Robert
Beal.
Robert
Beal.
Georgia· 6'4"· 247 lb· 4.48s 40
"A five-star edge who spent five years at Georgia as a third-down luxury item — all get-off and no résumé, drafted on the hope that a wide-nine coach could finally make the burst count."Pre-draft read
Beal was Georgia's designated pass-rush specialist, a stand-up outside linebacker in Kirby Smart's odd fronts who played most of his snaps on obvious passing downs. The calling card is get-off: an explosive first step and a long, loose stride that lets him win the edge before a tackle can set, confirmed by a 4.48 forty at 6-4 and 247 pounds.
The secondary trait is a rip-and-dip under the outside shoulder; he bends well enough to flatten and finish, and he plays with active hands when the plan is simple. Against the run he is a fringe player who gets displaced by tight ends and down blocks. The athletic ceiling is high, the tape is uneven, and the signature is a single burst that turns a mediocre rep into a pressure.
Wide-nine four-man front that asks edges to pin their ears back on passing downs, with a designated run-down rotation to cover for him
Year 1: the fourth edge and a core special-teamer, 12-18 pass-rush snaps a game as a designated speed rusher. Ceiling: a 500-snap rotational starter who produces 6-8 sacks a year if he adds a functional power counter.
A two-gap or heavy 5-technique front that asks him to set a firm edge against tight ends on early downs, or a rotation that requires every end to play all three downs.
His value lives entirely in obvious passing situations; a staff that cannot protect him on first and second down will not keep him on the field.
Robert Beal Jr Highlights
Draft-cycle cutup of the get-off and the rip-and-dip under the tackle's outside shoulder that carried his fifth-round grade.
Robert Beal 2022 Georgia Highlights
Senior-season reel from Georgia's second straight title run, including the pressure volume that outran his three-sack stat line.
UGA Study: Y'all should've NEVER AWAKEN EDGE Robert Beal!!
All-22 style breakdown of his rush wins and the run-defense reps that kept him off the field on early downs.
A five-star recruit who spent five years at Georgia without ever locking down a starting job, Beal came out as a traits-first pass rusher rather than a proven producer. He is a length-and-burst edge with a live first step and a natural inside counter, and his football identity is narrow on purpose: rush the passer on third down, chase from the back side, and let someone else set the edge.
The production reflects the depth chart more than the player. Stuck behind Azeez Ojulari, Adam Anderson and Nolan Smith, he broke through only in 2021, leading the national champions with 6.5 sacks in a rotational role. His senior year regressed to 26 tackles and 3.0 sacks even as the pressure count stayed high, capped by a strip-sack in the SEC Championship Game and a sack in the title game against TCU. The flags were obvious: minimal run defense and a five-year sample worth 10.5 sacks.
The board saw a Day 3 developmental rusher — a fifth-round grade built on the combine testing and the flashes, not the résumé. San Francisco took him at 173 to feed Kris Kocurek's wide-nine rotation behind Nick Bosa, the type of situational speed rusher that system has repeatedly developed. Reasonable value for a lottery ticket at a premium position.
- 01
First-step explosion
a 4.48 forty and 1.62 ten-yard split at 247 pounds show up on tape as an edge rusher who is past the tackle's outside foot before the punch arrives.
- 02
Bend and flatten
loose in the hips and ankles, he can dip the shoulder under a set tackle and redirect to the quarterback without losing much speed through the turn.
- 03
Length as a weapon
long arms let him stack the tackle's chest, keep his frame clean and disengage late, which is how he wins when the initial burst does not.
- 04
Big-moment production
his best rushes came on the biggest stage, including a strip-sack in the SEC Championship Game and a sack in the national title game against TCU.
- 05
Low mileage in a pro program
five years of Georgia coaching with only a rotational workload left him fresh, well-schooled in technique and used to a strict rush plan.
- 01
Run defense
gets displaced at the point of attack by tight ends and down blocks, and he was pulled on early downs at Georgia because the edge was not reliably set.
- 02
Thin production record
10.5 sacks across five college seasons and 53 games, with only one year above 3.0, is a very small return for a former five-star pass rusher.
- 03
Pass-rush plan
wins on speed and a single counter; when the tackle mirrors the get-off he stalls out and has no reliable long-arm or spin to reset the rush.
- 04
Play strength
anchor and grip strength lag behind the burst, so he loses leverage battles late in reps and rarely converts speed to power against NFL-caliber tackles.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.48sp50
- Vertical
- 30inp50
- Broad jump
- 123inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Georgia | 11 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | Georgia | 5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Georgia | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Georgia | 15 | 23 | 6.5 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | Georgia | 15 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Career | — | 53 | 72 | 10.5 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
2021 and 2022 verified directly on cfbstats.com (Georgia team 257, player 1086979): 2021 15 G, 23 tackles, 7.5 TFL, 6.5 sacks, 2 PBU; 2022 15 G, 26 tackles, 3.0 TFL, 3.0 sacks, 1 FF. cfbstats does not archive 2018-2020, so those lines come from Georgia's official bio (2018: 11 games, 15 tackles, 1.0 sack, forced fumble on kickoff coverage; 2019: 8 tackles; 2020: seven appearances on kick coverage with no defensive statistics) cross-checked against per-game logs. Georgia's bio says 2019 was four games while game logs show five appearances; the five-game count is used. Season sums reconcile with the career line of 53 games, 72 tackles, 10.5 sacks. Career TFL of 12.5 uses the cfbstats 2021 figure of 7.5; aggregators listing 13.0 use 8.0 for that season. Fumble recoveries are only verified for 2022 (Georgia Tech), so earlier seasons are null rather than zero.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A rotational Day 2-3 edge who flashes in limited passing-down snaps but never earns a full-time role.
The optimistic version: the Georgia edge ahead of him who turned burst and bend into a real double-digit-pressure rotational rusher.
The floor: a developmental speed rusher who lives on special teams and the practice-squad carousel.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
San Francisco used him exactly as expected and got very little back. A crowded, veteran defensive line room limited him to four games as a rookie in 2023, though he did register his first NFL sack in that tiny sample. He got a longer look in 2024 with the line thinned by injuries, playing 14 games mostly on special teams and in rotational rush packages and finishing with 14 tackles and no sacks. In 2025 the roster math turned against him: waived in September, re-signed to the practice squad, elevated, waived again in October and brought back once more, he still appeared in seven games with 11 tackles. Three seasons produced 25 games, 30 tackles and one sack, and he left as a free agent, signing with Miami in March 2026.
In hindsight this was a fair fifth-round bet that never converted. Everything the evaluation flagged — the run-down liability, the missing rush counters, the production that lagged the testing — kept him from earning the snaps that would have let the burst matter. The 49ers had the right system and the right coach for a speed rusher, which removes the usual excuse of a bad landing spot. He is not a disaster of a pick at 173, just the ordinary outcome for a traits-over-tape edge who never added the second move.