Cedric
Johnson.
Cedric
Johnson.
Mississippi· 6'3"· 260 lb· 4.63s 40
"Four years in Oxford produced a pass rusher every scout liked and nobody loved: heavy hands, real effort, an SEC resume, and never once the burst to turn a corner into a crisis."Pre-draft read
Johnson is a 6-3, 260-pound strong-side defensive end who spent four years on the edge of an SEC front and did his best work with his hands. He is a long-arm and bull-rush player: he strikes first, gets extension, walks tackles into the pocket and works off contact late rather than winning at the snap.
That same grip is the reason he holds up on early downs — he sets a firm edge, keeps his outside arm free and spills the ball back inside instead of getting reached. The athletic ceiling is where it stops. He tested well in a straight line, but the get-off is average and the bend around the arc is not there, so his pressure comes on rush two rather than rush one. The signature is relentlessness: he is still working when the tackle stops.
Four-down base fronts that value a strong-side end holding up against the run — a Lou Anarumo/Al Golden style rotation where the fifth-rounder plays early downs and gets subbed out on obvious passing situations.
Year 1: fourth defensive end and core special teamer, 15-20 snaps on run downs. Ceiling: a full-time base end who plays 400 snaps and gives you four or five sacks off pure power.
A wide-9 speed-rush front that asks its ends to win on get-off and bend alone — asking him to rush from a two-point stance in space removes every trait he actually has.
He is worth more to a defense that needs its ends to hold the edge than to one that measures them by pressure rate.
Cedric Johnson | Edge | Ole Miss | 2023 Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
Senior-season reel: the long-arm, the bull rush into the pocket and the early-down edge setting that made up his draft case.
Cedric Johnson (Ole Miss Edge) vs Alabama 2023
Full-game cut against Alabama, the best test of whether the power rush held up against a first-round-caliber offensive line.
Every Cedric Johnson Sack
All 19 career sacks in one place, a clean look at how much of the production came from second effort rather than a clean win off the snap.
A four-year Ole Miss starter-type who arrived as a linebacker, grew into a base defensive end, and built his tape on power and effort instead of explosiveness. Everything he wins with is teachable and repeatable, which is exactly why he was easy to evaluate and hard to fall in love with.
He broke through as a sophomore in 2021 with 33 tackles, eight tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks, dipped in a banged-up 2022, then closed with his best all-around season in 2023: 40 tackles, 6.5 for loss, 5.5 sacks, a dozen quarterback hurries and three pass breakups for an 11-win Rebels team, then sat out the Peach Bowl to prepare for the draft. He finished with 19 career sacks and 22 tackles for loss over 46 games, and he did take the Senior Bowl invitation in his hometown of Mobile and practiced the full week. The flag was always the same: the production came from hustle and hand strength, never from beating a tackle clean.
The board had him as a day-three rotational end — a run-defending base player who might grow a rush plan. Cincinnati took him 214th, which is the price of a fifth defensive end who plays hard and can dress on special teams, not a bet on untapped juice.
- 01
Hand usage
Strikes first with a long-arm and keeps extension, the most polished part of his game and the reason he stacked SEC tackles rather than getting swallowed by them.
- 02
Run defense
Sets a firm edge with a free outside arm and spills plays back inside; he was a legitimate early-down base end from his sophomore year on.
- 03
Power conversion
Bull rushes tackles into the quarterback's lap and collapses the pocket from the outside, which is how most of his 19 college sacks arrived.
- 04
Motor and finish
Twelve hurries as a senior came largely from second-effort rushes and chase work after the initial move died.
- 05
Durability and volume
Played 46 games across four seasons in the SEC and never missed extended time, giving evaluators a big, consistent sample.
- 01
No first step
Average get-off for the position; he almost never threatens a tackle's set point on the snap and has to win with a second or third move.
- 02
Bend
Stiff through the hips and ankles, so he runs the arc wide instead of flattening to the quarterback when he does beat a set.
- 03
Counter package
Leans on the bull rush; the inside spin and cross-chop show up rarely and without the timing to make them a real second option.
- 04
Flat production curve
6.5 sacks as a sophomore, 5.5 as a senior, with no year that suggested a rising trajectory against better competition.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.63sp50
- Vertical
- 38inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 25repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Ole Miss | 10 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Ole Miss | 13 | 33 | 6.5 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2022 | Ole Miss | 11 | 32 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Ole Miss | 12 | 40 | 5.5 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Career | — | 46 | 112 | 19 | 0 | 4 | 2 |
Verified line by line against the cfbstats.com Ole Miss player pages for 2020 through 2023. The four seasons sum exactly to the career line: 46 games, 112 tackles, 22.0 tackles for loss, 19.0 sacks, 4 pass breakups, 2 forced fumbles and 25 quarterback hurries. Interceptions are a true zero (cfbstats lists none in any season). Fumble recoveries are left null rather than zero-filled because cfbstats does not publish a recovery column for him; his 2022 page does credit one blocked kick.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
The most likely version and almost the same job description: a day-three Bengals end who rotates on early downs, plays teams, and produces a sack or two a year.
The ceiling in the same building: a high-effort, power-based strong-side end who turns run defense and reliability into a decade of starts.
The floor: a hard-playing college producer whose lack of burst leaves him bouncing between the practice squad and the bottom of the depth chart.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cincinnati used him exactly as the tape suggested. As a rookie in 2024 he dressed for nine games as the fourth or fifth end behind Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard, played mostly on special teams and rotational run downs, and finished with seven tackles and one sack. His second season started on injured reserve with a calf injury; the Bengals activated him on October 31, 2025, ahead of Week 9 against Chicago, and he was more visible in the back half than he had ever been as a rookie: nine games, 20 tackles, two sacks, two fumble recoveries. Through two seasons he has 18 games, 27 tackles, three sacks and no starts, and he entered 2026 still on the roster, taking extra camp reps with Shemar Stewart banged up and pushing a crowded end room for a real rotational job.
In hindsight this is a sixth-round pick doing sixth-round work, which is a quieter way of saying the evaluation was right. He has stuck because the run defense and the effort travel, and he has not broken out because the thing missing in Oxford — the burst that turns a good rush into a sack — does not appear at this level. The realistic outcome is a long career as a fourth end and core special teamer. That is a win at 214, just not the kind anyone writes about.
Data note: Verified line by line against the cfbstats.com Ole Miss player pages for 2020 through 2023. The four seasons sum exactly to the career line: 46 games, 112 tackles, 22.0 tackles for loss, 19.0 sacks, 4 pass breakups, 2 forced fumbles and 25 quarterback hurries. Interceptions are a true zero (cfbstats lists none in any season). Fumble recoveries are left null rather than zero-filled because cfbstats does not publish a recovery column for him; his 2022 page does credit one blocked kick.