Matt
Henningsen.
Matt
Henningsen.
Wisconsin
"A walk-on turned engineering master's holder who started 29 games in the Big Ten without a single elite trait, Matt Henningsen was drafted for exactly what he delivered: two full seasons of base-down snaps nobody had to think about."Pre-draft read
A high-effort, technically sound five-technique who wins with leverage, hand placement and relentlessness rather than with explosion. Henningsen plays the run the way Wisconsin teaches it: square, low pad level, hands inside, squeezing his gap before shedding. He rarely gets washed out and almost never loses contain.
As a rusher he is a converter, not a creator. His first step is average and he does not bend the edge, so his pressure comes from a long-arm that stacks the tackle, from inside counters on stunts, and from chasing plays that other linemen quit on. Three career fumble recoveries, two returned for touchdowns, are the product of that pursuit. He is a base-down interior end in an even front, not a designated third-down rusher.
An even-front defense that plays its ends as base-down run stoppers and rotates in specialists on passing downs.
Year 1: rotational base end on early downs and a core special teams body. Ceiling: full-time two-down starter in an even front.
A wide-9 attacking front that asks its ends to win one-on-one as pure speed rushers.
Everything he is worth happens on first and second down.
Matt Henningsen || Ultimate College Highlights
Four years of base-end work: gap control, long-arm stacks and fumble-recovery touchdowns.
Matt Henningsen First Career Sack | Broncos vs Chargers
October 17, 2022 — the only sack of his NFL career to date.
Matt Henningsen || 2022 Rookie Highlights || Denver Broncos DL
All 17 games as a rookie, almost entirely on early downs.
Henningsen started out as a walk-on and ended up the most decorated academic football player in the country. He became the first Wisconsin walk-on since at least 1990 to start a season opener as a freshman, earning the job against Western Kentucky on August 31, 2018, was put on scholarship during that season, and finished as an NFF National Scholar-Athlete, a William V. Campbell Trophy finalist and a first-team CoSIDA Academic All-American — with a bachelor's and a master's in electrical and computer engineering.
The football resume was real too: 42 games, 29 starts, 91 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, eight sacks and three fumble recoveries, two of which he returned for scores. His final season brought third-team All-Big Ten honors and career highs across the board after a 2020 season effectively lost to two games.
The projection was narrow and honest. At 6-3 3/8 and 289 pounds with 33 1/8-inch arms, he had a pro body and pro technique but no standout athletic trait; his pro day produced a 4.29 shuttle and 7.19 cone, respectable agility numbers that still did not suggest a rush win rate at the next level. Teams saw a Day 3 rotational base end whose floor was unusually high and whose ceiling was firmly capped.
- 01
Gap discipline against the run
square shoulders, inside hands and consistent pad level; he almost never gets displaced or loses the edge on his side of the front.
- 02
Relentless pursuit
three career fumble recoveries with two returned for touchdowns, both created by chasing plays that had already left his area of the field.
- 03
Technical hand usage
a long-arm that stacks tackles and a clean shed, the product of four years of Big Ten starting reps rather than raw strength alone.
- 04
Extraordinary football and academic processing
an electrical engineering master's, a Campbell Trophy finalist, and the defensive line's communicator in Wisconsin's fronts.
- 05
Walk-on pedigree with real production
29 starts, 13 tackles for loss and eight sacks after arriving in Madison without a scholarship.
- 01
No pass-rush win trait
average get-off, no ankle flexion around the corner, and eight sacks in four seasons of heavy snaps against Big Ten tackles.
- 02
Tight-hipped mover in space
he is stiff redirecting on screens and boots, and stunts that ask him to loop wide take too long to arrive.
- 03
Short arms for a base end
33 1/8 inches, which shows up when tackles get into his chest first and he has no length left to reset the block.
- 04
Nearly zero 2020 tape
two games and one start in the COVID season, so the projection leans on 2019 and 2021 without a middle data point.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Wisconsin | 13 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019 | Wisconsin | 14 | 24 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2020 | Wisconsin | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Wisconsin | 13 | 33 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Career | — | 42 | 91 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
Career totals and the 2018-2020 lines come from the official Wisconsin bio (uwbadgers.com/sports/football/roster/matt-henningsen/9646); 2017 was a redshirt year with no statistics and is therefore not listed. The 2021 line is reconciled to those official career totals by subtraction (91-32-24-2 tackles, 13.0-2.5-5.0-0 TFL, 8.0-1.0-4.0-0 sacks). For reference, cfbstats.com lists 34 tackles, 6.0 TFL and 3.5 sacks for that season; the small gap is a scorer discrepancy and the official totals are used here. Fumble recoveries are itemized only for 2019 (two, both returned for touchdowns); the third career recovery is not assigned to a season in the bio, so those cells are left blank.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Day 3 end who holds a roster spot for years on run-down snaps without producing pressure.
Undervalued base end who grew into a full-time starter through technique and motor rather than burst.
Depth interior lineman who bounces between the 53 and the practice squad in the same building.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Denver drafted him 206th overall and got immediate value out of him, which for a sixth-round defensive lineman is uncommon. Henningsen played all 17 games as a rookie with 21 tackles and a sack — his first coming against the Chargers on October 17, 2022 — and all 17 again in 2023 with 19 tackles and two passes defended. Thirty-four regular-season appearances in two years is more than most Day 3 linemen accumulate in a career.
Then the roster math turned. Denver waived him on August 27, 2024, and re-signed him to the practice squad the next day; he added no defensive statistics that season, leaving him at 40 tackles, one sack and two passes defended. He tore his Achilles in a joint practice with the 49ers on August 7, 2025, was designated waived/injured three days later and reverted to injured reserve, wiping out the entire season. The Broncos brought him back on a one-year extension in March 2026 — five years with one organization for a player who cost them a sixth-round pick. He never became a rotational rusher, but he gave Denver two full seasons of dependable base-down snaps and never needed to be replaced in an emergency. That is what this pick was supposed to buy.