Evan
Williams.
Evan
Williams.
Oregon· 5'11"· 200 lb· 4.60s 40
"The board graded the 4.60 and the 30-inch arms; Green Bay graded the instincts, traded up 15 spots, and got an all-rookie team safety who hit 100 tackles and three picks by Year 2."Pre-draft read
Williams lined up all over Oregon's secondary — deep half, box, nickel — but his best football came from eight yards and in. He is a diagnose-and-trigger safety: he reads the guard, beats the block to the gap, and arrives with intent. The downhill urgency is the calling card and it is genuine, not manufactured.
The second trait is zone instinct. He reads concepts and quarterback eyes cleanly, breaks early on the throw, and turns those reads into production on the ball. Oregon also used him as a pressure player and he answered with 4.5 sacks, tied for second among FBS defensive backs. He is not long or explosive, and he misses tackles when he arrives out of control, but the football IQ and the temperament show up on every snap.
A zone-heavy defense that plays him in the box and at low-hole depth, letting him trigger downhill on run fits and read the quarterback instead of chasing man coverage.
Year 1: rotational box safety, sub-package nickel and core special-teamer with spot starts. Ceiling: full-time starting strong safety who anchors the run fits, blitzes on third down and produces takeaways off zone reads.
A single-high man scheme that asks him to carry vertical routes alone from the deep middle — 4.60 speed and 30 1/8-inch arms are exposed the moment the play breaks over the top of him.
Pair him with a true rangy free safety; his value multiplies when someone else owns the deep middle.
Evan Williams | DB | Oregon | 2023 Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
The prove-it season: 82 tackles, 4.5 sacks and the downhill trigger that Green Bay traded up for.
Evan Williams | 2024 Pro Day
Pro day workout, where the testing questions that pushed him to Day 3 were on full display.
Instant Reax: S Evan Williams | 2024 NFL Draft
Draft-night breakdown of the Packers' trade up to 111 and the fit next to Xavier McKinney.
He is a five-year starter and a football-first safety, and the profile is built on instincts rather than traits. Four seasons at Fresno State made him the heart of that defense — first-team All-Mountain West in 2021, second-team in 2022 despite a knee injury that cost him four games. He transferred to Oregon for what he called a prove-it year, wanting to test himself against Pac-12 offenses before the draft.
It worked. He started 13 games for the Ducks, led them with 82 tackles, added 4.5 sacks as a blitzer from depth and the slot, and earned second-team All-Pac-12. The tape shows a defender who diagnoses run fits instantly, plays with real physicality in the alley and reads route concepts well enough in zone to jump throws. The flags were the ones you would expect: 5-11 with 30 1/8-inch arms, a 4.60 forty, and a missed-tackle rate that traced to aggression rather than effort.
Evaluators graded him as a rotational safety and core special-teamer with a chance to start if the processing carried over — a Day 3 name with Day 2 tape. Green Bay disagreed with the market. Having already spent a second-rounder on Javon Bullard, the Packers traded pick 190 to the Jets to climb 15 spots and take him at 111, doubling down on safety because their scouts believed the instincts were real.
- 01
Run diagnosis
he identifies the scheme instantly, beats the blocker to the fit and triggers downhill without a wasted step, which is why he graded elite in run defense as a pro.
- 02
Zone processing
reads route concepts and quarterback eyes rather than his man, breaking on throws early enough to turn coverage into takeaways.
- 03
Physicality in the alley
plays much bigger than 5-11, takes on pullers and finishes runs at the line of scrimmage instead of waiting for help.
- 04
Positional versatility
five years of starting experience split across deep safety, the box and nickel, with real reps at all three rather than emergency snaps.
- 05
Blitz value
4.5 sacks in 2023 tied for second among all FBS defensive backs, and the timing and disguise on those pressures were coached-up, not lucky.
- 01
Missed tackles
he arrives with speed but does not always break down, and bigger backs run through him one-on-one when the angle is wrong.
- 02
Length and size
5-11 with 30 1/8-inch arms means contested throws over the top and stalk blocks from bigger receivers are a real problem.
- 03
Long speed
a 4.60 forty limits how much true single-high range he can offer, and deep coverage against speed is where the tape shows strain.
- 04
Aggression in pursuit
he overruns plays chasing the ball, which opens cutback lanes behind him when his angle is a step too flat.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.60sp50
- Vertical
- 40.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 126inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Fresno State | 12 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 2020 | Fresno State | 4 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2021 | Fresno State | 13 | 90 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 |
| 2022 | Fresno State | 10 | 55 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 2023 | Oregon | 13 | 82 | 4.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Career | — | 52 | 294 | 4.5 | 4 | 13 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Undersized, instinct-driven safety who reads concepts better than he runs and turns that into a decade of quality starting play.
The role model, not the athlete: a box-first safety who becomes the defense's tone-setter by playing near the line and still producing turnovers.
A physical box safety whose value swings on tackling discipline and availability, and who never fully answers the coverage questions.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Green Bay put him on the field immediately. He played 13 games as a rookie in 2024, started four, logged 474 defensive snaps and 115 on teams, and finished with 49 tackles, one interception, three pass breakups and a forced fumble — enough to make the all-rookie team. Year 2 was the leap. He started 15 of 16 games in 2025, played 903 defensive snaps, and posted 100 tackles with three interceptions, one of only five players in the NFL to reach both marks. His PFF run-defense grade ranked tenth among 98 qualified safeties. Entering 2026 he is a locked-in starter under new coordinator Jonathan Gannon, who has told him to expect more box snaps, and he reshaped his body over the offseason to handle them.
In hindsight the board was wrong and the Packers were right, and the reason is simple: the market graded the measurables and Green Bay graded the football. Everything that made him a Day 3 pick — the arms, the 4.60, the missed tackles — is still true. It just matters less than the instincts. The player who diagnosed run fits at Fresno State does the same thing on Sundays, and a fourth-round safety became one of the best young starters at the position.