Kris
Jenkins.
Kris
Jenkins.
Michigan· 6'3"· 299 lb· 4.91s 40
"A national champion captain with a Pro Bowl surname and four career sacks, drafted 49th by a team that decided the run-stopping floor and the football IQ were worth more than the box score."Pre-draft read
Jenkins is a gap-penetrating interior lineman who lined up everywhere from 3-technique to nose in Michigan's rotation, and the trait that shows first is the get-off. He fires out low, gets hands inside before the guard can set and works half-man leverage to squeeze the running lane, which is why Michigan trusted him on early downs against the Big Ten's best run games.
The pass rush is effort and technique rather than bend. He converts speed to power with a long-arm and a push-pull, keeps his feet churning through contact, but he wins late instead of instantly. What separates him is the motor and the mental side: he plays every rep at the same pace and diagnoses blocking schemes as fast as anyone in the class.
One-gap, four-man front that lets him shoot a single gap off the snap and attack up the field rather than read and react.
Year 1: early-down interior starter in a rotation. Ceiling: every-down 3-technique who anchors the run and adds five to six sacks a season.
Two-gap 3-4 that parks him as a 0-tech head-up on the center and asks him to two-gap on every snap, which wastes the get-off that makes him valuable.
His value is the first step, so any scheme that neutralizes it neutralizes him.
NFL Draft Film Ep 910: Kris Jenkins / DT / Michigan / 2023 / Full Highlights
Full 2023 senior-season cut-up: run fits, leverage against doubles and the long-arm rush.
Kris Jenkins 2023 Highlights
Championship-season reel showing the get-off and the finishing motor down the line.
2024 NFL Draft Prospect: Kris Jenkins, DT, Michigan
Pre-draft breakdown of the pass-rush plan and where the production gap comes from.
Jenkins is the son of a four-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle, and the football intelligence shows on tape long before the athletic testing does. He is a compact, thickly built interior defender at 6-3 and 299 pounds who plays with heavy hands and elite pad level, and Michigan made him a captain of a national championship defense as a senior.
The production line is where the argument lives. Across three seasons of recorded snaps he totaled 112 tackles, 8.0 tackles for loss and 4.0 sacks — modest counting numbers for a top-50 pick, and a reflection of a role that asked him to occupy blockers and keep linebackers clean rather than hunt the quarterback. The film shows a defender who consistently beat his man without the box score rewarding him, and grading him meant trusting the process work over the stat sheet.
Boards were split. Some had him as a fringe first-rounder on the strength of the run defense, leadership and 2023 postseason tape; others pushed him into round three because the pass-rush win rate never spiked and 4.0 career sacks is thin. Cincinnati, rebuilding an interior line that had been gashed, took him 49th and bet on the run-stopping floor with the pass-rush upside as a bonus.
- 01
Run defense
Anchors against down blocks and doubles with genuine leverage, holding the point of attack and keeping the second level clean on gap and zone runs alike.
- 02
Get-off
Fires out of his stance faster than his weight suggests and beats guards to the punch, forcing them into a recovery set on the first step.
- 03
Hand usage
Lands inside with heavy, accurate hands and works a long-arm and push-pull combination to detach when the ball declares.
- 04
Football IQ
Diagnoses blocking schemes, screens and pullers in real time; Michigan trusted him with front calls as a senior captain.
- 05
Motor
Chases down the line and finishes plays 15 yards from the snap, a trait that shows up on every tape from the last two seasons.
- 01
Sack production
Four career sacks and 8.0 tackles for loss is thin for a second-round interior defender, and the pass-rush win rate never spiked.
- 02
Rush plan
Wins with power and effort rather than a counter tree; when the long-arm is stalled he does not have a reliable second move.
- 03
Bend and flexibility
Tight through the hips and ankles, so he redirects with steps rather than turning the corner on a guard.
- 04
Length
Short arms for the position mean tackles and guards can reach his frame first when he is late off the ball.
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
- 4.91sp50
- Vertical
- 30inp50
- Broad jump
- 115inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.78sp50
- Bench
- 29repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Michigan | 14 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Michigan | 14 | 54 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Michigan | 15 | 36 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 43 | 112 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Tackle, game and interception totals include Michigan's bowl and College Football Playoff games; tackle-for-loss and sack figures are regular-season marks per CFBD. Jenkins was on the 2020 roster as a freshman but recorded no defensive statistics, so that season is not listed. Forced and recovered fumbles are unverified and left blank rather than reported as zero.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Sturdy interior run-stopper who starts and rotates for years without ever becoming a sack producer.
Undersized, leverage-driven 3-technique whose motor and hand usage turn into a decade of quality starts.
Rotational interior body whose lack of a pass-rush plan keeps him on early downs only.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Bengals interior starter from midway through his rookie year: 31 tackles and 3 sacks in 2024, then 36 tackles and 1.5 sacks in 2025.
Cincinnati got what it drafted almost immediately. Jenkins played 15 games as a rookie in 2024 with nine starts, taking over a full-time interior job for the last seven weeks of the season, and finished with 31 tackles and three sacks — more sacks in one NFL season than he managed in any college year. In 2025 he played 14 games with four starts and posted 36 tackles, 1.5 sacks and his first pass breakup, settling into a heavy-rotation role on a defense that spent the year rebuilding around him rather than the other way around.
The evaluation holds up as a floor bet that landed. He is not a disruptive interior pass rusher and probably never will be — the 4.5 sacks across two seasons track exactly with the college win rate — but the run defense, availability and snap quality are real, and a second-round interior lineman who starts as a rookie and stays on the field is a good use of pick 49. The open question is whether he becomes a top-tier starter or stays a very reliable piece of a rotation, and two seasons in the tape leans toward the second.
Data note: Tackle, game and interception totals include Michigan's bowl and College Football Playoff games; tackle-for-loss and sack figures are regular-season marks per CFBD. Jenkins was on the 2020 roster as a freshman but recorded no defensive statistics, so that season is not listed. Forced and recovered fumbles are unverified and left blank rather than reported as zero.