Isaiah
Mcguire.
Isaiah
Mcguire.
Missouri· 6'4"· 268 lb· 4.76s 40
"A power end with heavy hands and no off switch, whose value shows up on first and second down long before it ever shows up on a stat sheet, and that is exactly why he has kept a job."Pre-draft read
A four-year Missouri defensive end who took most of his snaps with a hand in the dirt at strongside end, McGuire is a power-first edge who wins with heavy, well-timed hands. His best rush is a long-arm bull that stalls the tackle's set point, followed by a violent chop-rip once the blocker over-sets to absorb it.
His second calling card is run defense: he sets a firm edge, stacks and sheds tight ends, and rarely gets displaced when a lead blocker climbs to him. The athletic profile is good rather than special, so pressure comes from length, timing and second effort instead of a first-step advantage. The signature is that he never gives a snap away.
Multiple front that plays base end in a 4-3 over and 5-technique in odd-front looks, with early-down run responsibility and situational inside rushes
Year 1: early-down base end in a three-man edge rotation, 25-35 snaps a game. Ceiling: a full-time starting strongside end who plays 700+ snaps and delivers six to eight sacks with elite run grades.
A wide-9 speed-rush system that asks its ends to win the corner in a straight line on 60 percent pass-rate downs and treats run defense as an afterthought; he would be an ordinary athlete asked to do the one thing he does not do well.
Best used next to an interior penetrator who forces the quarterback to climb into his long-arm.
Isaiah McGuire 2022 Highlights | Missouri EDGE | 2023 NFL Draft Prospect
Senior-year reel: the long-arm bull rush, the chop-rip counter and the edge-setting work against SEC tight ends.
Isaiah McGuire vs Georgia 2022
Full-game cut-up against the best offensive line he faced, useful for judging how the power rush holds up against NFL-caliber tackles.
Draft Expert Analyzes Isaiah McGuire and Dawand Jones of the Browns
Post-draft breakdown of what Cleveland saw at pick 126 and how they projected his role in the rotation.
McGuire is a big-bodied, base-end prospect whose football identity is built around leverage and hand power rather than juice off the ball. He is the kind of defensive lineman coaches trust on early downs first and rush downs second: he holds up against tight ends and pullers, he plays with his eyes on the mesh point, and he stays square long enough to squeeze creases before he goes hunting the ball.
The production curve backs the tape. He was a rotational freshman who barely played, grew into a starter as a sophomore in the shortened 2020 season, then posted back-to-back seasons of double-digit tackles for loss with six sacks in 2021 and 7.5 in 2022, earning second-team All-SEC recognition and 23 consecutive starts on the defensive line. The flag was the pass-rush plan: he leaned heavily on power, his counters arrived late, and his ankle flexibility limited him against tackles who could ride him past the pocket.
The board settled him in the third-to-fourth-round range as a scheme-flexible base end with a real floor and a modest ceiling. Cleveland took him at 126 to add rotational SEC size to a front with heavy-usage starters, betting that his run defense would keep him on the field while the rush developed.
- 01
Hand power
Long-arms and stabs with real pop, jolting tackles onto their heels and creating the separation he needs to disengage on his own terms.
- 02
Run-game anchor
Sets a firm edge against tight ends and down blocks, keeping his outside arm free and rarely losing ground when a puller arrives.
- 03
Power conversion
Turns a compact first step into a bull rush that collapses the tackle's set, which is his most repeatable path to the quarterback.
- 04
Motor and finish
Chases plays across the formation and produced multiple strip-sacks in college by staying alive after the initial rush was walled off.
- 05
Positional versatility
Took reps at defensive tackle in reduced fronts and kicked inside on passing downs without getting swallowed by guards.
- 01
Ankle flexibility
Struggles to flatten and corner tightly at the top of the rush, so athletic tackles can ride him past the pocket on true drop-back downs.
- 02
Rush plan
Counters show up a beat late and the sequencing is repetitive, which lets veteran blockers sit on the long-arm once they have seen it twice.
- 03
First-step quickness
Average get-off for the position means he wins after contact rather than before it, capping his production in obvious passing situations.
- 04
Pad level in space
When asked to loop or play a wide alignment he can rise up and lose the leverage advantage that makes him effective on the line.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.76sp50
- Vertical
- 36.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.39sp50
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Missouri | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Missouri | 10 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | Missouri | 13 | 55 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2022 | Missouri | 12 | 39 | 7.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Career | — | 41 | 116 | 16.5 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Seasons 2020-2022 verified line by line against cfbstats.com (Missouri, player 1104485) and cross-checked with the CollegeFootballData API; 2019 taken from the CFBD season file plus the Missouri bio (six games, four solo tackles). Season tackles sum to 116 and sacks to 16.5, matching the season-by-season ledger. Fumble recoveries are left null outside the confirmed 2021 recovery; nothing unverified is zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Sturdy, high-effort strongside end whose run defense keeps him starting for years without star pass-rush volume.
The version where the power rush becomes a genuine problem and he turns into a 7-9 sack starter.
Late-career shape of the profile: dependable rotational end who fills a role but never carries a front.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cleveland brought him along slowly. He was a healthy scratch for much of his rookie year and played only four games in 2023 behind an established edge room, then took a real step in 2024 with 16 games, three starts, 36 combined tackles, 2.5 sacks and three forced fumbles as a rotational end who could hold up on early downs. In 2025 he opened the season in the rotation, worked his way into eight starts across 17 games and finished with 30 combined tackles, two sacks and another forced fumble. Cleveland kept him on the initial 53-man roster in 2026 as part of an edge group that added a headline veteran, which is the clearest signal of how the staff values his run defense.
In hindsight, this looks like a fourth-round pick that returned exactly what a fourth-round pick should. He never became a double-digit sack threat and the pass-rush plan is still power-dependent, but he has played 37 games, started a dozen, forced four fumbles and outlasted three years of roster churn. That is a hit at this cost, with the honest caveat that the ceiling scouts flagged in 2023 has held: he is a valuable early-down end, not a rush specialist.