Zachary
Thomas.
Zachary
Thomas.
San Diego St.
Thomas is a 6-foot-4 7/8, 308-pound tackle whose calling card was cleanliness. He played both sides at San Diego State, finishing his career with seventeen starts at right tackle, twelve at left and two at right guard, and committed only three penalties across his final two seasons.
The pass sets are patient and the hands are placed rather than thrown: three sacks allowed in 382 pass-blocking chances at left tackle as a senior. What he lacks is the athletic profile. A 4.96 forty, a 22.5-inch vertical and a 7.40 three-cone are bottom-tier numbers for a tackle. He wins with timing and leverage, not recovery burst, which is the trait NFL edge speed exposes.
A gap and duo run game with tight down blocks and quick-game protections, where a lineman works in phone booths instead of protecting an island against speed.
Year 1: the seventh lineman who can cover three spots. Ceiling: a spot starter at guard or right tackle in a quick-throw offense.
A dropback offense that leaves him alone in seven-step sets against a designated speed rusher off the edge.
The technique projects; the feet decide where he can use it.
SDSU Football: Zachary Thomas selected by Chicago in 6th round of NFL Draft
School's draft-day feature with senior-season left tackle tape.
Tailgating with Zach Thomas and Cam Thomas — SDSU NFL Draft Prospects
Pre-draft interview covering the position switch and the 2018 knee injury.
2020 San Diego State Offensive Line Hype Video
The Joe Moore honor-roll line he started for at right tackle in 2020.
Thomas grew up in Carlsbad, California, twenty minutes up the coast from campus, and stayed home to play for San Diego State. He redshirted, worked as a reserve in 2017 and entered 2018 as the projected starting right tackle — then tore his ACL in the third game of that season, his second straight start, and missed the entire 2019 spring.
He came back as the backup left tackle in 2019, took over at right tackle five games in and started the final nine of the twelve games he played. The COVID-shortened 2020 season was his breakout: eight starts at right tackle, 556 of the team's 560 offensive snaps, two sacks allowed in 220 pass plays, zero penalties, second-team All-Mountain West and a spot on a line that made the Joe Moore midseason honor roll.
As a senior he moved to left tackle, started twelve of thirteen games — he missed Air Force with an injury and came off the bench the next week — and was voted first-team All-Mountain West by coaches and media, PFF's Mountain West first team, and a team captain. PFF graded him the 16th-best offensive lineman in FBS. He was 24 years old at the combine, and the testing numbers pushed a five-year starter's résumé down to the sixth round.
- 01
Position flexibility
31 career starts split across right tackle, left tackle and right guard, with All-Mountain West honors on both edges.
- 02
Discipline
three penalties in 1,444 snaps over his final two seasons, and zero penalties in 560 offensive snaps in 2020.
- 03
Pass-protection production
three sacks allowed in 382 pass-blocking opportunities at left tackle as a senior, per Pro Football Focus.
- 04
Hand placement
sets with patience and lands inside rather than lunging, which is how a limited athlete survives against speed.
- 05
Durability and leadership
a team captain who played virtually every snap in his last two seasons after the 2018 knee injury.
- 01
Athletic testing
a 4.96 forty, 22.5-inch vertical and 8-foot-11 broad jump put him near the bottom of the position's athletic thresholds.
- 02
Recovery ability
a 7.40 three-cone means that once an NFL edge rusher wins the corner, there is no burst to get back in front of him.
- 03
Age
he turned 24 before the draft after six years on campus, so there is very little projection left in the body.
- 04
Level of competition
Mountain West edge rushers, with the speed on the outside a full tier below what he would face on Sundays.
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | San Diego St. | 3 |
| 2019 | San Diego St. | 12 |
| 2020 | San Diego St. | 8 |
| 2021 | San Diego St. | 13 |
| Career | — | 36 |
Offensive linemen have no box score, so these games and starts come from San Diego State's official player bio, which details each season individually: 2018 ended after three games with a torn ACL on his second straight start, 2019 was twelve games with the final nine started at right tackle, 2020 was eight starts in eight games at right tackle, and 2021 was twelve starts in thirteen games at left tackle after he missed Air Force with an injury. He redshirted in 2016 and was a reserve in 2017 with no starts, so those years are not listed. The career start total of 31 matches the bio's own positional breakdown — seventeen at right tackle, twelve at left tackle and two at right guard — and the same bio's summary line of 41 starts does not reconcile with either its season detail or that breakdown, so the verified figure is used.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Backup tackle who moves around the league on one-year deals and fills in when needed.
Heavy-footed swing lineman who carves out years of real starts through versatility.
Developmental tackle who never sticks past a practice squad or a final roster cut.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Chicago took him 186th and waived him at the end of his first training camp on August 31, 2022, then kept him on the practice squad. The Rams signed him off that practice squad in November and he spent two seasons in Los Angeles, released once in November 2023, re-signed three days later, and given a reserve/future deal in January 2024.
From there the waiver wire took over. New England claimed him in August 2024 and waived him in November; Houston claimed him the next day and he appeared in six games to finish the year. The Texans re-signed him for 2025 and cut him at the end of camp. Indianapolis added him to the practice squad in December 2025 and released him two weeks later. The Houston Gamblers drafted him in the 2026 UFL draft; San Francisco signed him to a futures deal and waived him with an injury designation in July; Tennessee signed him days later and cut him at the end of August. Seventeen NFL games, zero starts — the athletic limits that dropped him to the sixth round decided the career.