Myles
Murphy.
Myles
Murphy.
Clemson· 6'5"· 268 lb
"A five-star frame that never learned to turn the corner: Murphy sells power, length and edge discipline, and the buyer must accept that the sack total will always trail the highlight."Pre-draft read
Murphy was Clemson's base defensive end in a four-man front, a 268-pound power rusher who spent most of his snaps on the left side and slid inside to a 3-technique on obvious passing downs. He wins first with length and heavy hands: a long-arm that stalls the tackle's set, a club-rip off it, and a bull rush that walks blockers into the pocket.
Against the run he is the trait that shows up every snap, setting a firm edge, keeping his outside arm free and closing on ball carriers from the back side. The pass rush is more plan than burst; he flashes rare short-area explosion for his size but does not consistently corner the arc. The signature is size, power and run-down discipline in a frame that still looks unfinished.
Four-man front, base 4-3/nickel end with inside reduction on passing downs
Year 1: early-down base end who sets the edge and rotates inside on third down. Ceiling: full-time starting end and interior rush package piece at 6-8 sacks with plus run defense.
A wide-9 speed-rush system that asks him to win the arc on pure get-off, or an odd-front scheme that reduces him to a two-gap 5-tech and removes his long-arm pass-rush snaps.
Best used as the run-strong end opposite a bender, with a designed inside stunt package to weaponize his power.
Clemson DE Myles Murphy 2022 Highlights
Junior-season reel: long-arm rushes, edge-setting versus the run and inside reductions on passing downs.
Clemson DE Myles Murphy 2021 Highlights
Best statistical season — 14 TFL and 7 sacks, with the club-rip and bull rush that defined his win pattern.
Myles Murphy (#98 Clemson EDGE) vs NC State - All Plays 2022
Every-snap cut-up showing the full down-to-down picture, including the pass-rush plateau evaluators flagged.
Myles Murphy arrived at Clemson as a five-star recruit and left as one of the most physically complete edge defenders in the class. He is a true base end, big enough to hold up inside on passing downs and strong enough to reset the line of scrimmage against gap and duo run games. The football identity is power on the edge with real positional flexibility.
He produced from the moment he stepped on campus: 11.5 tackles for loss and four sacks as a freshman in 2020, a career-best 14 tackles for loss and seven sacks in 2021, then 11 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks as a junior in 2022. The flags were the flatness of that final year and the way his best rushes came from power rather than a developed counter tree. He also skipped the 40 at the Combine, leaving evaluators to project his speed off tape after a 25-rep bench.
The board had him inside the top ten entering 2022 and slid him through the twenties once the tape suggested a good starter rather than a game-wrecker. Cincinnati, needing a young end behind an aging rotation, took the floor and the frame at 28 and bet that better coaching and a defined pass-rush plan would unlock what the raw traits promised.
- 01
Play strength
Long-arms tackles into their own pocket and can bull rush from a two-point or three-point stance without losing his base.
- 02
Run defense
Sets a hard edge with square shoulders, keeps his outside arm clean and rarely gets displaced by down blocks or kick-outs.
- 03
Positional flexibility
Big enough to reduce inside to a 3-technique on passing downs, which lets a coordinator keep his best rushers on the field.
- 04
Hand usage
Club-rip and swipe are already NFL-caliber; he times the tackle's punch and works half-man leverage instead of running the hoop blind.
- 05
Production floor
Three straight seasons of double-digit tackles for loss in the ACC as a teenager and then a junior, with 17.5 career sacks.
- 01
Bend
Tall build and tight ankles keep him from flattening at the top of the arc, so speed rushes often finish behind the quarterback.
- 02
Get-off
First-step timing is average rather than elite; he wins after contact, which caps his production against quick-game passing attacks.
- 03
Counter tree
Leans on power and can be stalled by tackles who anchor early; the inside move needs more setup and a consistent finish.
- 04
Flat trajectory
2022 tape and numbers did not improve on 2021 despite a bigger role, raising questions about how much projection is left.
— — — positional median (p50)
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| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Clemson | 12 | 39 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 2021 | Clemson | 13 | 38 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 2022 | Clemson | 13 | 40 | 6.5 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 38 | 117 | 17.5 | 0 | 5 | 6 |
Season totals verified against cfbstats.com (2020-2022); seasons sum exactly to the career line. Fumble recoveries are not published by cfbstats for these seasons and are left null rather than zero-filled. Did not run the 40 at the 2023 Combine (25 bench reps).
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Big rotational end who plays inside and out, wins with length and effort, lives in the four-to-six sack range.
Same tall, long base-end frame with power-first rushes and inside reduction value on passing downs.
Toolsy first-round edge whose production never matched the frame because the counter and bend never developed.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Myles Murphy completed his rookie season with the Cincinnati Bengals, contributing as a defensive end in a rotational role.
Cincinnati brought Murphy along slowly. He played all 17 games as a rookie in 2023 in a rotational role and produced 20 combined tackles with three sacks, mostly as the third end behind Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard. Year two went backwards: 13 games, 20 combined tackles and zero sacks, a season that put the pick squarely on the wrong side of the ledger. The 2025 season was the correction. Given a real snap share on a rebuilt defensive line, he played 17 games, posted 52 combined tackles and 5.5 sacks with a fumble recovery, and graded out as a solid starter in pressure volume. Heading into 2026 he is the projected leader of the Bengals' pass rush and one of the few returning pieces on that front.
Honest read: this was never going to be a star. The traits that made him a top-ten name in 2021 — size, power, run-game discipline — are the traits he still wins with, and the bend that would have made him a double-digit sack player never arrived. As a first-round pick at 28 he has been slow-burning rather than wrong: a durable, useful starting end who took three years to look like one, on a team that needed the answer faster. The value question is whether the fifth-year money matches a rusher whose ceiling is seven or eight sacks.
Data note: Season totals verified against cfbstats.com (2020-2022); seasons sum exactly to the career line. Fumble recoveries are not published by cfbstats for these seasons and are left null rather than zero-filled. Did not run the 40 at the 2023 Combine (25 bench reps).