Kalia
Davis.
Kalia
Davis.
Central Florida· 6'1"· 302 lb
"A recruited linebacker who added sixty pounds, lost two of his first three professional seasons to injury and an opt-out, and then started all seventeen games for the 49ers in year four."Pre-draft read
A converted linebacker playing nose tackle, and it shows in how he moves. Davis arrived at UCF as a 41st-ranked inside linebacker recruit and left as a 310-pound interior lineman, keeping the first-step quickness and the loose hips through 60 pounds of added mass. He slants, he penetrates and he plays with a flat back through contact.
The power is genuine rather than borrowed: 30 bench reps at 302 pounds with 33 5/8-inch arms at his pro day, enough to stack a guard when he chooses to. What is missing is volume of reps. He opted out of a season, lost another to injury and played only five games as a senior, so the technique against NFL-caliber double teams was still theoretical. He can be late off blocks when the first move fails.
A one-gap wide-zone defense that asks its interior linemen to slant, penetrate and disrupt rather than hold ground on double teams.
Year 1: rotational interior lineman on a deep front. Ceiling: a full-time starting three-technique who plays 700 snaps.
A two-gap 3-4 that stands its linemen up and asks them to read blocks, the exact opposite of what his linebacker background gave him.
San Francisco drafted the archetype its front has always valued, and eventually got the starter out of it.
San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Kalia Davis, UCF highlights
The school's own cut of the interior disruption that got him drafted.
The San Francisco 49ers just found their next DT: Kalia Davis
Draft breakdown of the linebacker-to-tackle conversion.
First career interception for Kalia Davis
The Week 7 pick against Kansas City in 2024.
Davis came out of West Florida Tech in Pensacola as a three-star inside linebacker and redshirted on UCF's 2017 Colley Matrix national championship team, appearing in a single game. The move inside came next, and 2018 was the first year of real snaps: 10 games, 17 tackles, three tackles for loss and a pass breakup as a rotational redshirt freshman.
His 2019 season was the one that made him a prospect. He played all 13 games and started at defensive tackle in each of the last nine, recording 27 tackles, eight tackles for loss, three sacks, a breakup, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery, earning first-team all-conference honors from Pro Football Focus on an AAC defense that needed interior disruption.
Then the clock stopped twice. He opted out of the 2020 season during the pandemic while earning AAC All-Academic honors, and his 2021 return lasted five games: 17 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, one sack and three quarterback hurries, including six tackles and three for loss against Boise State and a conference defensive player of the week award, before a season-ending injury against East Carolina. He went to the combine as a 23-year-old with 29 career games, elite short-area movement for his size and almost no recent tape.
- 01
Movement skill at 310 pounds
a former linebacker whose first step and hip flexibility never left when the weight arrived.
- 02
Interior disruption on record
eight tackles for loss and three sacks in 2019, first-team all-conference by Pro Football Focus.
- 03
Raw upper-body power
30 bench reps at 302 pounds with 33 5/8-inch arms, long enough to keep guards off his frame.
- 04
Fast start in 2021
six tackles and three for loss against Boise State in the opener, and an AAC defensive player of the week award.
- 05
Positional value
a penetrating three-technique body type that fits the wide-zone defenses drafting for one-gap quickness.
- 01
Almost no recent tape
an opt-out year followed by a five-game senior season leaves evaluators projecting from 2019 film.
- 02
Injury history that cost him a season
the East Carolina game ended his final college year before conference play.
- 03
Still learning the position
three years of interior reps after a career as a linebacker, with technique that lags his tools.
- 04
Gets stuck on contact when the first move fails
he has no reliable counter once a guard mirrors his initial slant.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | UCF | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | UCF | 10 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019 | UCF | 13 | 27 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | UCF | 5 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 29 | 61 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
Games and tackles follow Sports Reference, whose season lines sum exactly to 29 games and 61 tackles. The 2021 line uses UCF's official bio and cfbstats, which both list five games, 17 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and one sack, rather than Sports Reference's 5.0 tackles for loss; that is why the career tackle-for-loss total shown here is 15.5 instead of Sports Reference's 16.0. He opted out of the 2020 season because of the pandemic, so no 2020 row exists rather than a line of zeros. The 2019 forced fumble and fumble recovery are credited by UCF's official bio; pass breakups and forced fumbles are listed only where a source verifies them.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Undersized-for-nose 49ers interior lineman who grew into a steady rotational starter.
Quick-twitch interior lineman who turned penetration into a long run as a starting three-technique.
Athletic Day 3 interior lineman whose snaps never stabilized into a defined role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
San Francisco took him 220th and signed him on June 2, 2022 to a four-year deal worth over $3.8 million, then lost him immediately: reserve/non-football injury on August 23, an entire rookie year gone. He appeared in three games in 2023 with a tackle and a sack. Knee surgery announced on August 12, 2024 put him on injured reserve on August 27, and after activation on October 5 he played 13 games and intercepted a pass against Kansas City in Week 7, returning it two yards.
The patience paid off in year four. He started all 17 games in 2025 with 28 tackles, four tackles for loss, half a sack and three pass breakups, plus two playoff starts, a full-time interior job for a sixth-round pick who had missed two of his first three seasons. Cleveland signed him on March 19, 2026 to a one-year, $3 million contract, then he landed on injured reserve again. Thirty-three career games, 17 of them starts, is real value from the 220th pick, though the injuries have taken more from the résumé than the tape ever did.