He is a strong safety in the traditional sense: box presence, run support, physical coverage on tight ends and slots.
The three-year record is consistent rather than spectacular — 153 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, five interceptions and 14 pass breakups in 34 games, with his best year in 2021 at 64 tackles, six tackles for loss and two picks. The signature reps are the ones nobody counts: filling the alley against a lead block, ripping a tight end off his route at the stem, arriving with the ball. The flags are the ones that follow a hitter — a tackling style that invites contact injuries, and range that is good rather than deep-middle elite.
Boards had him as the second or third safety in a strong class, a plug-and-play starter with a limited ceiling. Chicago, rebuilding its secondary under a new staff, took him at 48 immediately after taking Kyler Gordon at 39.
- 01
Run support
triggers downhill on the first key, takes on lead blockers rather than avoiding them and is a genuine eighth defender in the box.
- 02
Tackling
reliable open-field finisher with the strike force to stop a ball carrier on contact, not just drag him down from behind.
- 03
Versatility
Penn State lined him up in the box, over the slot, as a robber and at deep half, and he handled every assignment.
- 04
Football intelligence
reads route combinations and run keys quickly, which lets a defense play him closer to the ball without gambling.
- 05
Competitive edge
plays with an intensity that sets a defense's tone, the kind of player a rebuilding secondary can be built around.
- 01
Deep range
good rather than elite closing speed to the sideline limits him as a single-high center fielder in a one-post structure.
- 02
Man coverage fluidity
a step tight turning and running with vertical slot receivers, so his coverage value lives in zone.
- 03
Ball production
five interceptions in 34 games is modest for a safety asked to play the ball in the deep third.
- 04
Injury exposure
the collision-heavy tackling style he is valued for is also the thing most likely to cost him games.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.49sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 124inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 22repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Penn State | 13 | 32 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| 2020 | Penn State | 9 | 57 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| 2021 | Penn State | 12 | 64 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| Career | — | 34 | 153 | 0 | 5 | 14 | 0 |
2020 and 2021 verified directly on cfbstats (2020: 9 games, 57 tackles, 3.0 TFL, 1 interception, 6 pass breakups; 2021: 12 games, 64 tackles, 6.0 TFL, 2 interceptions, 5 pass breakups, 1 fumble return). His 2019 cfbstats page is not published, so that line comes from his season ledger. Season totals reconcile exactly with the career ledger: 153 tackles, 10.0 TFL, 5 interceptions and 14 pass breakups in 34 games. He played two junior-college seasons at Lackawanna before Penn State; those years are not included.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Physical box-leaning starter who anchors the run fit and holds up in zone for a decade.
Three-down safety who becomes a defensive centerpiece through instincts, tackling and availability.
Explosive downhill defender whose coverage limits and injuries keep him from settling into one role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jaquan Brisker has been a starting safety for the Chicago Bears since his rookie season. He has been a consistent presence in the secondary, contributing with tackles, sacks, and interceptions.
Chicago got exactly the player it drafted. He started as a rookie and put up 94 tackles and four sacks in 15 games in 2022, then repeated with 94 tackles, nine pass breakups and an interception in 15 games in 2023 as one of the few settled pieces on the defense. A concussion in Week 5 of 2024 against Carolina ended his season after five games and 37 tackles, and it was serious enough that the recovery ran into the following offseason. He answered it with the best year of his career in 2025: a full 17 games, 91 tackles, eight pass breakups, an interception and a sack.
Four seasons in, this looks like one of the sound picks of the round. He never became a takeaway machine and the deep-range questions were real, but a strong safety who starts from day one, tackles at a high level and plays 17 games after a frightening head injury is worth pick 48. The evaluation was honest about what he was and what he was not, and the NFL confirmed both halves. The only cost has been availability, which is the risk everyone signed up for.
Data note: from LA Chargers