Brodric
Martin.
Brodric
Martin.
Western Kentucky· 6'5"· 330 lb
"Detroit traded up for a body, not a player, and three seasons later Brodric Martin has six NFL games and four tackles to show for the highest bet anyone made on raw mass in the 2023 class."Pre-draft read
Martin is a true nose tackle, a 6-5, 330-pound zero and one-technique whose job is to occupy two blockers and let the linebackers eat. The tool that made him a Day 2 name is raw mass paired with 35-inch arms: he can catch a center, lock out and hold the point without giving ground, and he flashes a heavy long-arm that walks single blockers into the pocket.
The pass rush is a distant second trait. He gets push by leaning on people rather than by winning with hands or timing, and the counters are barely developed. He is quicker off the ball than his frame suggests, but he plays high, tires quickly and needs a rotation to stay effective. The signature is the sheer physical dimension — a body coaches want to develop, not a finished product.
An odd-front, two-gap defense that plays a true nose over the center on base downs and rotates him out on obvious passing situations.
Year 1: rotational base-down nose at 20-25 snaps who eats double teams and keeps the linebackers clean. Ceiling: a starting two-gap nose in a heavy front.
A one-gap penetrating front that asks its interior linemen to win with get-off and rush the passer on third down — he has no counter package and would be substituted out of every clear passing situation.
Value is tied entirely to a defense that still believes in a base-down nose; in a light, sub-heavy scheme there are no snaps for this body type.
Brodric Martin highlights | 2023 NFL Draft
Western Kentucky cutups showing the anchor at the point and the long-arm push.
WKU FB: DT Brodric Martin | Pro Day 3-29-23
Pro day workout that put the size and length on tape for scouts.
Rise and Roar - Brodric Martin
Feature on his Division II origins before the transfer to Western Kentucky.
Martin came into the 2023 draft as the definition of a traits bet. He redshirted at Division II North Alabama, spent three years there as a rotational and then full-time interior lineman, and only landed in the FBS as a 2021 transfer to Western Kentucky. By the time scouts got a real look he was already 23, with two Conference USA seasons of tape and a body that measured out better than almost anyone in the class.
The production never matched the frame. He posted 31 tackles with 4.5 for loss and 2.5 sacks in his first WKU season, then started all 14 games in 2022 for another 31 tackles, 1.5 sacks, seven quarterback hurries and honorable-mention all-conference recognition. His best moments were the Conference USA title game against UTSA and a Shrine Bowl week where he was consistently hard to move. The flags were obvious: pad level, conditioning, hand refinement and a level-of-competition question stacked on top of a late start.
The board had him as a fourth-round developmental nose with a wide range, and Detroit surprised the room by trading up to 96 to get him. Brad Holmes said openly it was a bet on upside rather than production — a two-gap body for a defense that had none.
- 01
Rare physical dimension
A legitimate 6-5, 330-pound frame with 35-inch arms, the kind of mass and length that lets a nose tackle two-gap without giving ground.
- 02
Anchor at the point
Catches centers cleanly, locks out and absorbs double teams, which was the single most consistent thing on his Western Kentucky tape.
- 03
Long-arm strength
Flashes a heavy stab that walks single blockers into the quarterback's lap and creates push without any real hand plan behind it.
- 04
Better first step than expected
Quicker off the snap than the frame suggests, enough to occasionally shoot a gap and blow up a running play in the backfield.
- 05
Ascending trajectory
Improved every year from Division II to Conference USA, then held up against better competition at the East-West Shrine Bowl.
- 01
Pass-rush plan
Wins with mass, not hands; the counters, timing and rush sequencing were essentially undeveloped and produced only four college sacks.
- 02
Pad level
Plays high out of his stance and loses leverage battles to shorter, more compact interior blockers who get under him.
- 03
Conditioning and snap count
Faded in longer drives and needed a rotation, which caps him at roughly 25 snaps a game in a base-down role.
- 04
Age and experience curve
Turned 24 in his rookie season with only two FBS years of tape, leaving little margin if the development took two seasons.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | North Alabama | 10 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | North Alabama | 11 | 43 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | North Alabama | 4 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Western Kentucky | 14 | 31 | 2.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | Western Kentucky | 14 | 31 | 1.5 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 53 | 143 | 6 | 0 | 7 | 1 |
2021-2022 verified line by line against cfbstats.com Western Kentucky pages (14 G, 31 tackles both years; 2021 4.5 TFL / 2.5 sacks / 1 PBU, 2022 1.5 TFL / 1.5 sacks / 2 PBU / 1 FF). North Alabama 2018-2020 is FCS and absent from cfbstats, so those rows come from the school and transfer-era reporting (25 games, 81 tackles, 9.0 TFL, 2.0 sacks, 4 PBU); the per-season PBU split and the 2018/2020 sack splits were never broken out, so they are null rather than zero. He redshirted in 2017, so there is no 2017 row. Season sums match the 53-game, 143-tackle, 15.0-TFL, 6.0-sack career line.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A run-down nose who holds a roster spot on defensive line depth and physical dimension rather than production.
An enormous, high-pad interior body who turned pure mass into a long rotational career and one genuinely productive season.
A heavy interior draft pick whose lack of a pass-rush plan left him off rosters within a couple of seasons.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Brodric Martin appeared in 3 games for the Detroit Lions in his rookie season (2023), recording 1 tackle.
Detroit never got the developmental runway it paid for. Martin appeared in three games as a rookie in 2023 and was inactive for the rest, a healthy scratch behind veterans on a playoff defense. A knee injury in the 2024 preseason put him on injured reserve to open the year; he was activated on November 20 and played two games with a single tackle. On August 26, 2025 the Lions waived him at final cuts, and the rest of the year was a tour: Kansas City's practice squad in August, a Pittsburgh active-roster signing in November, one game, a December release, and a waiver claim by Las Vegas. The Raiders waived him with an injury designation in May 2026, Arizona signed him off a workout on August 1, and he was waived again on August 30. Six regular-season games and four career tackles across three seasons.
In hindsight, this is the cleanest miss of Detroit's 2023 class, and the trade up is what stings. The evaluation was honest about what he was — an old, unrefined, developmental nose who needed two years of coaching to matter — and the price simply did not match that description in a draft where the Lions had already hit on Brian Branch and Sam LaPorta. Nothing about the athletic profile was fraudulent; the pass-rush ceiling, the pad level and the injury luck all broke exactly the way the concerns suggested they might.
Data note: from Arizona