Nick
Hampton.
Nick
Hampton.
Appalachian St.· 6'2"· 236 lb· 4.58s 40
"A speed-first stand-up rusher who timed snaps better than anyone on Appalachian State's front, turned 41 career tackles for loss into a Day 3 grade, and needed mass he never added."Pre-draft read
Hampton played as a stand-up rusher on the edge of Appalachian State's odd front, aligned wide on passing downs and dropped into an off-ball spot in base. He wins first with get-off: he times the snap, threatens the outside shoulder in three steps and forces tackles to overset, then flattens to the quarterback with a swipe underneath. Low pad level lets him play beneath the punch.
Against the run he is a chase-and-spill defender rather than a point-of-attack anchor, running the arc and finishing from the back side. Coverage drops and stunt work add value because his straight-line speed travels. The separator is burst-to-finish: most of his 27.5 career sacks came from beating an edge clean, not from converting speed into power.
Odd-front defense that lets him rush from a wide stand-up alignment on passing downs and hides him from base-down run duty.
Year 1: designated third-down speed rusher and core special-teamer. Ceiling: rotational sub-package edge who plays 300-400 pass-rush snaps.
A four-man front that asks him to set a two-gap edge on early downs against tight ends and pullers, where his frame gets moved and his snaps disappear.
His value is entirely in known passing situations; the more a defense can script his usage, the higher the payoff.
Nick Hampton 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Report
Full pre-draft breakdown of the App State edge rusher's get-off, bend and run-defense limits.
Nick Hampton vs. Marshall (2021)
Every-snap cut from his 11-sack junior season against Marshall.
Nick Hampton vs. Georgia State
Senior-year game reel showing the speed-to-corner rush and back-side chase.
A four-year Sun Belt riser who arrived as a slim outside linebacker and left as the most disruptive edge player in the league, Hampton is a speed-first rusher whose value is tied to how often a defense can let him pin his ears back. He is not a base end, and he was never asked to be one; he is a designated closer who plays the game leaning forward.
The production curve is the argument. He was a spot contributor as a freshman, took over as a junior with 68 tackles, 17.5 tackles for loss and 11 sacks, then posted 39 tackles, 10.5 for loss and 8 sacks in only nine games as a senior before his season was cut short. That closed with a Senior Bowl invitation and back-to-back first-team All-Sun Belt honors. The flags were just as clear: a frame in the mid-230s, a run game where he gets moved by down blocks, and a rush plan that leaned on one gear.
Boards had him as a Day 3 developmental rusher — a fourth-to-fifth-round grade with a specialist floor and a rotational ceiling, with the debate centered on whether he could add functional mass without losing his burst. At 161 the Rams bought the trait and the special-teams profile rather than a projected starter, which is exactly the right price for a rusher this narrow.
- 01
Get-off and edge speed
Times the snap as well as any Day 3 rusher in the class and forces tackles to open early, which is where every one of his best reps starts.
- 02
Bend around the corner
Plays with low pad level and can flatten under the punch instead of running himself past the pocket on a wide arc.
- 03
Back-side chase
Covers ground laterally in the run game and turns plays that look dead on his side into tackles for loss from behind.
- 04
Sun Belt production
Piled up 41 career tackles for loss and 27.5 sacks, a rate of disruption that never dipped once he became a full-time rusher.
- 05
Positional flexibility
Comfortable dropping from a stand-up alignment and moving on stunts, which keeps him on the field in sub packages and on coverage teams.
- 01
Play strength at the point
In the mid-230s he gets displaced by down blocks and tight ends, and offenses can run straight at his edge to get him off the field.
- 02
One-gear rush plan
Wins early or not at all; the counter package and the conversion of speed to power were both unfinished when he came out.
- 03
Level of competition
The disruption came against Sun Belt tackles, and the tape against better protections was thinner than a projection this athletic wants.
- 04
Availability as a senior
A shortened final season at nine games cost him the reps that would have answered the strength and counter questions.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.58sp50
- Vertical
- 35.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 120inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Appalachian State | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Appalachian State | 11 | 24 | 5.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Appalachian State | 10 | 42 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | Appalachian State | 14 | 68 | 11 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | Appalachian State | 9 | 39 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Career | — | 47 | 175 | 27.5 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
2020-2022 verified line-by-line on cfbstats (regular season plus bowl). 2018-2019 from CFBTrack season ledger (regular season plus postseason), which cfbstats does not host for those years; passes defensed, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries are not published for 2018-2019 and are left null rather than zero-filled. Season tackles (2+24+42+68+39=175), TFL (41.0) and sacks (27.5) reconcile with the CFBTrack career snapshot. Games sum to 47; the App State bio published during 2022 lists 49 career games and 26.5 sacks, a discrepancy left unresolved rather than smoothed over. No career interceptions or fumble recoveries were found in any source, so those fields are null, not zero.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational sub-package rusher and special-teams contributor who never wins a full-time job but stays employed.
The upside outcome: a light stand-up rusher who adds functional strength and grows into an every-down role.
Speed-only edge whose snaps stay on coverage teams because the rush plan never expands.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The Rams took him as a developmental rusher behind a veteran room and never moved him up the ladder. He played 10 games as a rookie in 2023 with four tackles and lived on kick coverage. In 2024 he appeared in 14 games, finished with one tackle and a pass defensed, and landed on injured reserve in December. In 2025 he was active for 12 games with eight tackles, was waived in December, re-signed to the practice squad, was elevated twice through the playoff run and re-signed in January 2026. He never registered an NFL sack in three seasons, and his defensive snaps stayed on the margins the whole time. Carolina agreed to terms with him in March 2026 as another developmental piece in a reshaped outside linebacker room.
In hindsight, the evaluation was right about what he was and wrong about how quickly the trait would translate. Speed off the edge is the cheapest thing to like on Day 3 tape and the hardest to keep once NFL tackles get their hands on you, and he never added the mass or the counter to survive that first contact. The pick cost the Rams almost nothing and returned special-teams snaps, which is the honest floor of a fifth-round rusher without a plan B.