Karl
Brooks.
Karl
Brooks.
Bowling Green
"A combine snub from the MAC who spent five years living in backfields, drafted at 179 on the bet that a first step that good travels even when the frame and the stopwatch say it should not."Pre-draft read
Brooks played the whole width of Bowling Green's front, but his identity was a penetrating three-technique who won before blockers set. The get-off was the trait: a flat, low first step into a guard's outside shoulder before the hand fight started, then quick hand replacement — swipe, chop, long-arm — that kept his chest clean.
The secondary trait was rare change of direction for a 300-pounder. He redirected on scoop blocks, chased zone runs flat down the line, and was trusted at end in odd fronts and as a stand-up rusher. Against the run he disrupted rather than anchored, living in the backfield instead of two-gapping. The signature was the burst: 18 tackles for loss as a senior, most finished a gap from where he started.
Attacking four-man front that lets interior linemen shoot gaps on the snap rather than read-and-react two-gap responsibilities
Year 1: third interior lineman on roughly 25-30 snaps a game as a designated passing-down rusher and core field-goal-block man. Ceiling: a 500-snap rotational piece who produces 4-6 sacks a year without ever needing to be the anchor.
A two-gap 3-4 front that asks him to hold a nose or 5-technique point against double teams on early downs, or a thin depth chart that forces him past 600 snaps as a de facto starter.
His production scales down, not up: the rushes he wins come in short bursts, and every extra early-down snap dilutes the trait that makes him worth keeping.
Karl Brooks Film
Draft-cycle cutup of the get-off and hand replacement that carried his sixth-round grade at Bowling Green.
DE Karl Brooks vs Central Michigan || NFL Draft 2023
Full-game reel of the 3.0-sack afternoon at Central Michigan, including the strip sack returned for a touchdown.
Packers Total Access Film Study - Lukas Van Ness - Karl Brooks - Colby Wooden
Rookie-year film study of his interior rush wins in Green Bay's rotation alongside the 2023 defensive line class.
Brooks arrived at Bowling Green nearly unrecruited out of Lansing Sexton and left the most productive Falcon front-seven player in a generation. He started eight games as a true freshman and every game after that, finishing with 52 appearances and 48 starts, a compact interior rusher whose quickness showed on tape long before a stopwatch.
The production curve was the case. After a three-game 2020 he broke out with 7.5 sacks and 12.5 tackles for loss in 2021, then put up 50 tackles, 18.0 tackles for loss and 10.0 sacks as a 2022 captain, the third-highest single-season sack total in school history. He was first-team All-MAC and PFF's first-team All-American, and the best games traveled: 2.5 sacks at Akron, 3.0 at Central Michigan, 4.0 stops behind the line at Toledo. The flags were familiar: he won with quickness rather than power, he did not anchor against doubles, and no Combine invite left the athleticism untested until a flat pro day.
That combination is why he lasted. Evaluators liked the tape and the versatility; boards discounted the competition, the missing Combine data and a tweener frame. He played in the Senior Bowl, visited Green Bay, and went at 179 to a team that spent premium picks on linemen in back-to-back drafts and wanted one more rusher to win one-on-ones.
- 01
First-step quickness
Wins the snap more than he wins the rep, firing off flat and low into a guard's outside shoulder before the hand fight can start.
- 02
Hand replacement
Swipes, chops and long-arms with real timing, so blockers rarely land clean and he keeps his chest free through contact.
- 03
Backfield production
Posted 18.0 tackles for loss and 10.0 sacks as a senior and 27.5 sacks across 52 career games, output no other MAC interior man matched.
- 04
Positional versatility
Took snaps at three-technique, five-technique and stand-up rusher, which lets a staff move him by down and distance instead of by package.
- 05
Redirect and chase
Changes direction at 300 pounds like a smaller man, running down zone plays laterally and recovering when the first move is absorbed.
- 01
Anchor strength
Gets moved off the spot by combination blocks and does not hold a two-gap point, which caps his early-down snaps in heavy sets.
- 02
Testing profile
Skipped over for a Combine invite and then ran 5.08 with a 26.5-inch vertical at his pro day, numbers that killed the athletic upside argument.
- 03
Level of competition
Most of the dominance came against MAC guards, and his best power-conference tape at Mississippi State was a quiet one-tackle afternoon.
- 04
Frame limitations
Built like a tweener at roughly 6-3 and 296, without the length to convert speed to power or the mass to survive as a true nose.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Bowling Green | 12 | 32 | 3.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | Bowling Green | 12 | 33 | 4.5 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2020 | Bowling Green | 3 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Bowling Green | 12 | 42 | 7.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | Bowling Green | 13 | 50 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| Career | — | 52 | 167 | 27.5 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
2020, 2021 and 2022 verified line by line on cfbstats.com (Bowling Green team 71, player 1094102): 2020 3 G, 10 tackles, 2.5 TFL, 2.0 sacks; 2021 12 G, 42 tackles, 12.5 TFL, 7.5 sacks, 0 PBU, 1 FF; 2022 13 G, 50 tackles, 18.0 TFL, 10.0 sacks, 4 PBU, 2 FF. cfbstats does not archive 2018-2019, so those two lines come from Bowling Green's official bio (2018: 12 games, 8 starts, 32 tackles, 1 forced fumble, team lead in sacks; 2019: 12 games, 12 starts, 33 tackles with 16 solo, 8.5 TFL, 4.5 sacks, 1 interception returned 33 yards, 2 forced fumbles, 1 pass break-up). Season sums reconcile with the published career line: 52 games, 167 tackles, 6 forced fumbles and 27.5 sacks (Packers.com and Packers Wire, 48 career starts). The 2018 sack figure of 3.5 is the balance of the 27.5 career total after the four verified seasons and matches StatMuse's 2018 line. 2018 TFL is left null because career TFL is reported inconsistently (44.5 by CFBTrack, 46.0 by Packers Wire) and the four verified seasons account for 41.5. Passes defended and fumble recoveries are only published for some seasons, so the unreported years are null rather than zero.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
The pre-draft CBS comparison and roughly what he became: a rotational interior rusher who flashes but never wins the early-down job.
The dream version of the archetype: an undersized quick-twitch three-technique whose get-off makes him a full-time starter despite the frame.
The floor Green Bay had already seen: a quick interior rusher who produces early, stalls when the snaps grow, and moves on after the rookie deal.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Green Bay put him inside immediately and the rookie year was the best one. Brooks played all 17 games in 2023, posted 4.0 sacks, two fumble recoveries and 30 pressures as a rotational rusher, becoming the first Packers rookie with four-plus sacks and multiple fumble recoveries since Clay Matthews in 2009. Year two was the special-teams season: 17 games, 3.5 sacks, a blocked field goal that ended the Bears game as time expired, NFC Special Teams Player of the Week honors, and the only multiple-fumble-recovery, forced-fumble, blocked-kick season in the league in 2024. In 2025 injuries along the front pushed him to 618 defensive snaps and seven starts, and the numbers went the wrong way: 27 tackles, 0.5 sacks, 25 pressures, a PFF grade outside the top hundred interior linemen. He enters 2026 on the last year of his rookie deal.
For pick 179 this is a clear win, and it is also a lesson in role. Brooks is a good enough rusher to be worth a rotation spot on any roster and a real special-teams weapon, tied for second in the NFL in blocked field goals since he entered the league. What he is not, exactly as the anchor concerns predicted, is a player who improves when you give him more snaps. Asked to be a starter in 2025, he thinned out. Kept to 30 rushes a game, he is productive. Three teams' worth of sixth-rounders never see the field; this one has played 50 of a possible 51 games.