Elijah
Klein.
Elijah
Klein.
Texas-El Paso· 6'4"· 306 lb· 5.32s 40
"Fifty-five starts of leverage and grip from a two-star recruit nobody invited to the Combine: Klein wins everything that happens inside a phone booth and almost nothing outside of it."Pre-draft read
A six-year UTEP starter built for the right side of an interior front, Klein plays with a wide, heavy base and a low center of gravity that makes him hard to walk backward. He is a torque blocker: short strike zone, hands inside the breastplate, hips that roll on contact. In the run game he is best on down blocks and duo, grinding a defender off the spot without asking his feet to cover ground.
The second trait is stubbornness in protection. He sets short, absorbs the first jolt and re-anchors, and his 25 bench reps show up in the grip that lets him reset hands mid-rep. Speed is the ceiling: a 5.32 pro-day forty and 7.76 three-cone say he wins in a phone booth, not in space. The signature is experience — 55 career starts, no missed time.
Gap, duo and power run scheme with a quick-game passing attack, where the guard wins with leverage and grip inside a two-yard box instead of covering ground.
Year 1: swing interior backup and jumbo/short-yardage blocker. Ceiling: a durable starting right guard on a downhill front that never asks him to pull in space.
A wide-zone offense built on reach blocks, pulls and second-level climbs at speed — the travel requirements erase the anchor and grip that are his whole case.
Tampa's gap-leaning interior work is a reasonable home; the further a scheme moves him from his stance, the smaller his margin gets.
2024 NFL Draft Primer: Day Three Right Guards (Layden Robinson, C.J. Hanson, Elijah Klein, more)
Pre-draft breakdown that places Klein in the Day 3 right-guard tier and covers the anchor-versus-range trade-off.
Elijah Klein Shines in Versatile Role: Buccaneers' 6th Round Pick Impresses in Preseason
Rookie preseason reps in Tampa showing the interior versatility that got him a roster spot.
UTEP guard Elijah Klein speaks to media after Buccaneers selection
Draft-night media session on the six-year UTEP run and the jump from Conference USA to the NFL interior.
Klein is a development-by-volume interior lineman: a two-star recruit who started four games as a true freshman, redshirted, and then never left the lineup again. Six seasons at UTEP produced 55 career starts, almost all at right guard, and the tape reflects that mileage. He is not a bender or a mover; he is a leverage-and-grip player who wins the reps that happen inside a two-yard box and survives the ones that do not.
The production case was consistency in a program that gave him no help. Honorable mention All-Conference USA in 2021 and 2022, first-team All-C-USA in 2023, on rosters that finished under .500 every year of his career. The flags were just as clear. He was not invited to the Combine, his pro-day testing came back heavy and stiff across the board, and Conference USA rarely forced him to block an NFL-caliber three-technique on consecutive snaps. Lateral range against twists and stunts was the specific worry.
Boards had him as a late Day 3 flier with backup-guard projection, the Shrine Bowl invite his only real all-star vetting. Tampa Bay, after spending four straight picks on power-conference names, took the small-school lineman with the longest start list in the class. At 220 that is the right kind of bet: buy experience and toughness, teach the rest.
- 01
Anchor strength
Sets short and absorbs the first jolt, then re-anchors with a wide base; power rushers rarely collapse the pocket through him.
- 02
Grip and hand strength
25 bench reps that show up on tape, latching inside the breastplate and resetting hands mid-rep without losing the block.
- 03
Down-block finisher
Puts his forehead on a defender in duo and short-yardage and grinds him off the spot without needing to cover ground.
- 04
Start volume
55 career starts across six seasons at UTEP, essentially all at right guard, with almost no missed availability along the way.
- 05
Positional flexibility
Took reps at guard, tackle and center in college, which is what makes him worth a game-day helmet as a backup.
- 01
Athletic ceiling
A 5.32 pro-day forty and 7.76 three-cone confirm what the tape shows: he is a stationary winner, not a mover.
- 02
Space blocking
Climbs to linebackers arrive late and off balance; the further he travels from his stance, the less of his power he can use.
- 03
Twists and stunts
Passing off games and picking up late loopers is his most consistent breakdown, and NFL fronts will target it.
- 04
Level of competition
Conference USA fronts rarely presented an NFL-caliber interior rusher on back-to-back snaps to stress the anchor.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.32sp50
- Vertical
- 26.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 98inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.76sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.71sp50
- Bench
- 25repp50
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | UTEP | — |
| 2019 | UTEP | 8 |
| 2020 | UTEP | 8 |
| 2021 | UTEP | 13 |
| 2022 | UTEP | 12 |
| 2023 | UTEP | 12 |
| Career | — | 53 |
Offensive linemen do not accumulate box-score statistics, so only games and starts are listed. UTEP and El Paso Times reporting confirm 55 career starts: four as a true freshman in 2018 before he redshirted, six of eight games in 2019, all eight in 2020, 13 in 2021, 12 in 2022 and 12 in 2023 - the season rows sum exactly to 55. Total games played in 2018 is not reliably published, so it is left null rather than estimated.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- First-team All-Conference USA (2023)
- Honorable mention All-C-USA (2021, 2022)
- 2024 East-West Shrine Bowl invitee
- 55 career starts at UTEP
A tough, experienced interior backup who wins in a phone booth, gets spot starts and never quite locks down a job because of the range limits.
The optimistic version: a heavy-handed Day 3 guard whose grip strength and duo finishing turn him into a long-term starter on a gap front.
Roster-bubble interior depth whose value lives in versatility and availability rather than any single winning trait.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Sixth-round UTEP guard who has stuck as Tampa Bay depth without cracking the starting lineup.
Tampa Bay signed him to a four-year deal and kept him as interior depth rather than a plug-in starter. As a rookie in 2024 he was a game-day backup behind a line the Bucs had just spent a first-round pick on, and his reps came in relief and in jumbo packages. Year two was a small step: 87 offensive snaps in 2025 and the first start of his career in Week 3 against the Jets, with PFF grading his pass protection far above his run blocking in that tiny sample. Through two seasons he has played 26 games with one start, and he entered 2026 again as the developmental guard behind Ben Bredeson and Cody Mauch.
Looking back, this is close to what a 220th pick should be. Nobody drafting in the sixth round expects a starter; they want a player who makes the roster three years running and can be trusted for a game if a guard goes down, and Klein has done exactly that. The honest caveat is that the athletic ceiling scouts flagged has held: he has not forced his way into the lineup even when Tampa shuffled the interior. He is a useful NFL backup, which for a small-school two-star is a win, but the starting-guard version of this projection has not arrived.
Data note: Offensive linemen do not accumulate box-score statistics, so only games and starts are listed. UTEP and El Paso Times reporting confirm 55 career starts: four as a true freshman in 2018 before he redshirted, six of eight games in 2019, all eight in 2020, 13 in 2021, 12 in 2022 and 12 in 2023 - the season rows sum exactly to 55. Total games played in 2018 is not reliably published, so it is left null rather than estimated.