Justin
Eboigbe.
Justin
Eboigbe.
Alabama· 6'4"· 297 lb· 5.18s 40
"Alabama's neck-surgery survivor turned one comeback season into a Day 3 bet, and the Chargers got a power-based interior defender whose second-year sack total already outran the doubts."Pre-draft read
Eboigbe finished his Alabama career as a five-technique-to-three-technique swing piece, usually an outside shade in base who kicked inside on passing downs. His main trait is the initial punch: he shoots his hands into the breastplate, locks out and controls the blocker rather than getting washed, which is why Alabama trusted him against gap and duo teams.
The secondary trait is a late-blooming rush that lives on power. He converts speed to force through the guard's inside shoulder and finishes with a long-arm or push-pull; seven of his nine career sacks came in his final season. He is a run defender first who earns passing-down snaps by collapsing the pocket, not by winning early — the 5.18 forty is real and it caps the ceiling.
Multiple, gap-and-a-half fronts that ask a lineman to two-gap on early downs and slide inside as a power rusher in sub packages.
Year 1: rotational base end who defends the run on 20-25 snaps a game. Ceiling: full-time interior starter who plays 55 percent of snaps and delivers six-to-eight sacks off power.
A one-gap, get-off-driven attacking front that asks him to win with quickness upfield on every snap — his first step is the weakest part of his game and that scheme exposes it immediately.
Value climbs when he is asked to hold two gaps on first and second down and rush from a reduced alignment on third.
Justin Eboigbe 2023 Highlights | Alabama DL
His comeback season at Alabama: 11.5 tackles for loss and seven sacks after neck surgery.
Justin Eboigbe | Defensive Line | Alabama | 2023 Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
Pre-draft reel showing the hand power and gap control that defined his final college year.
NFL Draft Film Ep 1012: Justin Eboigbe / Alabama / 2023 / Full Highlights
Full-season cutup with the reduced-alignment power rush the Chargers drafted.
A five-year Alabama defensive lineman who came back from neck surgery to play his best football, Eboigbe is a heavy-handed interior/base end whose identity is leverage, length and effort rather than explosiveness. He wins with hands and hips, holds his gap, and asks his teammates to clean up behind him.
The path was slow: 10 tackles as a freshman, rotational work through 2020 and 2021, then four games in 2022 before a neck injury that required surgery ended the season and briefly threatened the career. The comeback year is the tape that matters — 63 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss and seven sacks in 14 games, First Team All-SEC from the coaches, a Comeback Player of the Year semifinalist nod and a Senior Bowl invite he accepted and used. The flags are just as clear: one year of real production, a limited rush plan beyond power, a slow first step, and a 23-year-old body with surgical history.
Boards had him in the Day 3 band as a rotational run defender with developmental rush upside, and medical grades were the swing variable. Los Angeles taking him at 105 was a bet on the last twelve months being the real player rather than the outlier, in a defense that needed bodies who could two-gap.
- 01
Hand power
punches with pop and length, locks out blockers at the point of attack and keeps his frame clean against down blocks and doubles.
- 02
Run defense
plays with leverage and gap discipline, holding the edge on the outside shade instead of getting reached and displaced.
- 03
Power rush
converts momentum into force with a long-arm and push-pull that collapses the pocket even when he does not finish the sack.
- 04
Alignment flexibility
took real snaps from the three-technique to the five, which lets a coordinator move him without changing the front.
- 05
Toughness and makeup
returned from neck surgery to post a career year and a First Team All-SEC coaches nod as a fifth-year captain type.
- 01
First step
a 5.18 forty shows up on tape as a late get-off, so he rarely wins before the blocker's hands land.
- 02
Rush plan
the counters behind the power are thin, and patient interior blockers who absorb the initial surge can stall him for a full down.
- 03
Production sample
one genuinely productive season out of five, which forces a projection off a small window of tape.
- 04
Medical file
a 2022 neck injury that required surgery and ended the season keeps the durability question open even after he passed physicals.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.18sp50
- Vertical
- 28inp50
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Alabama | 10 | 10 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Alabama | 12 | 18 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Alabama | 15 | 19 | 0.5 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | Alabama | 4 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Alabama | 14 | 63 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Career | — | 55 | 121 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- First Team All-SEC, coaches (2023)
- Second Team All-SEC, AP (2023)
- AP Comeback Player of the Year semifinalist (2023)
- Senior Bowl invitee (2024)
A rotational interior/base end who plays 500-600 snaps and turns power into five-to-seven sacks a season.
The ceiling if the anchor keeps improving: a long-tenured interior starter who owns the run game and takes what pass rush comes to him.
If the medical history or the limited rush plan wins out, a depth lineman who bounces between rosters after his rookie deal.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Los Angeles brought him along slowly. As a rookie in 2024 he played five games with two tackles behind a veteran interior of Poona Ford and Morgan Fox, spending most of the season as a developmental body. Year two under Jesse Minter was the payoff: 17 games, 39 tackles, seven tackles for loss and six sacks in a rotational role, with sacks of Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix bookending the season. Entering 2026 he is healthy, featured in camp coverage as a Year 3 riser and pushing for a larger snap share on a line that now needs him for more than early downs.
In hindsight this is a good fourth-round pick and a reminder that the medical file, not the tape, is what pushed him this far. The thing scouts doubted — that one productive year and a power-only rush would translate — has held up better than expected, because six sacks off a rotation is starter-adjacent production at that cost. He is still not an every-down difference-maker and probably never will be a double-digit rusher, but a cheap, healthy interior defender who defends the run and gets home occasionally is exactly the outcome you underwrite at 105.