Jowon
Briggs.
Jowon
Briggs.
Cincinnati
"A 300-pound weight-room legend whose game is exactly what the bench press says it is: strike, push, hold the gap, and never stop running to the football until somebody blows a whistle."Pre-draft read
Briggs is a compact, thickly built interior defender who spent most of his college snaps between the guards, bouncing from nose shade to 3-technique and sliding out to a heavy 4i. The trait that carries him is raw upper-body power: he leads with a jarring two-hand strike, resets the line of scrimmage on contact, and rarely gets moved once his hands land inside a blocker's frame.
The pass rush is bull-first and relentless rather than varied, a long push-pull that collapses the pocket up the middle and wins late in the down. He is at his best on early downs, squeezing gaps and spilling runs sideways, and his signature is the motor: he chases through the whistle at 300 pounds and finishes plays other interior linemen jog toward.
One-gap 4-3 or hybrid 3-4 front that lets an interior lineman attack a single gap, with a heavy dose of early-down base packages where power beats finesse.
Year one: early-down interior rotation, roughly 20-25 snaps a game holding up against doubles and pushing the pocket on obvious passing downs. Ceiling: a starter-adjacent base 3-technique who plays 550-plus snaps and delivers four to six sacks off pure push.
A two-gap, read-and-react 3-4 that asks the nose to stack, control both gaps and shed with length. His short arms mean he wins by striking and pushing, not by holding a blocker at distance and playing the ball.
Also a poor fit in a heavy stunt-and-twist pass-rush package that asks interior linemen to loop with speed; keep him on straight-line rush lanes.
Jowon Briggs | Defensive Tackle | Cincinnati | 2023 Highlights
Full 2023 season reel showing the bull rush, gap discipline and finish that defined his final Cincinnati year.
Film Room: Cincinnati DT Jowon Briggs Vs BYU: All Snaps
All-snaps cut against BYU — the best single-game look at how he handles doubles and works the interior on passing downs.
Jowon Briggs Highlights | Welcome to the Jets
Post-trade reel from New York covering his rookie Cleveland snaps and early Jets work.
A five-year college defender who arrived at Virginia as a highly recruited freshman, started immediately, then rebuilt his career at Cincinnati, Briggs is a power-over-finesse interior lineman whose football identity is strength, effort and gap discipline rather than length or explosion.
Production came in a rotational role: 19 tackles as a Virginia true freshman, 20 more in the shortened 2020 season, then three Cincinnati years worth 130 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss and eight sacks as the Bearcats moved from the AAC into the Big 12. He was named to Bruce Feldman's Freaks List for his weight-room numbers and later posted the most bench-press reps of any prospect at the 2024 Big 12 Pro Day. The flags were just as clear: short arms, a narrow pass-rush plan and a body type that limited how often he could win as anything other than a bull rusher.
Boards treated him as a late Day 3 depth flier, a developmental rotational body who would have to earn a roster spot through special teams and interior run defense. Cleveland took the swing at 243, one pick into the final stretch of the seventh round, betting that elite functional strength and a nonstop motor would translate faster than the technique gaps suggested.
- 01
Functional strength
Elite weight-room power that shows up live; he stops double teams at the point and resets blockers with a single violent two-hand strike.
- 02
Motor and finish
Plays through the whistle on every snap, chasing screens and backside runs at 300 pounds long after the block has been declared won.
- 03
Pad level
Natural leverage from a compact frame lets him get under taller guards and centers, turning bull rushes into pocket compression up the middle.
- 04
Gap discipline
Rarely freelances out of his run fit, holding the A- and B-gap assignment even when the design asks him to eat blocks rather than make plays.
- 05
Durability and availability
Five college seasons of interior snaps with no significant missed time, and he carried that same availability into two NFL rosters.
- 01
Arm length
Short arms let offensive linemen into his chest first, which caps how often he can control and shed a well-timed set at the NFL level.
- 02
Pass-rush plan
The bull rush is the whole menu; counters, swipes and a change-up move are inconsistent and he can stall once the push is absorbed.
- 03
Explosiveness off the snap
First-step quickness is average, so he wins with accumulation rather than beating blockers to the spot on obvious passing downs.
- 04
Range in space
Limited lateral agility on stretch and outside zone concepts; he can be reached and washed when asked to run the arc down the line.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Virginia | 13 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Virginia | 7 | 20 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | Cincinnati | 14 | 43 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Cincinnati | 13 | 60 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Cincinnati | 12 | 27 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 59 | 169 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Cincinnati totals (2021-23: 130 tackles, 14.5 TFL, 8.0 sacks) verified against the Browns official draft release and cfbstats season splits. Virginia 2019 sack total and all pass-defense splits outside 2020 are unpublished and left null rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Short-armed, thick-bodied one-gapper who carved out a long career as a quality early-down interior starter on modest contracts. That is the realistic Briggs outcome.
The undersized, leverage-first interior disruptor who turns functional strength into consistent pocket collapse — the absolute Briggs ceiling, and one he is unlikely to reach without a wider rush menu.
Powerful but scheme-dependent rotational body who bounces between rosters as a run-down specialist and never locks down a full-time role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Briggs did not make Cleveland's initial 53 in 2024, landing on the practice squad out of camp before being signed to the active roster on December 2. He closed his rookie year with six appearances, 13 tackles and two quarterback hits, mostly as an early-down interior body. On August 20, 2025, the Browns traded him to the New York Jets for a 2026 sixth-round pick, and New York immediately made him part of the interior rotation. He played 588 snaps in 2025, logged 18 solo tackles, four sacks and a forced fumble on the Jets' own accounting, and graded 73.6 at PFF, inside the top 20 among qualifying interior defenders. He entered 2026 on a one-year, $1.075 million deal with New York and remained on the active roster through the summer.
In hindsight, this pick looks like exactly what a seventh-rounder should be. Briggs was never going to be a three-down centerpiece, but the traits that made him a Freaks List name translated: he holds up on early downs, he pushes the pocket, and he plays every snap the same way. Cleveland got a serviceable rookie season and then flipped him for a sixth, and the Jets got a starter-adjacent rotational lineman on a minimum-level deal. That is a win from pick 243.
Data note: Cincinnati totals (2021-23: 130 tackles, 14.5 TFL, 8.0 sacks) verified against the Browns official draft release and cfbstats season splits. Virginia 2019 sack total and all pass-defense splits outside 2020 are unpublished and left null rather than zero-filled.