Neil
Farrell.
Neil
Farrell.
LSU· 6'4"· 330 lb· 5.41s 40
"A 330-pound two-gap nose who ate double teams for five years at LSU and finally disrupted as a senior, arriving in a league that pays interior linemen to rush the passer instead."Pre-draft read
Farrell was a 6-4, 330-pound nose tackle who existed to occupy blockers. He played with a wide base and heavy hands, anchored against double teams without giving ground, and cleared the A gaps so LSU's linebackers could run free. His best reps were the ones that never showed up in a box score.
The pass rush was a bonus rather than a plan. He had enough power to collapse a pocket on a straight bull rush and finished his senior year with 9.5 tackles for loss, but the get-off was slow and he had no counter once the initial push stalled. He also played a lot of snaps for a man his size, which was the argument in his favor: conditioning and effort at 330 pounds. The signature was mass and anchor, not disruption.
An even-front defense that wants a true zero or one-technique to eat double teams on early downs and keep linebackers clean against the run.
Year 1: early-down run stuffer in a rotation of four interior linemen. Ceiling: starting nose on a run-first defense that never asks him to rush third down.
A one-gap penetrating front that asks interior linemen to get up the field and win as pass rushers, where his slow get-off is exposed on every snap.
Neil Farrell Jr. 2019-2020 Highlights, LSU
Two-year cut-up including the national championship season, built around anchor reps against double teams.
Neil Farrell Jr. // Defensive Line // 2022 NFL Draft
Pre-draft film study of the senior year that produced 9.5 tackles for loss and second-team All-SEC.
Neil Farrell Jr. Highlights, Welcome to Las Vegas
Draft-day reel framing the run-stuffing role the Raiders drafted him to fill.
Farrell was a five-year LSU player who grew into the job. He appeared sparingly as a freshman, contributed on the 2019 national championship defense with 46 tackles and three sacks, and then delivered his best season as a fifth-year senior in 2021 with 9.5 tackles for loss, two sacks and second-team All-SEC recognition.
The evaluation was straightforward and positional. He was a true nose tackle in a league drifting toward lighter, quicker interior fronts, a two-gap anchor who made the players around him better without producing numbers of his own. The 2021 tape showed a player who had added pass-rush snaps and still done his primary job, and PFF named him a first-team All-American that fall, a nod to how he graded against the run.
The questions were age and ceiling. He turned 24 during the pre-draft process, he tested as a heavy mover, and the modern pass-rush premium made a two-down nose a Day 3 commodity no matter how well he played the run. Las Vegas took him at 126 as a rotational body for early downs.
- 01
Anchor strength
At 330 pounds he absorbed double teams without losing ground, the core requirement of a two-gap nose and the reason he stayed on the field.
- 02
Heavy hands
He landed first and locked out, controlling a blocker's frame and shedding late to make the tackle inside the box.
- 03
Senior-year disruption
His 9.5 tackles for loss in 2021 were a genuine jump for a nose tackle and earned second-team All-SEC honors.
- 04
Snap-count conditioning
He handled a large workload for his size across a full SEC season, an underrated separator among big-bodied interior linemen.
- 05
Experience and toughness
Five years in the LSU program, including the 2019 national championship defense, with the physical style to match the résumé.
- 01
Pass-rush ceiling
Beyond the bull rush he had no plan, and a nose tackle without counters becomes a two-down player in a passing league.
- 02
First-step quickness
The get-off was slow, letting guards and centers get into his chest before he could work the gap he was assigned.
- 03
Positional value
Two-gap nose tackles are the least-paid interior role in the modern NFL, which capped his draft value regardless of how he played.
- 04
Age curve
He entered the league at 23 with limited developmental runway, meaning the player teams saw in 2021 was close to the finished product.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.41sp50
- Vertical
- 21.5inp50
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- 8.41sp50
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | LSU | 15 | 46 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | LSU | 10 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | LSU | 12 | 45 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Career | — | 37 | 116 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The 2020 and 2021 lines are verified on cfbstats (LSU team 365, player 1087393): 10 games with 25 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and one sack in 2020, and 12 games with 45 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss and two sacks in 2021. The 2019 national championship season comes from the published LSU line of 46 tackles, seven tackles for loss and three sacks in 15 games. His 2017 and 2018 seasons are not published on cfbstats and the available secondary sources contradict each other on games and tackles, so they are excluded rather than estimated; the career line here is the verified three-season total of 37 games, 116 tackles, 19.0 tackles for loss and 6.0 sacks. Passes defended, forced fumbles and recoveries are left unverified for 2019.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational interior body who holds a roster spot without becoming a defining piece.
Two-gap anchor who lasts a decade as a starting nose on run-first defenses.
Heavy nose whose lack of pass-rush value keeps him cycling through practice squads.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He bounced. Las Vegas played him in nine games as a rookie in 2022 with no starts, then traded him to Kansas City in August 2023, where he appeared in three games and picked up a Super Bowl ring for LVIII without ever holding a rotational role. Kansas City released him in August 2024, Miami signed him to the practice squad in September, elevated him twice, promoted him in November and released him again in December. He played seven games for the Dolphins in 2024, finished the year with 65 defensive snaps and a 30.3 PFF grade, and left the NFL after 19 career games and 15 total tackles. By 2026 he was starting on the defensive line for the UFL's St. Louis Battlehawks.
In hindsight this is what a Day 3 nose tackle usually looks like. The run-defense skill was real and the league simply did not need it at the price of a roster spot, because teams now ask their interior linemen to rush the passer on third down and Farrell never could. Nothing about the evaluation was a miss; the position was the miss. A fourth-round pick bought three seasons of emergency depth and a Super Bowl ring earned mostly from the sideline.