Jd
Bertrand.
Jd
Bertrand.
Notre Dame· 6'1"· 235 lb
"A two-time captain who ran a Notre Dame defense with his eyes: the traits never tested like a starter, but the diagnosis and the tackling always played."Pre-draft read
Bertrand is a downhill, old-school Mike who plays the game through his eyes. He stacks behind the guard, reads the near back, and triggers on his first read — Notre Dame trusted him to make the calls and set the front. He takes on pulling guards square, keeps his feet under him through contact, and finishes tackles at the point of attack.
The secondary trait is dependability rather than juice: he is a plus green-dog blitzer and a sound zone-drop defender who spots routes and passes them off cleanly. In man coverage the athletic ceiling shows — backs and tight ends can win the corner on him. The signature is play-recognition speed that makes an average tester play a half-step faster than he times.
Two-gap or gap-and-a-half base defense that plays heavy personnel and asks its Mike to make the calls, fit downhill and get off the field on third down.
Year 1: third linebacker in base packages plus a four-phase special teams job. Ceiling: a signal-calling starting Mike on early downs who comes off the field in nickel.
A light-box, nickel-heavy defense that lives in 4-2 and asks both linebackers to match backs and tight ends man-to-man in space — his coverage athleticism gets isolated every third down.
Value rises on a team that keeps a true base package and wants a defensive communicator; it collapses on a team that plays nickel on 70 percent of snaps.
The CAPTAIN | Notre Dame LB JD Bertrand Highlights
Career cut-up: downhill run fits, take-on reps and finishing tackles.
J.D. Bertrand 2023 Highlights
Final Notre Dame season: A-gap fills, zone drops and blitz reps.
JD Bertrand (#27 Notre Dame LB) VS Duke 2023 (All Plays)
Every-snap single-game study against Duke in 2023.
Two-time captain, decorated student-athlete, and the tone-setter of a Notre Dame defense that asked him to run the front. He is a 6-1, 235-pound inside linebacker whose identity is diagnosis, leverage and tackling — a football-first evaluation where the traits sheet never mattered as much as what the film and the locker room said.
He was a special-teams freshman before becoming the leading tackler on a top-15 defense as a first-year starter in 2021, then held the middle for two more seasons at a stable, high level: 256 career tackles, 22 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks across 47 games. The signature reps come between the tackles — filling the A-gap on time, taking on the lead blocker, and getting the defense lined up before the snap. The flags are the ones scouts always attach to this profile: average length and change of direction, coverage limitations against athletic backs, and a run-fit game that depends on being kept clean.
The board saw a reliable Day 3 backup and core special-teamer, roughly a fifth-to-sixth-round grade with a high floor and a small ceiling. Atlanta at 143 was buying exactly that — third linebacker, four-phase teams player, and a room leader from day one.
- 01
Diagnosis
reads run keys through the guard and near back and triggers on the first cue, which routinely puts him in the hole before the play develops.
- 02
Tackling reliability
256 career tackles across 47 games with a wrap-and-finish technique that rarely leaves yards on the ground after contact.
- 03
Leadership and command
two-time Notre Dame captain who set the front, made the checks and won the program's top character honors.
- 04
Take-on strength
squares up lead blockers and pulling guards, keeps his outside arm free and spills or boxes as the call requires.
- 05
Zone awareness
feels crossers, passes routes off cleanly in the middle hook and closes hard on the checkdown once the ball leaves.
- 01
Athletic ceiling
average timed speed and change of direction show up as lost ground carrying vertical routes and chasing wide zone to the sideline.
- 02
Man coverage
backs and athletic tight ends can win the corner on him, which limits him to base and heavy-personnel situations.
- 03
Length
just over 30-inch arms make it hard to disengage once an offensive lineman gets hands inside his frame.
- 04
Splash production
5.5 career sacks and no takeaway volume; he wins by being right rather than by making plays behind the line.
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| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Notre Dame | 10 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Notre Dame | 13 | 102 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | Notre Dame | 12 | 74 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2023 | Notre Dame | 12 | 76 | 2.5 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| Career | — | 47 | 256 | 5.5 | 0 | 8 | 0 |
CFBD box score covers 2020-2023 and the season totals sum exactly to the career line (47 games, 256 tackles, 22.0 TFL, 5.5 sacks, 8 PD). 2019 was a redshirt year (four special-teams appearances, no individual production recorded) and is intentionally left out rather than zero-filled. No interception or forced fumble is credited to him in the CFBD file, so those keys are omitted instead of being written as zeros.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Core four-phase teams player and third linebacker who fills in competently when the starter is out.
Special-teams-first linebacker whose instincts and tackling eventually earned a real early-down starting role.
Journeyman depth backer who bounces between rosters once the special-teams value is the only value.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Atlanta used him the way the grade implied. As a rookie in 2024 he played 12 games without a start, roughly a fifth of the defensive snaps when active, missing time with a concussion and an eye injury, and made his living on the kicking units. Year two was more of the same with a real window inside it: 15 games, 35 tackles and two pass breakups, mostly special teams, but a genuine defensive run in the middle of the season when Divine Deablo's forearm injury pushed him into the rotation. He held up in that stretch without ever taking the job. Entering 2026 he was still on the Falcons roster and squarely on the bubble, named a trade candidate as the linebacker room got younger around him.
In hindsight this is a fifth-round pick doing fifth-round work, which is a fair outcome and not a bad one. The instincts and tackling travelled; the athletic limits that capped him in coverage at Notre Dame capped him again in the NFL, and that is the difference between a rotational backup and a starter. Teams get real value from players like this — they just do not get snaps.
Data note: CFBD box score covers 2020-2023 and the season totals sum exactly to the career line (47 games, 256 tackles, 22.0 TFL, 5.5 sacks, 8 PD). 2019 was a redshirt year (four special-teams appearances, no individual production recorded) and is intentionally left out rather than zero-filled. No interception or forced fumble is credited to him in the CFBD file, so those keys are omitted instead of being written as zeros.