Micheal
Clemons.
Micheal
Clemons.
Texas A&M· 6'5"· 263 lb
"A junior college transfer who survived a medical redshirt and a lost season to become Texas A&M's defensive MVP, selling power-based edge play rather than a pass-rush ceiling."Pre-draft read
Clemons was a heavy-handed power end for Texas A&M who set the edge before he rushed it. At six-foot-five and 270 pounds he played with violent hands and a wide base, spilling tight ends into the backfield and refusing to get reached on outside zone.
The rush was a long-arm and bull package rather than a speed threat. He converted strength to pressure, led the Aggies in quarterback hurries as a graduate senior and finished plays with genuine finishing strength once he got a hand on the passer. He was also old, tough and durable by the end, having survived a junior college start, a medical redshirt and a season-ending injury. The signature was play strength: nothing he did was easy, but very little got through him.
Four-man front that asks its strong-side end to set a hard edge on early downs and rush with power on passing downs.
Year 1: rotational base-down end and special teams contributor. Ceiling: full-time strong-side starter who plays sixty percent of the snaps.
A wide-nine speed-rush defense that turns its ends loose up the arc and asks them to win with get-off rather than hands.
Micheal Clemons 2021 highlights
The graduate season that made the evaluation: edge-setting, long-arm rushes and eleven tackles for loss.
All Micheal Clemons Texas A&M sacks
Every college sack in one cut, including the career-high three and a half at LSU.
Patience paying off for Texas A&M's Micheal Clemons
Feature on the junior college transfer, the medical redshirt and the road to his captain season.
Clemons took one of the longest roads in the class. He spent a year at Cisco College, transferred to Texas A&M, played as a first-year contributor, lost a season to a preseason foot injury, started nine games as a redshirt junior, then lost most of 2020 to a season-ending injury five games in. He used the extra COVID year and finally put together the season the traits had promised.
That 2021 tape was the evaluation. Ten games, nine starts, 32 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, seven sacks and a team-leading 13 hurries, capped by a career-high three and a half sacks at LSU and a 24-yard fumble return touchdown against Auburn. The Aggies named him defensive MVP and a season captain. The flags were age and profile: he turned twenty-five before his rookie season and the rush was power-dependent, with no bend or counter package to fall back on.
Boards had him as a Day 3 run-defending end with special teams value and a limited pass-rush ceiling. The Jets, rebuilding a front, took him at 117 as a strong-side end who could play immediately on early downs.
- 01
Edge-setting strength
He held up against tight ends and pulling guards without losing ground, which is the base-down trait a strong-side end is drafted to provide.
- 02
Violent hands
He struck first and separated from blocks rather than absorbing them, converting play strength into tackles for loss at the line of scrimmage.
- 03
Long-arm bull rush
His pressure came from collapsing the pocket with power, producing seven sacks and a team-high thirteen hurries as a graduate senior.
- 04
Finishing strength
Once he got a hand on a quarterback he brought him down, which showed in a career-high three and a half sacks at LSU.
- 05
Proven toughness
A junior college start, a medical redshirt and a season-ending injury did not stop him from becoming a captain and team defensive MVP.
- 01
No bend
He could not flatten the arc or dip under a tackle's hands, leaving his rush entirely dependent on winning the strength contest first.
- 02
Age curve
He entered the league at twenty-four with six college seasons behind him, so the team drafting him was buying the present, not a projection.
- 03
Thin production history
One genuinely good season anchored the entire evaluation; the four years before it produced 61 tackles and 5.5 sacks combined.
- 04
Counter package
His rush plan was power then more power, with no reliable inside move when the initial bull got absorbed by an NFL tackle.
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| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Texas A&M | 13 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Texas A&M | 11 | 28 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Texas A&M | 5 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Texas A&M | 10 | 32 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 39 | 93 | 12.5 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
2020 and 2021 verified line by line on cfbstats (Texas A&M team 697, player 1089187); 2017 and 2019 come from the official Texas A&M and Indianapolis Colts bios because cfbstats does not publish those years for this player. Games (39), tackles (93), tackles for loss (21.0) and sacks (12.5) sum exactly to the official career totals. 2018 is deliberately absent: he took a medical redshirt after a preseason foot injury and played no snaps. His 2016 season at Cisco College is excluded because junior college play is outside this data set and is never estimated. Passes defensed, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries in 2017 and 2019 are not published and are left unverified rather than counted as zero; his only career fumble recovery, returned 24 yards for a touchdown against Auburn, came in 2021.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Jets Day 3 edge who becomes a real rotational piece without ever being a featured rusher.
Power end whose hands and bull rush turn into a long run of productive starting snaps.
Late-round edge whose college production never translates into a consistent NFL role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He played all 16 games as a rookie in 2022 with 33 tackles, four tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks, plus three special teams stops, an immediate rotational role. The next four years were a steady, unspectacular career: 16 games in 2023, then all 17 with 17 starts in 2024 for a career-high 33 combined tackles and 4.5 sacks, then 16 games with six starts in 2025. He left New York in free agency and signed with Indianapolis in March 2026, entering his fifth season with 66 games, 111 combined tackles, 8.5 sacks and two forced fumbles.
In hindsight the pick did exactly what the evaluation said it would. He set edges, played every week, took a starting job in year three and never turned into a double-digit-sack rusher because the bend was never coming. For a fourth-round pick that is a clean return: five seasons, 66 games, a starting year and a free-agent contract elsewhere. The age concern that pushed him down boards turned out to be the least relevant thing on the card.