Daijahn
Anthony.
Daijahn
Anthony.
Mississippi· 6'0"· 194 lb· 4.55s 40
"Zero scholarship offers out of Richmond, a Division II walk-on spot, then one SEC season loud enough to get drafted — Cincinnati bought the hit on Jayden Daniels and the path that led to it."Pre-draft read
Anthony is a converted cornerback who finished his career as Ole Miss's strong safety and nickel, and the trait that shows up first is violence. He plays downhill from eight yards, attacks the run fit with his shoulder and delivers the kind of contact that changes a ball carrier's plan — the strip of Jayden Daniels in the 2023 LSU game is the play the whole evaluation hangs on.
The corner background gives him more coverage utility than most thumpers: he keeps routes in front from depth, plays the curl-flat with real feel and broke up eight passes as a senior. He is a good tester rather than a rare athlete, and the trade-off is control. When he chases the kill shot he misses, and the tape swings between splash and empty.
Zone-heavy defense that plays him in the box and the nickel with clear run-first responsibilities, paired with a full four-phase special-teams role; he needs a coordinator who lets him trigger downhill rather than carry routes.
Year 1: core special-teamer with 150-200 kicking-game snaps and emergency dime reps. Ceiling: a third safety who plays 300-400 defensive snaps in run-heavy sub packages and stays a special-teams captain.
A single-high system that asks him to be the deep-middle eraser, or a man-match defense that puts him on slot receivers - his range from the hash is average and his hips are not built to travel with quickness.
His path - Division II walk-on to Liberty to one SEC season - means he has always been better in his second year in a scheme than his first, which argues for patience over cutdown-day math.
Daijahn Anthony | Defensive Back | Ole Miss | 2023 Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
Full senior-season reel from Ole Miss showing the downhill triggers, the LSU forced fumble and the nickel snaps.
Daijahn Anthony Ole Miss Highlights
Compilation of his SEC tape, heavy on contact finishes and zone breakups.
Daijahn Anthony - Ultimate Highlights
Career cutup spanning Liberty cornerback reps and the Ole Miss safety season.
Anthony is a five-year, three-school defensive back with the least conventional path in the 2024 class: no Division I offers out of Richmond, a walk-on spot at Division II Shepherd, a walk-on transfer to Liberty where he played corner, and one final season as a starting safety in the SEC. He is a hybrid by résumé and a striker by instinct, most comfortable near the line with his eyes in the backfield.
The one year at Ole Miss made him draftable. He appeared in all 13 games with 10 starts, finished fourth on the team with 61 tackles, and tied for the team lead with three interceptions and eight breakups while splitting time between strong safety and nickel. The signature came against LSU: he blew up Jayden Daniels on a scramble, forced the fumble that set up a first-quarter touchdown and sealed the win with an end-zone breakup. The flags were the age curve, a 194-pound frame for a box role, and missed tackles born of aggression.
Boards had him as a late Day 3 special-teams safety with backup nickel range. Cincinnati took him at 224 for the kicking-game floor and the story behind it.
- 01
Striking
plays the run fit with genuine pop and forced the Jayden Daniels fumble that flipped the 2023 LSU game, a real trait at 194 pounds.
- 02
Coverage background
two seasons at cornerback at Liberty gave him route feel most box safeties never develop, and it shows in his zone drops.
- 03
Ball production
six FBS interceptions and 14 breakups, including a team-leading three picks and eight breakups in his lone SEC season.
- 04
Testing profile
4.55 forty with a 1.51 ten-yard split, a 37-inch vertical and a 9-8 broad jump ranked him among the better combine safeties.
- 05
Special-teams temperament
his aggression and gunner-level closing speed translate directly to kick coverage, the job that keeps a 224th pick employed.
- 01
Tackling control
hunts the knockout instead of wrapping, and the misses come in bunches when he arrives out of position at full speed.
- 02
Frame
194 pounds is light for the strong-safety role he played at Ole Miss, and he wears down against tight ends and pulling guards.
- 03
Man coverage in the slot
loses separation battles against quicker receivers and gets beaten vertically when he has to turn and run.
- 04
Age and sample
turned 24 in his rookie September with only one season of Power Five starting tape behind him, so there is little projection left.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.55sp50
- Vertical
- 37inp50
- Broad jump
- 116inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Liberty | 12 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | Liberty | 12 | 29 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| 2023 | Ole Miss | 13 | 61 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 1 |
| Career | — | 37 | 105 | 0 | 6 | 14 | 1 |
Season splits verified against cfbstats official player pages; the three FBS seasons sum exactly to 37 games, 105 tackles, 4.0 TFL, six interceptions and 14 pass breakups. Anthony also played two years at Division II Shepherd (ten games with five starts in 2019, season cancelled in 2020), which cfbstats does not cover, so those years are excluded from the totals rather than estimated. He recorded no career sacks in any published season, so the field is left blank instead of zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Late-round Bengals safety whose value was four-phase special teams with almost no defensive snaps.
Box-leaning safety who turned tackling and zone feel into a starting role without ever being a coverage eraser.
Undrafted-caliber safety who bounced between rosters and practice squads without securing a defined role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cincinnati got exactly what it drafted. Anthony beat out the field in camp, made the 53-man roster as a rookie and spent 2024 as a core special-teamer: 179 total snaps, 168 of them in the kicking game and just 11 on defense. Year two was lost before it started — the Bengals placed him on injured reserve in late August 2025 with a hamstring injury, kept him there into November, and activated him on Thanksgiving week. He returned for five games and 102 snaps, this time with a few more defensive reps mixed into the special-teams work. He carried into 2026 as a roster-bubble fourth safety in a thin Cincinnati room, still without a defensive role but still on the team.
The honest verdict is that a seventh-round safety who makes the opening 53 and is still around two years later has beaten his own odds. What he has not done is force his way onto defense, and the injury cost him the year that usually decides whether a special-teams safety turns into a sub-package one. The pick was cheap, the return has been real but small, and the ceiling is closing.
Data note: Season splits verified against cfbstats official player pages; the three FBS seasons sum exactly to 37 games, 105 tackles, 4.0 TFL, six interceptions and 14 pass breakups. Anthony also played two years at Division II Shepherd (ten games with five starts in 2019, season cancelled in 2020), which cfbstats does not cover, so those years are excluded from the totals rather than estimated. He recorded no career sacks in any published season, so the field is left blank instead of zero-filled.