Justin
Rogers.
Justin
Rogers.
Auburn· 6'3"· 330 lb
"Dallas closed its 2024 draft on a former eighth-grade Kentucky commit who turned blue-chip hype into one honest, narrow skill: nobody moved him off the A-gap."Pre-draft read
A true 1-technique nose built to absorb the middle of a front. At 6-2 and 330-plus pounds with 97th-percentile hands, Rogers wins by anchoring: he sinks his hips on contact, catches the down block with his inside arm and refuses to be displaced off the center-guard seam. His best reps come against duo and inside zone, where he stacks the double team and lets the linebackers behind him run free.
The pass rush is functional, not dynamic. He is a bull rusher who collapses the middle when he times the snap and keeps his pads down, but he owns no counter once that charge stalls. The signature is short-area strength in a phone booth: two gaps of run-down value, then a sideline seat on obvious passing downs.
Even-front two-gap defense that asks a true 1-technique to hold the A-gap and let downhill linebackers clean up the run.
Year 1: rotational two-down nose eating 15-20 run snaps. Ceiling: starting 1-tech on a defense that hides him on third down.
Attacking one-gap front that asks its interior to shoot gaps upfield and generate interior pressure on passing downs.
The value is entirely in keeping linebackers clean; the moment a scheme asks him to win with quickness, it disappears.
Justin Rogers | Defensive Tackle | Auburn | 2023 Highlights
Full 2023 Auburn cut-up: anchor reps against SEC interior double teams.
NFL Draft Film Ep 1016: Justin Rogers / DT / Auburn
Draft-film breakdown of his leverage, hand strength and pass-rush limits.
Justin Rogers Highlights | Dallas Cowboys, Round 7 Pick 244
Post-draft reel framing the Cowboys' final selection of the 2024 class.
Rogers arrived at Kentucky as one of the most decorated recruits in the program's modern history, a Detroit-area four-star who committed as an eighth-grader and picked the Wildcats over Michigan, Alabama and Georgia. He never turned that billing into stardom. What he became instead was a specific, useful thing: a run-plugging nose who could eat blocks in the SEC for a defense that needed the middle of the line held shut.
The production was thin because the role was thin. His numbers climbed each year at Kentucky, peaking at 33 tackles in 2022, and at Auburn he settled into a rotational interior job with 17 tackles and two TFL. Nothing about the box score sells him. The tape does the arguing: consistent leverage at the point of attack, rare grip strength, and a body type that simply cannot be single-blocked on early downs. The flags were just as clear — almost no pass-rush plan, limited conditioning for extended series, and a habit of playing tall late in games.
Boards had him as a late-Day-3 flier, most commonly a sixth-rounder, and the athletic testing pushed him further down. Dallas took him with the last of its own picks, a zero-risk swing at nose-tackle depth behind Mazi Smith after losing Johnathan Hankins in free agency.
- 01
Anchor at the point
Sinks his hips and locks out on contact, and single blocks simply do not move him off the center-guard seam on early downs.
- 02
Double-team eater
Stacks and holds two blockers on duo and inside zone, keeping the linebackers behind him clean and free to run to the football.
- 03
Elite grip strength
Enormous hands that measured in the 97th percentile let him catch, control and shed blockers once he lands them inside the frame.
- 04
Pocket push
When he times the snap and keeps his pads down, his bull rush collapses the middle and forces the quarterback off his launch point.
- 05
Positional durability
Played four seasons of SEC interior snaps at Kentucky and Auburn without a significant injury absence at 330-plus pounds.
- 01
No rush plan
Owns a bull rush and nothing else; once the initial charge stalls he has no counter, no swipe and no way to threaten a guard's edge.
- 02
Pad level slips late
Plays tall in extended series, and rising out of his stance robs the leverage that is the entire foundation of his game.
- 03
Athletic testing
Tested near the bottom of the class for the position, with almost no lateral range or ability to chase plays outside the tackle box.
- 04
Snap-count ceiling
Conditioning limits him to short bursts of early-down work, and he comes off the field on almost every obvious passing down.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 24.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 99inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.87sp50
- Bench
- 21repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Kentucky | — | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Kentucky | — | 17 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Kentucky | — | 33 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Auburn | — | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | — | 76 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Season splits verified against CFBD (playerId 4692185). Seasons sum exactly to the career line (76 tkl / 6.5 TFL / 3.0 sacks). Games played are not verified per season and are left null rather than estimated. Wikipedia lists 36 tackles in 2022 and 1.0 sack in 2023; CFBD's game-log totals are used as canonical. Interceptions, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries are unverified and left null.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Late-round SEC nose who bounced between rosters and practice squads without locking down a role.
Undersized-frame version of the same job: low-center anchor who carved out a decade of two-down interior work.
Big-bodied Day 3 interior flier who never converted camp reps into regular-season snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Dallas kept him only through camp: Rogers was released at final cuts in 2024 and landed on the Cincinnati practice squad, where he spent nearly the whole rookie year. The Cowboys signed him back to the active roster for the last three weeks of the season, and he did not take a defensive snap. Dallas waived him again on June 18, 2025. Seattle signed him on July 21 and cut him eight days later. Philadelphia added him on August 12, 2025, after an injury in their defensive tackle room, and that stint did not stick either. Through the 2026 offseason he has yet to record a single regular-season NFL statistic.
The honest read is that the pick did exactly what a 244th selection is supposed to do — cost nothing and buy a camp body at the least glamorous position on the field. The problem was never the anchor; the anchor is real. It was that modern interior defenders have to be worth a helmet on Sunday, and a two-down nose who cannot rush the passer or cover kicks is competing for the last roster spot against players who can do both. Rogers's recruiting stardom made this feel like a bigger fall than it was. In draft terms it was a lottery ticket that did not hit.
Data note: Season splits verified against CFBD (playerId 4692185). Seasons sum exactly to the career line (76 tkl / 6.5 TFL / 3.0 sacks). Games played are not verified per season and are left null rather than estimated. Wikipedia lists 36 tackles in 2022 and 1.0 sack in 2023; CFBD's game-log totals are used as canonical. Interceptions, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries are unverified and left null.