Cooper
Beebe.
Cooper
Beebe.
Kansas State· 6'3"· 322 lb· 5.03s 40
"A four-year Big 12 starter who wins with grip, leverage and finish rather than length, and whose football intelligence turned a guard prospect into a starting NFL center."Pre-draft read
Four-year starting guard who plays with a squat, wide base and lives in a phone booth. His calling card is grip strength and hand placement: he lands inside, locks on, and finishes with his feet moving, so a lot of his reps end with a defender on the ground. He is a true displacement blocker on down and duo concepts, rolling his hips through contact for movement most interior linemen cannot manufacture.
The pass sets are compact rather than pretty. He sits down, absorbs bull rush through his hips, and resets his hands quickly. He is not a space athlete, but the short-area balance is exceptional. The signature is durability of technique: nose head up or stunt across his face, the pad level and the grip never change.
Gap and duo power run game with play-action off it; a downhill scheme that lets him displace defenders rather than reach them.
Year 1 plug-and-play interior starter at guard or center; ceiling is a decade-long starting center who runs the line calls.
An outside-zone-first offense that asks the center to reach shaded noses and climb to backers in space every snap.
He was drafted as a guard and converted to center in his first camp; the pre-snap intelligence, not the athletic profile, is what made that work.
Cooper Beebe — Left Guard Highlights (Kansas State)
Career cutup at left guard showing the grip strength, finish, and displacement on down and duo blocks.
Cooper Beebe — Guard/Tackle Film Breakdown | 2024 NFL Draft
Pre-draft breakdown of his hand placement, anchor, and the length and range limits that shaped his grade.
Cooper Beebe Impresses In His Rookie Debut | Cowboys Film Breakdown
Rookie-year center tape from his first NFL start, covering snap mechanics and protection identification.
Beebe is the sturdiest kind of interior line prospect: a decorated, four-year Big 12 starter with no bad tape and no projection required about whether he can hold up against real defensive linemen. He is a power-scheme guard by build and instinct, but the football intelligence, snap-to-contact quickness, and comfort working combinations made the center conversion a live possibility for teams before he ever took an NFL rep.
The resume is the second half of the argument. He returned to Kansas State for a final season instead of leaving as a projected pick, then played his way to consensus All-America honors while anchoring one of the more physical run games in the conference. The flags are athletic rather than technical: short arms for the position, ordinary lateral range on the second level, and a build that asks him to win early because he cannot recover if a rusher gets to his edge.
The board had him as a top-five interior lineman in the class with a Round 2 to early Round 3 grade, and the split among evaluators was about ceiling, not floor. Nobody doubted he would start; the question was whether the athletic limits capped him as a good guard rather than a difference-maker. Taking him at 73 was a floor pick in the best sense, with the added bet that he could handle the pivot.
- 01
Grip and finish
lands his hands inside and clamps, and once he is attached the rep is over; a genuinely rare number of reps end with the defender on the turf.
- 02
Displacement in the run game
creates real vertical movement on down and duo blocks by rolling his hips through contact rather than leaning on the defender.
- 03
Anchor versus power
sits into bull rushers with a wide base and low center of gravity, and rarely surrenders ground in a straight line.
- 04
Football IQ and communication
sorts games, twists, and late pressure looks quickly, which is the trait that made the move to center realistic.
- 05
Availability and toughness
a four-year starter who never played himself out of the lineup and finished his career as a consensus All-American.
- 01
Short arms
31.5-inch arms mean rushers with length can get into his frame first, and he has to win with timing to compensate.
- 02
Lateral range
heavy-footed working to the second level or reaching a shaded nose, and he can be late arriving on wide zone.
- 03
Recovery athleticism
if he is beaten off the snap he lacks the burst to redirect, so beaten reps tend to be fully lost reps.
- 04
Ceiling questions
the traits point to a very good starter rather than an All-Pro, with little margin against elite interior speed.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.03sp50
- Vertical
- 27.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 109inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.44sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.61sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Kansas State | 2 |
| 2020 | Kansas State | 9 |
| 2021 | Kansas State | 13 |
| 2022 | Kansas State | 14 |
| 2023 | Kansas State | 13 |
| Career | — | 51 |
Kansas State 2019-2023; season games sum to the 51 career games. 2019 was a limited-action redshirt year. Per-season start counts are not confirmed by a primary source and are left null rather than zero-filled. Offensive line: no box-score stats tracked.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A durable, high-IQ center who is a clear asset in the run game and steady rather than dominant in protection.
The ceiling if the center conversion keeps compounding — a plus starting pivot who wins with grip, leverage and pre-snap command.
A dependable interior starter for several years whose lack of length and range keeps him in the average tier.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cooper Beebe was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the 3rd round of the 2024 NFL Draft. He has not yet played in an NFL regular season game.
Dallas moved him to center almost immediately, and the transition held. He won the job in his first training camp, started from Week 1 of his rookie year, and played the full season as the pivot on a line that lost pieces around him — clean identification, no snap issues of consequence, and the same hand power that showed up at Kansas State, good enough to finish as a top-half starter at the position. Year two opened with him locked in until an ankle and foot injury against the Giants in Week 2 sent him to injured reserve for six weeks. He returned in early November and slid straight back into the lineup at center for the rest of the year. He entered 2026 as the unquestioned starter and the anchor of a rebuilt interior alongside Tyler Booker, with his old Kansas State line coach running the room.
The retrospective is straightforward: a safe pick that also solved a position Dallas had not planned to draft for. Teams that took higher-upside guards ahead of him were paying for traits he does not have, and the trade-off was a player who started immediately at a harder position than the one he was scouted at. The honest caveat is that the injury cost him a full second season and the projection still reads solid starter rather than cornerstone — the third-year leap is the open question. For pick 73, that is a clear win.
Data note: Kansas State 2019-2023; season games sum to the 51 career games. 2019 was a limited-action redshirt year. Per-season start counts are not confirmed by a primary source and are left null rather than zero-filled. Offensive line: no box-score stats tracked.