Bj
Thompson.
Bj
Thompson.
S.F. Austin· 6'5"· 238 lb· 4.61s 40
"Thompson is the rare Day 3 edge whose length and burst still look like first-round traits on tape, sold at a fifth-round price because the frame and the level of competition demanded two years of patience nobody guaranteed him."Pre-draft read
Thompson was a long, wiry stand-up and hand-in-the-dirt edge for Stephen F. Austin who won with length rather than mass. He aligned as a wide-5 on early downs and walked up over the tackle's outside shoulder in sub packages, using a fast get-off and long first strike to force over-sets. His best rush was a long-arm-to-cross-chop.
The secondary trait was chase. He ran down plays from the backside and finished with strip attempts, which is where the forced fumbles came from. Against the run he spilled and stretched: no two-gap ability, but he set a long edge with his hands. The athletic ceiling was real for a 238-pounder with 37.5-inch pop, and the signature was simple — nobody on the FCS field matched his length off the edge.
Attacking four-man front with wide-9 alignments; a designated sub-package rusher role, not a base every-down end
Year 1: developmental third-down rusher and core special-teamer while adding 15 pounds. Ceiling: 8-to-10-sack rotational speed rusher who plays 400 pass-rush snaps.
A two-gap 3-4 defensive end asked to hold the point at 5-technique on early downs, where his 238-pound frame gets displaced on down-blocks and doubles.
Best used the way Kansas City used its edge room: narrow the job to pinning ears back, and let the length work in a designed rush plan.
BJ Thompson Highlights - Welcome to the Kansas City Chiefs
College edge-rush reel: long-arm wins, corner flattening and strip attempts at Stephen F. Austin.
Jason Lamb: "(BJ Thompson) is a freaky athlete" | 2023 NFL Draft
Chiefs scouting staff explains the length-and-explosiveness bet behind the 166th pick.
2023 NFL Draft: B.J. Thompson | Kansas City Chiefs
Draft-night profile covering the Baylor-to-FCS path and the developmental projection.
A two-school, six-year edge with an unusual frame. Thompson began at Baylor, played sparingly across 2017 and 2018, then transferred down to Stephen F. Austin and grew into the Lumberjacks' best defensive player. He is built like a basketball wing who learned to rush the passer, and his identity is speed-to-power at the top of the arc rather than anything won with mass or leverage.
The production curve tells the story. He broke out in the 2020 COVID season with 28 tackles, 8.5 for loss and 6.0 sacks in ten games, then peaked in 2021 with 12.5 for loss and 9.5 sacks. His 2022 tape was better than his 25-tackle, 5.0-sack line because he drew far more attention, and he still ripped three forced fumbles and returned a fumble for a score. The flags were obvious: FCS competition, a 238-pound playing weight, and wins that came in bursts.
The board read him as a developmental traits swing. Most public rankings had him in the fourth-to-sixth-round band, and Shrine Bowl week plus a 4.61 forty with a 37.5-inch vertical kept him on the radar. Kansas City taking him at 166 fit how they drafted the position — bet on length, add weight in-house.
- 01
Length off the edge
At 6-foot-5 with 34-plus-inch arms, he stacked FCS tackles at the top of the rush and kept his chest clean with a long-arm that stalled anchor points before they could set.
- 02
First-step burst
His get-off was elite for the level, and he consistently forced tackles into a hurried vertical set, which opened the inside counter he leaned on for most of his sacks.
- 03
Bend and flatten
He had real ankle flexion and could turn the corner without losing speed, finishing with a lean rather than running himself up the field past the pocket.
- 04
Ball-disruption habits
Three forced fumbles as a senior and a 20-yard fumble return touchdown; he rushed with his eyes on the football and attacked the throwing arm on strip chances.
- 05
Athletic testing profile
4.61 forty, 1.57 ten-yard split, 37.5-inch vertical and a 7.06 three-cone at his size gave him the pure explosiveness NFL edge development is built on.
- 01
Play weight
He was listed in the 235-to-243 range and got moved on down-blocks and doubles; he needed real mass before he could hold up on early downs against NFL tackles.
- 02
Level of competition
His breakout production came in the Southland and WAC against FCS tackles who could not answer his length, and that context inflated the raw sack totals.
- 03
Anchor versus power
Once tackles got into his frame he ran out of grip strength, and he too often got walked past the quarterback's launch point on power sets.
- 04
Rush plan depth
He leaned on speed and the long-arm; the secondary counters, inside spin and two-way go were undeveloped, so a tackle who took away the corner could erase him.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.61sp50
- Vertical
- 37.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 125inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.06sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.46sp50
- Bench
- 13repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Baylor | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Baylor | 9 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Stephen F. Austin | 10 | 28 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Stephen F. Austin | 12 | 26 | 9.5 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 2022 | Stephen F. Austin | 11 | 25 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Career | — | 43 | 95 | 24.5 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
Baylor 2017-18 from Sports-Reference/StatMuse career table; SFA 2020-22 from Stephen F. Austin official cumulative statistics PDFs (2022 line corroborated by SFA's 12/20/2022 FCS All-America release). He did not play in 2019 after transferring. Baylor pass breakups are unverified and left null, so career PD is null.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Developmental Day 3 speed rusher who needed multiple years before earning a real sub-package role.
Long, light edge who added functional weight and turned burst-and-bend into a full-time starting job.
Toolsy long-levered edge whose frame and rush plan never caught up to the traits.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Kansas City redshirted him in practice more than on paper. Thompson spent his 2023 rookie season buried behind a deep edge room, was inactive for nearly the whole year, and appeared in exactly one regular-season game — Week 18 at the Chargers, 44 total snaps, three tackles — before riding out a Super Bowl LVIII run as a healthy scratch. The plan was clear enough: add weight, learn the rush package, compete for a rotational job in year two. Then, on June 6, 2024, he suffered a seizure and cardiac arrest in a team meeting. He was placed on the reserve/non-football-illness list in August, missed the entire 2024 season, remained on NFI through the spring and was released in 2025. He signed with Calgary in the CFL that September and spent the rest of the year on the practice roster, then caught on with Edmonton in May 2026 before being released in final cuts.
Grading this one on football terms alone feels beside the point. The pre-draft evaluation was basically right: a long, explosive FCS edge who needed two years in an NFL weight room before anyone could judge him, taken at the exact spot in the draft where that bet belongs. He never got those two years. What we know is that he survived something most people do not, and that the football part of the story stopped before it could produce an answer. As a pick, it did not return value; as an evaluation, it was never falsified.