Jake
Witt.
Jake
Witt.
Northern Michigan· 6'7"· 302 lb· 4.89s 40
"A college basketball player who took up football at 20, moved to left tackle mid-game in 2021, and tested his way into the seventh round with one of the best athletic scores ever recorded at the position."Pre-draft read
Witt is a basketball body playing offensive tackle, and every snap looks like it. He is 6-7 with long arms and a short, quick first step in his kick slide, and he covers ground to the corner faster than the edge rushers he faced at the Division II level could test. In space he climbs to linebackers and runs screens like the converted tight end he is.
The technique is where the résumé shows. He plays tall, his hands arrive late and wide, and he leans into contact instead of anchoring through his hips, so power tips him into the pocket. Against speed-to-power he has almost no counter beyond his own length. The run game is more comfortable — he can reach a shade and wall off a backside defender — but the finishing strength is not there yet.
Zone-based run game that lets him move laterally and reach-block rather than a power scheme that asks him to displace a defensive tackle at the point of attack.
Year 1: developmental swing tackle who never dresses. Ceiling: athletic backup left tackle in a wide-zone offense.
Gap-heavy power offense that demands he anchor in a phone booth against a nose-heavy front, or an offense that needs him ready in year one.
He is a project whose value depends entirely on landing with a line coach who is paid to develop rather than to win the next Sunday.
Witt is one of the most unusual profiles of the 2023 class. He played college basketball at Michigan Tech, transferred to Northern Michigan, joined the football team as a tight end, and moved to left tackle in the middle of a 2021 game. He had roughly two seasons of real football on his résumé when NFL scouts started showing up.
The pro day is what made him a draft pick. Not invited to the combine, Witt ran 4.89 in the 40, jumped 37 inches vertically and 10 feet 3 inches in the broad, and posted a 9.92 Relative Athletic Score — the 11th-best mark among offensive tackles in the RAS database dating to 1987. Those are numbers that force a scout to book a second trip.
The evaluation was a pure traits bet. Division II competition, a two-year sample, and a technique file that had barely been started meant nobody was projecting a starter. The pitch was simple: take the frame and the movement in the seventh round, redshirt him behind an offensive line coach who likes projects, and see what two development years produce.
- 01
Athletic testing
He ran 4.89 in the 40 at 302 pounds with a 37-inch vertical and a 10-foot-3 broad jump, producing a 9.92 Relative Athletic Score.
- 02
Length and frame
At 6-7 with basketball arms, he can win the leverage race on the edge simply by getting his hands on a rusher before the rusher gets to his chest.
- 03
Movement in space
He climbs to linebackers, pulls on screens, and runs with the ball carrier like the tight end he was two years earlier.
- 04
Kick slide quickness
His first step off the snap covers real ground, which is why speed rushers never threatened his outside shoulder at his level.
- 05
Upside
With two seasons of football total, nearly every technical rep he had ever taken was recent, meaning the development curve was still steep.
- 01
Anchor
He plays tall and absorbs power through his chest instead of his hips, so bull rushes push him straight back into the quarterback.
- 02
Hand technique
His strikes arrive late and outside the frame, letting defenders into his pads and turning first contact into a losing rep.
- 03
Level of competition
Division II edge rushers rarely tested him with a plan, so the tape never answered how he handles a real counter move.
- 04
Experience
He converted from tight end mid-season in 2021 and had roughly two years of football, meaning almost every situational rep was new to him.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.89sp50
- Vertical
- 37inp50
- Broad jump
- 123inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Northern Michigan | — | 6 | 79 | — |
| 2022 | Northern Michigan | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | — | — | — | — |
Northern Michigan is a Division II program and cfbstats does not publish per-season splits for its linemen; only his tight end receiving work in 2021 is documented.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- First Northern Michigan player drafted since 1991
- 2023 pro day: 4.89 forty, 37-inch vertical, 10-foot-3 broad jump
- 9.92 Relative Athletic Score, 11th-best among offensive tackles since 1987
Big, long swing tackle who survives as a backup because of size and effort rather than technique.
The upside version of the frame and movement skill if the hand technique and anchor ever caught up to the athleticism.
Pure traits project from outside the pipeline whose career never gets past the developmental designation.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Witt never played an NFL regular-season snap. A hip injury cost him the entire 2023 season on injured reserve, and after Indianapolis waived him in August 2024 he turned down practice-squad opportunities and retired. He now works as a health and wellness coach in Michigan.
This is the archetype of a seventh-round swing, and it is worth being honest about what that means. Witt was not drafted because of what he did on tape against Division II edge rushers. He was drafted because of what his body did at a pro day in Marquette and because the tools — length, bend, straight-line speed at 302 pounds — cannot be coached into a player who does not have them.
The other half of that bet is the part nobody likes to write down: development bets need time and health, and he got neither. A hip injury put him on season-ending injured reserve in August of his rookie year, wiping out the one season a project like this actually needs. Indianapolis released him during 2024 cuts and he chose to retire rather than take practice-squad offers, walking away from football at 24 after starting the sport at 20. The pick was defensible; the outcome was decided by circumstance more than by evaluation.