Josh
Hayes.
Josh
Hayes.
Kansas St.
"Three national championship rings, three schools, and one honest projection: a core special teams defender who can survive on defense when the zone rules do the thinking."Pre-draft read
Hayes played the boundary and the deep third like a special teams captain who happened to start on defense: physical at the catch point, quick to trigger downhill, first body into every pile. At Kansas State he moved to safety and posted 72 tackles in 13 games from two-high, single-high and box alignments while still covering kicks.
The coverage tape was zone-based feel — reading the quarterback from depth, driving on the dig and the curl, breaking up seven passes as a senior. Man reps were tighter than smooth: he trailed rather than mirrored, and made his living with late hands. The signature was availability and range of assignment, on defense and on all four core teams.
Zone-heavy quarters/Cover 3 defense that values a swing safety-corner and a four-phase special teams core
Year 1: dedicated core special teams player and emergency fourth safety. Ceiling: rotational dime/big-nickel defender who survives 200-300 zone snaps a season.
A press-man secondary that asks its backups to travel with a slot receiver in isolation, or a team with no special teams need at the back end.
Value is in role breadth and coverage-unit reliability, not in coverage upside; deploy him where eyes-on-quarterback zone rules do the work.
Josh Hayes Kansas State Highlights
Senior-year safety tape: downhill tackling, zone triggers and box work in Kansas State 2022 Big 12 title defense.
Josh Hayes, CB, North Dakota State University | 2021 NFL Draft Official Highlights
Boundary corner reps from his All-MVFC seasons at NDSU, including pass breakups and coverage-unit finishes.
Bucs Pick DB Josh Hayes In 6th Round: Full Draft Profile
Draft-night breakdown of the 181st pick, the safety-corner projection and the special teams path to a roster spot.
A six-year college defender with three FCS national championship rings, Hayes arrived in the 2023 class as one of the more experienced bodies in the pool. He started at cornerback for North Dakota State, transferred to Virginia, then landed at Kansas State and moved to safety in his final season. The football identity never changed across three programs: physical, instinctive, dependable, and a genuine special teams weapon.
The production followed the moves. In 2019 he started all 16 games at corner, tallied 59 tackles and 12 passes defended with two interceptions, and made second-team All-MVFC as NDSU led the FCS in passing yards allowed. Virginia never took — three games, one tackle, a lost year. Kansas State restored him: 72 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, seven breakups and a forced fumble on a Big 12 championship team. The flags were age, a body that measured 197 pounds with adequate rather than special length, and a 4.47 pro day that read functional instead of dangerous.
The board treated him as a late Day 3 safety-corner hybrid whose floor lived on teams. Tampa Bay took him at 181 as a coverage-unit body who could be developed on defense — a low-cost bet on a mature, multi-position defender rather than on upside.
- 01
Special teams core
Nine kickoff-coverage tackles in a single NDSU season and four-phase value throughout his career; the clearest NFL translation on his tape.
- 02
Tackling reliability
Wraps and finishes through contact from depth or in the box, 72 stops in his final Kansas State season without the missed-tackle spray common to converted corners.
- 03
Positional flexibility
Started at boundary corner, played free safety, and dropped into the box; three schemes across three programs never slowed his assignment learning.
- 04
Zone instincts
Reads the quarterback from depth and drives on dig and curl routes, producing 12 passes defended in 2019 and seven more as a Kansas State senior.
- 05
Big-game temperament
Started an FCS national title game as a true freshman and played in three championship-winning defenses without a drop in role or effort.
- 01
Man coverage tightness
Trails receivers rather than mirroring them; late hands and delayed transitions show up when he has to carry vertical speed alone.
- 02
Ball production
Two career interceptions across six seasons; he knocks passes down but rarely finishes the catch on takeaway opportunities.
- 03
Age and runway
Turned 24 before his rookie year with no redshirt eligibility left, leaving little developmental margin for a Day 3 defensive back.
- 04
Athletic ceiling
A 4.47 forty at 197 pounds with a 32-inch vertical is functional, not separating, and caps him against NFL slot and vertical assignments.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | North Dakota State | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| 2018 | North Dakota State | 15 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2019 | North Dakota State | 16 | 59 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 1 |
| 2020 | North Dakota State | 6 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2021 | Virginia | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Kansas State | 13 | 72 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 1 |
| Career | — | 68 | 205 | 0 | 2 | 28 | 3 |
NDSU totals from official program season recaps (2020 season played in spring 2021, six games before he left the team); Virginia 2021 and Kansas State 2022 from cfbstats.com (Buccaneers.com cites 71 tackles for 2022; cfbstats game log totals 72 and is used here). Solo/assisted splits, sack and fumble-recovery data are not published for the NDSU seasons and are left null rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- 3x FCS national champion (2017, 2018, 2019)
- Second-team All-MVFC (2019)
- MVFC Defensive Player of the Week (2019)
- Big 12 champion (2022)
The realistic outcome: a converted safety who logs hundreds of teams snaps a year and only sees defense when injuries force it.
The ceiling: a corner-sized defender who turned elite coverage-unit play into a decade-long career and Pro Bowl recognition as a specialist.
The floor: a productive, instinctive college safety whose athletic limits leave him bouncing between practice squads.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Tampa Bay used him exactly as the board projected. As a rookie in 2023 he played all 15 games he was active for on coverage units and finished with 17 tackles and no defensive splash. In 2024 the role grew — 15 games, 35 tackles, three pass breakups and a fumble recovery, with real defensive snaps when the secondary thinned out. In 2025 he appeared in all 17 games, added 15 tackles and a forced fumble, and remained a trusted four-phase teams player. Through three seasons: 47 games, 67 tackles, three breakups, one forced fumble, one recovery and no interceptions. On August 30, 2026, as the Buccaneers cut to 53, he was placed on injured reserve.
In hindsight this is what a well-scouted sixth-round pick looks like when it works at its intended level. Nobody in Tampa Bay drafted Hayes to start, and he never did; what they bought was three seasons of a dependable, versatile coverage body at rookie money, which is a real return at 181. The ceiling questions were correct — the man-coverage limitations and the modest athletic profile kept him from carving out defensive snaps, and the ball production never arrived. He is neither a miss nor a steal: a specialist who repaid the pick in the phase teams draft that late.