Jackson
Powers-Johnson.
Jackson
Powers-Johnson.
Oregon· 6'3"· 328 lb
"A Rimington Trophy winner who has spent two NFL seasons being moved around: the anchor, the hands and the temperament were never in question, only whether anyone would let him stand still long enough to own a position."Pre-draft read
Powers-Johnson is a 328-pound interior anchor whose best football came at center, where he snapped and fired into contact in the same motion. He is a leverage-and-torque blocker: heavy hands that land inside the frame, and a lower half that stalls bull rushers the instant his feet reset. On gap and duo concepts he displaces down blocks and finishes people.
The secondary trait is temperament. He plays through the whistle and volunteers for the dirty work in short yardage, where Oregon used him as an extra body. In protection he is a wall rather than a mirror: elite anchor and reliable hands, less comfortable when a quick interior rusher forces him to redirect laterally in a phone booth. The snap-to-strike timing is the signature.
Gap, duo and power run schemes with a quarterback who works from the pocket — an offense that asks the interior to displace bodies vertically rather than reach and run.
Year 1: immediate starting center in a downhill run game. Ceiling: multi-time Pro Bowl pivot who calls the protections and anchors an offensive line for a decade.
An outside-zone offense that asks him to reach nose tackles on the backside and climb to linebackers in space every snap, or a spread attack that leaves him isolated against quick, slippery three-techniques with no help.
Best value comes from picking one position and leaving him there; the guard-center shuffling has cost him more than any physical limitation.
Why Jackson Powers-Johnson is the Next Great Center
Trait breakdown of the anchor, hand placement and snap-to-strike timing that won him the Rimington Trophy.
Jackson Powers-Johnson NFL Draft highlights
Oregon 2023 cut-ups showing displacement power on gap and duo concepts.
Jackson Powers Johnson Is An ABSOLUTE Game WRECKER | Las Vegas Raiders
Post-draft look at the finishing temperament and how it projects into the Raiders interior.
A one-year superstar at the position that mattered most. Powers-Johnson arrived in Eugene as a big-bodied guard project, spent two seasons rotating and learning, then moved to center in 2023 and immediately became the best one in the country. He is a power-scheme interior lineman first: identify, strike, displace, finish. Nothing about the game is finesse.
The 2023 tape is the entire case. He anchored an Oregon front that let Bo Nix operate in rhythm, controlled nose tackles one-on-one, and won the Rimington Trophy plus unanimous first-team All-America honors. The flags were about breadth, not quality: one full season of starting reps, arms on the shorter side at 32 1/4 inches that pin him to the interior, and questions about lateral range against quick-twitch three-techniques. He also skipped the timed drills at the combine, so evaluators graded him on tape and jumps rather than a stopwatch.
Boards were split on how much a one-year center is worth. Several had him inside the top 32 as the best interior lineman in the class; enough teams had positional value concerns that he slid into the second round. At 44, Las Vegas got a plug-and-play interior starter with All-Pro upside if the fit is right, which is the sort of value the middle of round two is supposed to produce.
- 01
Elite anchor
once his feet are set, 328 pounds of leverage and grip strength stop bull rushers dead and keep the pocket depth clean for the quarterback.
- 02
Displacement power
on down blocks and duo doubles he moves nose tackles off the spot rather than merely covering them up, creating real vertical push.
- 03
Hand placement
lands inside the frame consistently and re-fits without panic when the first strike misses, which is why he rarely gets turned or shed late.
- 04
Snap-to-strike timing
the exchange and the punch happen as one motion, an underrated center trait that lets him win the first half-second at the pivot.
- 05
Finishing temperament
plays through the whistle, seeks extra work in short yardage, and set the tone for an Oregon front that never got bullied in 2023.
- 01
Lateral range
quick interior rushers who attack an edge and cross his face can make him reach and lunge instead of sliding and mirroring cleanly.
- 02
One year of starting tape
the dominance is real but the sample at center is a single season, so the projection leans harder on traits than on volume.
- 03
Arm length
32 1/4 inch arms pin him to guard or center and give long rushers a first-strike advantage when he lets them into his chest.
- 04
Space blocking
climbing to second-level linebackers in the open field is functional rather than pretty; he can whiff on moving targets in wide-zone.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 32inp50
- Broad jump
- 104inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Oregon | 11 |
| 2022 | Oregon | 12 |
| 2023 | Oregon | 13 |
| Career | — | 36 |
Oregon 2021-2023; season games sum to the 36 career games. 2021-2022 start counts are not verified 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.
Honors
- 2023 Rimington Trophy winner
- 2023 unanimous first-team All-American
- 2023 first-team All-Pac-12
A long-term quality interior starter who makes the line calls, wins with power and technique, and is never the weak link.
The ceiling if he is left at center: an All-Pro anchor who wins with leverage, grip and instant hand placement rather than length.
A capable lineman moved between guard and center often enough that he never fully masters either spot.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Two seasons of quality interior play in Las Vegas undercut by constant position changes; entering 2026 healthy and settled at guard with Tyler Linderbaum at center.
Las Vegas did not use him the way Oregon did. He opened his rookie year working mostly at left guard, then slid to center in Week 9 when Andre James went down with an ankle injury, and handled the emergency start well enough that the position debate never really closed. He appeared in 15 games as a rookie while bouncing between the two spots. In 2025 the staff moved him again, first working him exclusively at center in the spring and then settling him at right guard for the season, where PFF graded him a middle-of-the-pack starter on 354 snaps. An ankle injury in November put him on injured reserve after eight games.
The shuffling is the story. A Rimington Trophy winner who has never been allowed to own the pivot for a full NFL season is a strange outcome for a pick this clean, and it has cost him continuity in the two years that usually build an interior lineman. He was healthy and full-go by the 2026 offseason program, but with Tyler Linderbaum brought in to play center, his home is now guard. The talent evaluation looks right; the deployment has been the variable.
Data note: Oregon 2021-2023; season games sum to the 36 career games. 2021-2022 start counts are not verified by a primary source and are left null rather than zero-filled. Offensive line: no box-score stats tracked.