Jared
Verse.
Jared
Verse.
Florida State· 6'4"· 254 lb· 4.58s 40
"Verse is the rare edge whose floor was never in question: a power rusher who sets the edge on first down, wrecks the pocket on third, and asks a defense to bet on relentlessness instead of bend."Pre-draft read
Verse is a wide-alignment power edge who plays like a collision seeker. He rushes from a two-point stance with a violent long-arm and a speed-to-power conversion that turns his first three steps into a moving wall, and his hands arrive before the tackle's do. The strike is the trait: he resets the pocket by displacing the outside shoulder rather than running an arc.
Against the run he is a genuine setter of the edge, squeezing down on duo and stacking tight ends without surrendering ground, and his motor produces chase tackles across the formation. The rush plan is more power-and-counter than bend, but the signature is relentlessness — he wins late in downs as often as he wins early.
Four-down front that asks its edges to two-gap the tight end on early downs and win with power on obvious passing downs; also viable as a 3-4 strongside outside linebacker.
Year 1: every-down starting defensive end with run-down priority and a designated power-rush package. Ceiling: cornerstone edge in the 8-11 sack range whose pressure and run impact outrun the box score.
A one-gap penetration front that asks its edges to win narrow with speed off the ball, or a wide-9 track-meet scheme that keys entirely on flattening the corner against elite pass sets.
His value rises in defenses that rotate the front and let him rush from a reduced inside alignment on third down.
Jared Verse 2023 Full Season Highlights | Florida State EDGE
Full 2023 season cut-up showing the long-arm, edge-setting and late-down finishing.
Film Room: Jared Verse vs Clemson — All Pass Rushes
Every pass rush against Clemson: power conversion wins and the reps where the corner stalls.
Florida State DE Jared Verse 2023 Highlights
Condensed 2023 reel emphasizing run defense and chase tackles.
Verse arrived at Florida State as an FCS transfer and immediately became the most disruptive front-seven player in the ACC, a rare case of a level jump that produced no adjustment period. He is a heavy-handed edge with a defined identity: power first, effort always, and a run defense floor that scouts trusted from the first tape.
The production backed the tape. Two first-team All-ACC seasons and back-to-back nine-sack years came with a pressure profile far better than the sack count, and the Clemson and LSU games showed a player who could change a game's structure by himself. The flags were about the finishing details — a rush plan that leaned on the long-arm, tightness turning the corner, and a hand-fighting inventory that would need to broaden against NFL tackles.
The board never wavered on the floor. Most evaluators had him as one of three edge defenders worth a top-20 pick, and the debate was about ceiling rather than fit. Taking him at 19 was the least speculative version of that bet: a plug-and-play starter on early downs with enough rush juice to grow into a double-digit-sack player.
- 01
Speed-to-power
converts his get-off into a bull rush that walks tackles into the quarterback's lap and collapses the pocket from the outside in.
- 02
Hand violence
long-arm and rip land first and with intent, which lets him control the rep even when the block is technically correct.
- 03
Run-defense floor
sets a hard edge against tight ends and pullers, stacks and sheds without giving ground, and never gets washed inside.
- 04
Motor and chase
finishes plays 20 yards downfield and wins a high share of his pressures late in the down when the first move fails.
- 05
Level-jump proof
moved from FCS Albany to the ACC and led the league in disruption immediately, with no acclimation dip on tape.
- 01
Bend and corner
plays tall through the arc and rarely flattens to the quarterback, so speed rushes stall when the tackle stays square.
- 02
Rush plan variety
leans heavily on power and the long-arm; the counter menu is thin when the initial strike is absorbed.
- 03
Ankle flexibility
limited hip and ankle looseness caps his ability to reduce the corner against elite pass sets.
- 04
Age and runway
an older prospect whose developmental window is shorter than that of the younger edges taken around him.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.58sp50
- Vertical
- 35inp50
- Broad jump
- 127inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.31sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.44sp50
- Bench
- 31repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Albany | 4 | 22 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Albany | 11 | 53 | 9.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Florida State | 12 | 48 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Florida State | 13 | 41 | 9 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Career | — | 40 | 164 | 31.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Albany (FCS) seasons per school and conference records; Florida State seasons verified against cfbstats. Pass-defense splits at Albany are unverified and left blank rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Compact, heavy-handed edge who wins with speed-to-power and grades out far better than his raw sack totals.
Same relentless power-and-motor identity, with hand usage refined enough to produce double-digit sacks every year.
Tools and strike are real, but stiffness through the corner and a thin counter menu keep the sack production modest.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Verse was a Day 1 starter in Los Angeles and immediately validated the pick. As a rookie he played every regular-season game, posted 66 tackles, 11 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks, and led all rookies in pressures and quarterback hits — the sack number lagged the disruption by a wide margin. That season ended with AP Defensive Rookie of the Year, a Pro Bowl nod and a fumble return for a touchdown in the wild-card win over Minnesota. In year two the finishing caught up: he added roughly 58 tackles and 7.5 sacks and made a second Pro Bowl, giving him 124 tackles and 12 sacks through two seasons. In June 2026 he was the centerpiece going the other way when the Rams sent him plus three future picks to Cleveland for Myles Garrett.
In hindsight the evaluation was almost exactly right, and that is the compliment. The floor everyone trusted showed up immediately, the pressure-to-sack gap narrowed on schedule, and the bend limitation is still visible — he wins with power and persistence, not by turning the corner. He was never going to be a 15-sack outlier, but as a starting, every-down edge with award-level impact, pick 19 looks like value.
Data note: Albany (FCS) seasons per school and conference records; Florida State seasons verified against cfbstats. Pass-defense splits at Albany are unverified and left blank rather than zero-filled.