Jer'Zhan
Newton.
Jer'Zhan
Newton.
Illinois· 6'2"· 304 lb
"A get-off-first interior rusher whose only real question was a surgically repaired foot, not the tape — the kind of player boards love in March and second rounds quietly profit from in April."Pre-draft read
Interior disruptor who lived as a penetrating three-technique in Illinois' four-man front, with the quickest first step on the field most Saturdays. Newton wins before contact: he times the snap, gets his outside hand into the guard's shoulder plate, and turns a half-step of leverage into a gap he can flatten through.
Pass rush is the calling card, but he is not a liability against the run — he penetrates rather than anchors, which produces tackles for loss and the occasional washed-out gap. He is more sudden than powerful, and the counters (swim, cross-chop, spin) come faster than most interior linemen can reset. The signature is relentlessness: he chases plays down the line and finishes 15 yards from the snap.
Attacking four-man front (even spacing) that lets interior linemen shoot gaps rather than read and react
Year 1: sub-package interior rusher in a rotation, 35-45% of snaps. Ceiling: full-time starting three-technique who wins 8-10 sacks a year as the pressure hub of an attacking front.
A two-gap 3-4 that asks him to play head-up over a guard, hold ground against doubles and read the back — his mass and anchor make that a losing assignment.
Value spikes when paired with a heavy nose who eats the double team.
Jer'Zhan Newton 2023 Season Highlights
Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year season: interior pressure, TFLs and pursuit finishes.
2024 NFL Draft Highlights: DT Jer'Zhan Newton
Pre-draft cutup showing get-off, hand timing and counter package against Big Ten guards.
Jer'Zhan Newton Ultimate Illinois Highlights
Career-long compilation across all four Illinois seasons.
Newton is a get-off-and-go interior rusher whose value is tied to how much a defense is willing to let him attack. He is not a two-gap body type at 6-2 and roughly 295 pounds, and he never pretended to be one; the football identity is disruption from a shaded alignment, and everything on tape flows from that.
He arrived at Illinois lightly recruited and grew year over year under a staff that built one of the country's best defenses in 2023. The production curve is honest: 1.5 sacks as a freshman, then 3.5, then 5.5, then 7.5 sacks with 9 tackles for loss and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors. The flag was medical — a Jones fracture in his foot that required surgery and wiped out his pre-draft testing.
Boards had him in the first-round conversation as a top-40 talent for most of the cycle, and the foot is the reason he slid to the top of the second. Washington, needing juice next to Daron Payne, took the tools and the tape over the medical worry at #36.
- 01
First-step quickness
Times the snap as well as any interior lineman in the class and consistently beats guards to the landmark before they can set their feet.
- 02
Hand timing
Independent hands arrive with the first step, allowing him to knock a blocker's frame off-line instead of absorbing contact chest to chest.
- 03
Counter package
Swim, cross-chop and spin all show up on tape, and he stacks them within a rush rather than repeating the same move.
- 04
Natural leverage
Plays with low pads by build and technique, so guards struggle to get underneath him even when he is outweighed.
- 05
Pursuit motor
Chases from the backside and finishes plays well outside his gap, turning would-be short gains into tackles for loss.
- 01
Anchor against doubles
Gets displaced when a guard and center combo him, and he can be moved off the spot on downhill inside zone.
- 02
Size limits
At 6-2 and under 300 pounds he lacks the mass some fronts want from a base defensive tackle on early downs.
- 03
Medical questions
A Jones fracture requiring surgery ended his pre-draft process early and clouded the athletic profile teams wanted to confirm.
- 04
Attacking style risk
His aggressiveness upfield can take him out of run fits when a play cuts back behind his penetration.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Illinois | 8 | 23 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | Illinois | 12 | 51 | 3.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Illinois | 13 | 62 | 5.5 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2023 | Illinois | 12 | 52 | 7.5 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 45 | 188 | 18 | 0 | 5 | 2 |
Four seasons at Illinois (2020-2023) per Sports-Reference; 2022 totals include bowl stats. Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 2023.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Undersized penetrating three-technique who wins with quickness and motor, produces 5-7 sacks and constant backfield noise.
Only in the sense of a leverage-and-get-off interior rusher who wins before hands land; nobody projected that ceiling in outcome terms.
Useful sub-package rusher who never solves the anchor issue and settles into a rotational, matchup-dependent role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Washington drafted Newton to play next to Daron Payne and rush from the inside, and the rookie year was a slow build coming off foot surgery: 16 games, 44 tackles, 2.0 sacks and a fumble recovery in a rotational role while the Commanders rode an unexpected NFC Championship run. Year two was the step forward the tape suggested. He played all 17 games in 2025, logged a career-best 5.0 sacks, added a forced fumble and a batted pass, and became the interior pressure piece the front needed as the roster around him turned over.
In hindsight this looks like the medical discount paying off. Newton was a top-20 talent on plenty of boards before the Jones fracture, and Washington got him 16 picks after the first round ended. He has not become a double-digit-sack interior star, and the anchor concerns were real — he is still at his best on passing downs and in odd rush packages rather than as a plug-and-play base nose. But two seasons in he is a starter-caliber rotational disruptor on a rookie deal, which is what a top-of-round-two defensive tackle is supposed to be.
Data note: Four seasons at Illinois (2020-2023) per Sports-Reference; 2022 totals include bowl stats. Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 2023.