Phidarian
Mathis.
Phidarian
Mathis.
Alabama· 6'4"· 310 lb
"Five years behind Alabama's assembly line of first-round linemen ended with one dominant senior season; the question at pick 47 was whether that season was the floor or the whole story."Pre-draft read
Big-bodied interior anchor who spent five years at Alabama learning to play every technique from a 0 to a 4i. He is a two-gap first, penetrate-second defender: he stacks the blocker, works his hands to a half-man and closes on the ball once the play declares. Nick Saban trusted him to hold the middle against SEC power run games on early downs.
The pass rush is push-the-pocket power rather than quickness, and his best senior reps came collapsing the interior on straight bull rushes. He is a heavy, grinding athlete, not an explosive one, and his fifth-year jump from 1.5 sacks to 9.0 came from technique and snap volume rather than a new gear. The separator is durability of effort: he never came off the field in Alabama's biggest games.
Two-gap or hybrid front that asks its interior defenders to control blocks on early downs and rotate out in obvious passing situations
Year 1 early-down run-down interior on 25-30 snaps in a rotation; ceiling is a starting base nose who anchors a top-10 run defense
An attacking one-gap front that asks its three-techniques to shoot gaps and generate interior pressure on 60 percent of snaps
Value comes from run-down snaps and rotation depth, not from pass-rush production.
Alabama DL Phidarian Mathis Official Junior Year Highlights
Early-career reps: anchor, hand usage and run defense inside Alabama's front.
Alabama DL Phidarian Mathis Highlights | 2022 NFL Draft
Senior-season cut-up from the 12-TFL, 9-sack breakout year.
Phidarian Mathis Senior Bowl Highlights and NFL Draft Ranking
Senior Bowl week one-on-ones against pro-caliber interior blockers.
Mathis is a 6-foot-4, 310-pound interior defender who took the long road, redshirting behind a loaded Alabama line and only becoming a full-time starter as a fifth-year senior. What he is on tape is a run-first, gap-sound nose or three-technique with real functional strength.
The production finally matched the frame in 2021: 53 tackles, 12 tackles for loss and 9.0 sacks in 15 games, all career highs by a wide margin, on a team that reached the national championship game. The flags are just as clear. Four years of modest output before that season raise the question of how much of the breakout was scheme and how much was him, and the athletic testing was ordinary — a 4.91 shuttle and a 23.5-inch vertical describe a power player without a burst.
Boards had him as a second- to third-round run-stuffing starter with a Senior Bowl week and Alabama pedigree behind him. Washington, needing size inside next to Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne, took him at 47.
- 01
Play strength
sustains at the point of attack against down blocks and doubles, which is why Alabama left him on the field on every early down.
- 02
Gap discipline
five years in Nick Saban's front taught him to hold his assignment and stay square rather than chase penetration out of the run fit.
- 03
Bull rush
converts his mass into pocket push and won his senior-year sacks by walking guards backward into the quarterback's lap.
- 04
Positional range
took snaps from nose to 4i in a pro-style front and understood the calls, so he arrives with no schematic learning curve.
- 05
Production trajectory
his 9.0 sacks and 12 tackles for loss in 2021 came against the toughest schedule in the country, not padded against weak fronts.
- 01
First-step quickness
average get-off means he does not beat interior blockers before they set, so his rush needs time to build.
- 02
Testing profile
a 23.5-inch vertical and 4.91 shuttle confirm the tape: he is heavy-footed and limited in change of direction.
- 03
Late bloomer
one productive season in five years leaves real doubt about whether the 2021 tape is the floor or the ceiling.
- 04
Pass-rush plan
power and effort with no counter; once a guard absorbs the initial charge, he has no second move to win with.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 23.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 109inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.91sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Alabama | 15 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Alabama | 12 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Alabama | 13 | 31 | 1.5 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| 2021 | Alabama | 15 | 53 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 55 | 129 | 10.5 | 0 | 5 | 3 |
2020 and 2021 verified directly on cfbstats (2020: 13 games, 31 tackles, 5.0 TFL, 1.5 sacks, 3 pass breakups, 1 forced fumble; 2021: 15 games, 53 tackles, 12.0 TFL, 9.0 sacks, 2 pass breakups, 1 forced fumble). His 2018 and 2019 cfbstats pages are not published, so those lines come from his season ledger, which credits no sacks in 2018 and 1.0 TFL in 2019. The ledger lists 12 games in 2020 against cfbstats' 13, so the career games figure here (55) is one above the 54 some trackers show. He redshirted in 2017; that year is not counted. Fumble columns for 2018 and 2019 are left blank because the two sources cannot be reconciled against the career forced-fumble total.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational nose who plays early downs, holds the point and comes off the field on third down.
Run-down interior starter who builds a long career on anchor and gap discipline without sack totals.
Powerful college interior whose lack of burst leaves him on the roster fringe in the NFL.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Phidarian Mathis suffered a season-ending injury in his first NFL game as a rookie. He has since returned to play a rotational role on the defensive line for the Washington Commanders.
The NFL career never got started. He tore knee ligaments in the first quarter of his first professional game against Jacksonville in Week 1 of 2022 and went on injured reserve days later, ending his rookie year after one appearance. He came back in 2023 for 10 games and eight tackles, played a career-high 12 games in 2024 with 15 tackles as a rotational body, and never registered an NFL sack in Washington. Released in 2025, he passed through the Jets before signing with Buffalo's practice squad, where he appeared in six games and put up 13 tackles. Four seasons, 29 games, 36 tackles, zero sacks.
It is hard to separate the evaluation from the injury, but the pre-draft concerns hold up. A one-year producer without a first step or a counter move has almost no margin when he loses a full developmental season, and that is exactly what happened: he returned as a depth run-stuffer and stayed one. The pick itself was defensible on need and pedigree; the price was steep for a player whose ceiling was always rotational, and the knee removed the only path to proving otherwise.
Data note: from Indianapolis