Luke
Tenuta.
Luke
Tenuta.
Virginia Tech· 6'8"· 319 lb· 5.41s 40
"The tallest lineman in his class was also the slowest to react, and four years of waiver claims, practice squads and reserve/future deals have produced seven career games without a single start."Pre-draft read
The tallest offensive lineman in his draft class, and the tape is a study in what that costs and what it buys. At 6-8 with a 79 3/4-inch wingspan and 32 7/8-inch arms, Tenuta can stop a speed rush by extending before the defender arrives, and he takes up an enormous amount of the edge in pass protection when his hands land first.
Everything else is a fight against his own height. He plays tall by default, his pad level rises as soon as he has to redirect, and compact rushers who get under his chest can walk him backward. In the run game he is more a wall than a driver: he can seal and he can cover up a defender, but he does not generate movement, and he is slow to recover once a defender crosses his face.
A vertical-set pass protection scheme that lets a long tackle shoot his hands early and keep rushers off his frame, paired with a zone run game that asks him to seal rather than drive.
Year 1: developmental fourth tackle and jumbo-package body. Ceiling: a swing tackle who covers both sides for a few weeks a season without sinking the offense.
A gap-scheme, down-block-heavy run game that asks him to move a nose tackle laterally and win with leverage he physically cannot create.
His height is a tool in protection and a liability everywhere else.
FB: Luke Tenuta 2022 NFL Draft Selection
Virginia Tech's own draft-day cut-up of his tackle play on both sides of the line.
Joe Marino on Bills Sixth-Round Pick Luke Tenuta
The scouting case for and against a 6-8 developmental tackle, broken down at the time of the pick.
Luke Tenuta is 'ready to do anything' the team needs
Green Bay's look at him during the one season he actually saw NFL snaps.
Tenuta was a coach's kid who grew into a curiosity. His father Jon has been a college defensive coordinator since the early 1980s, his mother played basketball at Virginia, and both older brothers went into sports. Luke redshirted in 2018 without game action, then played all 13 games in 2019 with five starts at right tackle, blocking a field goal in the fifth overtime of the six-overtime win over North Carolina and holding the right tackle job from the Wake Forest game onward.
He was at his best in 2020, when he started nine games at right tackle on a line that produced an ACC-best 240.1 rushing yards per game and a school-record 5.58 yards per carry, earning PFF College third-team All-ACC recognition. As a senior in 2021 he moved to the left side and started all twelve games, eleven at left tackle and one at right, and took All-ACC honorable mention plus an East-West Shrine Bowl invitation.
The evaluation was a size bet. He measured 6-8 and 319 pounds and ran a 5.28 forty with a 1.76 ten-yard split, which is the athletic profile of a man who cannot afford to guess wrong. Scouts liked the length, the two-side versatility and the academic pedigree — Academic All-ACC three straight years — and understood they were drafting a developmental swing tackle, not a starter.
- 01
Rare length
6-8 with 32 7/8-inch arms and a 79 3/4-inch wingspan, enough to stop a speed rusher before the rusher reaches his frame.
- 02
Two-side versatility
14 career starts at right tackle and 12 at left, including a full senior season on the blind side.
- 03
Proven run-game fit
anchored the right side of a 2020 line that led the ACC at 240.1 rushing yards per game and set a school record at 5.58 per carry.
- 04
Football intelligence and durability of preparation
Academic All-ACC from 2019 through 2021 and a special-teams contributor who blocked a field goal in the UNC six-overtime win.
- 05
Big-frame projection with real growth room
319 pounds on that height with a build that can carry another ten without losing what little quickness he has.
- 01
Plays tall by construction
his pad level rises on any redirect, and compact interior-to-edge rushers get leverage on him before he can sink.
- 02
Limited athletic recovery
a 5.28 forty and 1.76 ten-yard split leave him no second chance once a rusher wins the first step.
- 03
Marginal power at the point
a wall rather than a driver in the run game, rarely displacing a defender off the line.
- 04
Late bloomer's résumé
only one season as a full-time starter at left tackle and a 2018 redshirt with no game action at all.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.41sp50
- Vertical
- 26inp50
- Broad jump
- 104inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.77sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Virginia Tech | 13 |
| 2020 | Virginia Tech | 10 |
| 2021 | Virginia Tech | 12 |
| Career | — | 35 |
Season detail from the official Virginia Tech bio: all 13 games with five right-tackle starts in 2019, nine right-tackle starts in 2020 after being unavailable at North Carolina and against Boston College, and 12 starts in 2021 (11 at left tackle, one at right against Richmond). The Colts' official bio lists a 35-game career, so the 2020 games-played figure is derived as the remainder; the same bio lists 27 career starts while the verified season detail and the Bills' draft-day release both total 26, so the lower verified figure is used. 2018 was a redshirt year with no game action and is not listed. Offensive linemen produce no statistical line.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Late-round tackle who lives on practice squads and reserve/future deals without breaking into a rotation.
Extremely tall developmental tackle who carved out a long career as a jumbo-package specialist and emergency starter.
Long-framed tackle whose availability problems kept him from ever locking down a backup job.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Buffalo drafted him 209th overall and waived him on August 30, 2022, before the season began. What followed was one of the most itinerant careers in the class. Indianapolis claimed him off waivers on August 31, waived him on October 15, and Green Bay claimed him two days later. He saw his first NFL action on Christmas Day 2022, playing four special teams snaps, and finished the year with three games for the Packers.
The 2023 season was lost entirely to injured reserve. Green Bay waived him in August 2024, Arizona signed him to the practice squad, promoted him to the active roster in January 2025 and released him back down eight days later. Indianapolis signed a reserve/future contract on January 15, 2025, re-signed him on March 20, 2026, released him at cuts that August, brought him back to the practice squad the same day and promoted him to the active roster on September 8, 2026. Through four seasons he had seven games played and no starts. He is still employed, which for a 6-8 developmental tackle drafted 209th is itself a small achievement, but the swing-tackle job that the draft profile projected has never arrived.