Vederian
Lowe.
Vederian
Lowe.
Illinois· 6'5"· 314 lb· 5.22s 40
Lowe is a 6-foot-4 5/8, 314-pound left tackle whose value starts with 35 3/8-inch arms and a 6-foot-11 7/8 wingspan. He plays with that length: in pass protection he gets his hands on the rusher's frame first and rides him past the pocket rather than trying to mirror him.
In the run game he is a positional blocker who seals a lane and stays attached, more reliable than dominant. The athletic profile is average at best — a 5.22 forty, a 4.71 short shuttle and a 7.83 three-cone, with a 25 1/2-inch vertical that tells you how much lower-body explosion there is. But he started 52 games over five seasons at Illinois, a school record, and never came off the left side. Availability and length were the pitch, not upside.
A gap-scheme run game that asks him to seal a lane rather than reach a defender in space, with pass protection help available against speed off the edge.
Year 1: developmental swing tackle and jumbo package blocker. Ceiling: full-season starter at either tackle spot on a run-first line.
A wide-zone offense that needs the tackle to reach the play-side defender and climb to the second level on every snap.
Length plus 52 college starts is a floor most late-round tackles never have.
Illini Football | Vederian Lowe 2022 NFL Draft
School-produced draft feature covering his five years at left tackle.
Illini's Vederian Lowe grades out best in the nation
Local report on his 2021 grading, with game footage.
Vederian Lowe | New England Patriots | Offensive Tackle | Highlights & Analysis
Breakdown of the pass sets after he took over the left tackle job in New England.
Lowe grew up in Rockford, Illinois and played at Auburn High School before staying in state for the Fighting Illini. He did not wait his turn. He started seven of the eight games he played as a true freshman in 2017, which almost never happens at left tackle in the Big Ten.
From there it was five straight years on the blind side. He started all twelve games in 2018 and all thirteen in 2019, then earned honorable mention All-Big Ten in both the COVID-shortened 2020 season, when he started all eight games, and in 2021, when he started eleven. He finished with 52 career starts, the most in school history.
Off the field, the file was as unusual as the durability. He married his wife Haylee and had two sons during college, and in 2021 he gained legal guardianship of his fourteen-year-old brother, Vydalis Cockrell. Scouts saw the length and the games played and the testing that suggested a backup ceiling. Minnesota took him 184th overall to develop behind two established tackles.
- 01
Arm length
35 3/8-inch arms and a 6-foot-11 7/8 wingspan, the exact measurement that keeps a tackle on the left side in the NFL.
- 02
Durability
52 career starts at left tackle, a school record at Illinois, with no missed time for injury across five seasons.
- 03
Experience
started seven games as a true freshman in the Big Ten and never gave the job back, facing top competition weekly.
- 04
Pass-protection technique
uses the length to land first and steer rushers around the pocket rather than mirroring with his feet.
- 05
Anchor strength
22 bench reps with the mass to absorb a bull rush, holding the depth of the pocket against power.
- 01
Athletic testing
a 5.22 forty, 4.71 short shuttle and 7.83 three-cone, all below the line for a starting NFL tackle.
- 02
Explosion
a 25 1/2-inch vertical and 8-foot-3 broad jump, poor lower-body pop that limits his movement in the run game.
- 03
Speed rushers
the foot speed does not recover when he is beaten off the snap, so the corner is where he is exposed.
- 04
Run-game finish
a positional blocker who seals rather than displaces, with little movement created at the point of attack.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.22sp50
- Vertical
- 25.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 99inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.83sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.71sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Illinois | 8 |
| 2018 | Illinois | 12 |
| 2019 | Illinois | 13 |
| 2020 | Illinois | 8 |
| 2021 | Illinois | 11 |
| Career | — | 52 |
Offensive linemen have no box score, so this table carries games and starts only. Games played come from the Sports-Reference games table with the bowl included in 2019 and sum exactly to its 52-game career total; starts come from The Football Database, which lists 51 and matches game-by-game. Minnesota's own draft profile credits him with 52 career starts and twelve in 2021 rather than eleven, the school-record figure Illinois publicized, so the two counts differ by one game. He was honorable mention All-Big Ten in 2020 and 2021. No statistical seasons are omitted — he played and started from his true freshman year forward.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Journeyman tackle who starts wherever he lands and earns real money in free agency.
Long left tackle whose pass protection carries him to a multi-year starting job on the blind side.
Big-framed swing lineman who fills in at both spots without holding a job long term.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
This is what a sixth-round pick is supposed to become. Minnesota redshirted him in practice terms, playing him in four games as a rookie, then traded him to New England on August 28, 2023 for a sixth-round pick in the 2024 draft.
The job found him almost immediately. After a Trent Brown injury he made his first career start at left tackle on Sunday Night Football against Miami in Week 2, and he appeared in eleven games with eight starts that season. The 2024 season was his best: fourteen games, thirteen starts, and a four-yard touchdown catch from Drake Maye against the Rams after lining up as an eligible receiver. He played all seventeen games in 2025 with four starts as the line reshuffled around him. On March 12, 2026 he signed a two-year, $12 million contract with San Francisco. Forty-seven games, 25 starts and an eight-figure free agent deal from a player taken 184th overall — the swing tackle role is exactly the outcome the pick was priced for, and he beat it.