Tyreke
Smith.
Tyreke
Smith.
Ohio St.· 6'3"· 254 lb· 4.86s 40
Smith is a 254-pound edge who rushes with hands and leverage rather than bend. He is strongest on the long arm and the push-pull, converting speed into power at the tackle's outside shoulder and collapsing the pocket even when the sack does not land, which is how he led the Big Ten in quarterback hits over his last two seasons.
Against the run he sets a firm edge and holds his gap without giving ground. What he lacks is a finishing burst: a 4.86 forty and a 7.06 three-cone are ordinary for the position, and on tape he arrives a half-step late on the arc. The counter package is thin, so once a tackle absorbs the first move he rarely has a second one ready.
Four-man front that plays its ends heavy on early downs and asks them to two-gap or set a firm edge rather than win one-on-one races to the quarterback.
Year 1: rotational early-down end and special teams body. Ceiling: starting strong-side end who holds the edge and produces pressures rather than sacks.
A speed-rush scheme that lines its ends up wide and asks them to beat NFL left tackles with get-off and bend on obvious passing downs.
His value comes from what he takes away, not from what he finishes.
Ohio State DE Tyreke Smith Highlights
Career reel showing his hand technique, long arm and edge-setting against Big Ten tackles.
Highlights: Ohio State Defensive Lineman Tyreke Smith | 2022 NFL Draft
Conference-produced draft profile cut from his final two Buckeyes seasons.
Tyreke Smith (Ohio State DE #11) vs Maryland (2019)
Single-game all-22 style cut-up of every snap against Maryland.
Smith was a five-star-caliber recruit out of Cleveland Heights who stayed home for Ohio State and never turned the hype into volume. He was a rotational piece behind Chase Young and Nick Bosa early, then dealt with injuries that kept him off the field in the seasons where he was supposed to take over.
The best film came in 2021, when he played ten games, recorded 26 tackles with five tackles for loss and three sacks, and was named second-team All-Big Ten. Four seasons produced 56 tackles and eight sacks, modest numbers for a player of his recruiting profile, though the pressure totals told a better story than the sack column did. Evaluators liked the hands, the strength at the point of attack and the fact that he had beaten Big Ten tackles with technique.
The measurables were the problem. At 6-foot-3 3/8 and 254 pounds with 33 1/4-inch arms, he was a tweener: not long enough to play with power as a base end, not explosive enough at 4.86 to win the edge as a stand-up rusher. The durability file was equally thin. Seattle taking him 158th overall was a developmental swing on the technique and the pedigree, with the hope that a professional strength program would unlock the burst that college never produced.
- 01
Hand technique
a genuinely advanced long arm and push-pull for a college edge, the skill that let him collapse pockets against Big Ten starting tackles.
- 02
Pocket disruption
led the Big Ten in quarterback hits across his final two seasons, pressure production that outpaced his modest eight career sacks.
- 03
Run defense
sets a firm edge and holds his gap against down blocks without surrendering ground, which gives him a floor on early downs.
- 04
Play strength
converts speed to power at contact and walks tackles into the quarterback's lap rather than running himself past the pocket.
- 05
Pedigree and coaching
four seasons inside Ohio State's defensive line room, developed by a program that has produced a first-round edge nearly every cycle.
- 01
Athletic testing
a 4.86 forty and a 7.06 three-cone at 254 pounds leave him without the burst or the bend to threaten an NFL tackle's outside shoulder.
- 02
Production
56 tackles and eight sacks across four seasons at a program that feeds its edge rushers, a thin résumé for a fifth-round investment.
- 03
Tweener frame
33 1/4-inch arms are short for a base end but he is too heavy and too slow to convert into an off-ball or stand-up rusher.
- 04
Durability
injuries limited him repeatedly at Ohio State, including a 2020 season of only seven games, and the pattern followed him into the NFL.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.86sp50
- Vertical
- 34inp50
- Broad jump
- 117inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Ohio St. | — | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Ohio St. | — | 12 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2020 | Ohio St. | 7 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | Ohio St. | 10 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 17 | 56 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 2 |
Season lines from ESPN, cross-checked against cfbstats for 2020 and 2021. The two sources agree exactly on 2021 (26 tackles, 3.0 sacks, 5.0 tackles for loss, 2 breakups, 1 forced fumble). They differ on 2020, where cfbstats lists 8 tackles, 1.0 sack and no forced fumble against ESPN's 9 tackles, 2.0 sacks and 1 forced fumble; ESPN's figures are used because they include the College Football Playoff games. Games played for 2018 and 2019 and tackles for loss for those two seasons are not published in the sources consulted and are left blank, so no career tackles-for-loss total is given.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Developmental end who spends his career cycling between practice squads and the back of a 53-man roster.
Day 3 edge who needs three years but eventually turns technique and power into a productive starting season.
Ohio State edge whose pro career stalls out in rotational snaps and never reaches a defined role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He never got on the field. Seattle placed Smith on injured reserve on August 30, 2022, before he played a professional snap, and his rookie season ended before it began. The Seahawks waived him in September 2023 and re-signed him to the practice squad; Arizona signed him off that practice squad in December 2023, then waived him in August 2024. Seattle brought him back to the practice squad, signed a reserve/future deal in January 2025 and waived him again that August.
Kansas City signed him to its practice squad in August 2025 and promoted him to the active roster on Christmas Eve, where he finally recorded his first NFL statistic: one tackle. The Chiefs waived him again at 2026 final cuts and re-signed him to the practice squad the next day. Five seasons, six roster transactions a year and a single career tackle. The durability flag in his file turned out to be the whole story, and the technique that made him a draftable edge never got a healthy runway.