Will
Mcdonald IV.
Will
Mcdonald IV.
Iowa State· 6'4"· 239 lb· 4.70s 40
"A 239-pound edge who set the Big 12 career sack record while being asked to play a position he should never play again, which makes the grade a bet on the coaching staff as much as on the player."Pre-draft read
Iowa State used McDonald as a down end inside a three-man 3-3-5 front, most often at 4i or 5-technique, which meant a 239-pound rusher living head-up on tackles and splitting doubles. The get-off is the trait: he fires flat out of his stance, and with nearly 35-inch arms he can stab, extend and clear a shoulder before the tackle's second kick lands.
The secondary trait is bend: he flattens the arc at an angle very few players his height can hold, then converts speed to a long-arm rip when a set comes soft. Against the run he spills and chases rather than setting a point, playing through blocks with length instead of mass. The signature is the finish — 33 career sacks and 10 forced fumbles out of a body most fronts would have buried inside.
Attacking four-man front that lets him rush from width on passing downs and keeps him out of two-gap responsibilities on early downs.
Year 1: designated sub-package rusher off the left edge. Ceiling: every-down LDE who logs 10-plus sacks in an attacking one-gap front.
Two-gap 3-4 that asks him to hold the point of attack against down blocks and read on the way to the ball.
His Iowa State tape came from the exact scheme he should never play again.
Will McDonald IV Ultimate Iowa State Highlights 🌪️ || HD
Will McDonald IV Iowa State Highlights
Will McDonald IV Iowa State Highlights
McDonald is a long, wiry, explosive edge player whose football identity is speed and length rather than mass. At 6-3 5/8 and 239 pounds with nearly 35-inch arms, he is built like a stand-up rusher and was asked to play like a down lineman, and the tension between those two facts is the whole evaluation.
The production is real and it is sustained. He broke out with 10.5 sacks over 12 games in 2020, matched it over 13 games in 2021, and finished with 33 sacks and 41 tackles for loss across five seasons — a Big 12 career sack record set while aligned inside the tackle far more often than a modern rush end should be. The 2022 dip to five sacks came with heavier attention, chip help and a role that kept dragging him into two-gap work. The flags travel with the frame: he gets moved on down blocks, he can be washed when a guard gets hands on his hip, and his counter package leans on the same inside spin more than a first-rounder's should.
The board treated him as a top-20 talent with projection baked in. Evaluators liked the traits and bet a team would finally let him rush from width. Taking him at 15, after trading down two spots, was a bet on role change more than refinement — the Jets were buying the version of McDonald nobody had actually coached yet.
- 01
Explosive get-off
a track start off the snap that consistently beat tackles to the landmark and forced early, panicked kick sets in the Big 12.
- 02
Rare length for the frame
34 7/8-inch arms let him stab, extend and separate on contact, keeping tackles off his chest even when he loses the edge race.
- 03
Elite ankle flex
he corners at an angle most 6-4 rushers cannot hold, turning wide alignment into a straight line at the quarterback's back foot.
- 04
Finisher's instincts
33 career sacks and 10 forced fumbles show he attacks the football at the top of the rush instead of settling for a tackle.
- 05
Positional versatility already on tape
he logged snaps at 4i, 5-tech, wide-9 and as a stand-up rusher in a three-man front, so no alignment is new to him.
- 01
Play-strength ceiling
at 239 pounds he gets displaced on down blocks and can be walked off the spot when a guard or tight end squares him up.
- 02
Limited counter tree
the inside spin is his go-to answer, and when a tackle sits on it he has little else beyond another speed attempt.
- 03
Run-game role is narrow
he spills and chases rather than setting an edge, which caps his early-down snap count in gap-heavy divisions.
- 04
Miscast production history
much of his tape comes from alignments he should not repeat in the NFL, adding a layer of projection to the grade.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.70sp50
- Vertical
- 36inp50
- Broad jump
- 132inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.85sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.22sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Iowa State | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | Iowa State | 13 | 15 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | Iowa State | 12 | 35 | 10.5 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 2021 | Iowa State | 13 | 36 | 10.5 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| 2022 | Iowa State | 12 | 36 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Career | — | 54 | 125 | 33 | 0 | 7 | 10 |
Verified against Sports-Reference CFB; season totals sum exactly to the career line (125 tackles, 41 TFL, 33.0 sacks, 7 PD, 10 FF, 1 FR). Big 12 career sack record.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Sub-package pressure producer who wins with get-off and length but stays situational against the run.
Same lean, long build with elite bend; the ceiling if the play strength ever catches up to the burst.
Traits-first first-rounder whose frame and counter limits keep the sack totals below the draft slot.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Rotational rookie who became the Jets' primary edge rusher: 47 games, 29 starts, 21.5 sacks and back-to-back 8-plus sack seasons through 2025. Fifth-year option exercised in April 2026.
The Jets got exactly the player the tape promised, just on a delay. His 2023 rookie year was a redshirt in everything but name: 15 games, zero starts, 3.0 sacks and a rotation role behind a veteran front while the staff added weight and taught him to rush from width. In 2024 the role opened up — 15 starts, 10.5 sacks, two forced fumbles and a jump into the top tier of pressure producers off the left edge. In 2025 he held it, going for 8.0 sacks in 15 games with a four-sack, nine-pressure afternoon against Cleveland and a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown against Tampa Bay, the first in franchise history. New York picked up his fifth-year option in April 2026.
In hindsight, the pick looks better than the reaction it got. The knock in 2023 was the frame, and the frame did cost him a year of playing time and still shows up on early downs, where he is a chase player rather than an anchor. But the projection scouts were making — give him width, give him a two-point stance, stop asking him to two-gap — was correct, and it produced back-to-back 8-plus sack seasons before his 27th birthday. He is not a game-wrecker who bends an offense's whole plan, and the run defense keeps him off the field in the wrong matchups. He is a legitimate starting rush end taken at the price of one, which at 15 is a fair trade.
Data note: Verified against Sports-Reference CFB; season totals sum exactly to the career line (125 tackles, 41 TFL, 33.0 sacks, 7 PD, 10 FF, 1 FR). Big 12 career sack record.