Levi
Drake Rodriguez.
Levi
Drake Rodriguez.
Texas A&M-Commerce· 6'2"· 300 lb· 5.01s 40
"Nobody in the class had a wider gap between the level of opponent on his tape and the violence with which he beat it — Rodriguez is a leverage-and-hands nose whose motor was always going to travel further than his resume."Pre-draft read
Rodriguez is a compact, dense interior defender who lived at nose and three-technique and won with leverage, hands and effort. His first move off the snap is a jolt rather than a lean: heavy, accurate hands under the breastplate, thumbs up, and single blocks get walked backward. Against down blocks he squeezes and restricts, and he shuffles down the line better than the frame suggests.
The rush is power-based, not bendy. He converts speed to power on the bull, works a club-swim as his counter, and finishes with a motor that produced sacks on second and third efforts. He will not run an arc or get skinny through a gap, but the sustained violence and the ability to reset his hands mid-rep are what separated him from small-school noise.
Even-front, two-gap-tolerant defense that plays a true nose over the center on early downs (Vikings-style multiple 3-4/4-3 hybrid front).
Year 1: rotational nose and field-goal-block interior on special teams. Ceiling: 500-600 snap early-down nose who holds the A-gap on first and second down and gives you a power rush on obvious passing situations.
An attack-and-slant one-gap front that asks its interior to shoot upfield gaps and rush the passer on 45+ percent of snaps; his lack of length and bend means he gets ridden past the quarterback instead of collapsing the pocket.
Special teams value is real, not a throwaway line: his interior push on field-goal block is a legitimate roster tiebreaker.
Levi Drake Rodriguez | DT | Texas A&M-Commerce | 2023 Highlights
Full 2023 FCS tape: leverage wins, second-effort sacks and the hand usage that got him drafted.
Justin Jefferson is hyped after Levi Drake Rodriguez's sack
His first NFL sack in 2025 — bull rush converted into a collapse of the pocket.
Highlights & Best Plays by Vikings Young Defensive Talent from 2025 NFL Season | Film Room
Team film-room breakdown including Rodriguez 2025 run-stop reps at nose.
A zero-star recruit who signed with an NAIA program to play two sports, Rodriguez turned himself into a draftable interior lineman through three years at SAGU and two at Texas A&M-Commerce. He is a football identity player before he is a measurables player: relentless, low, technically clean with his hands, and wired to finish every rep the same way.
The production was real and it scaled. He was a first-team All-Sooner Athletic Conference edge as a freshman, added 30 pounds to move inside when he transferred, and closed at the FCS level with first-team All-Southland and PFF FCS All-America honors. His 2023 line — 56 tackles, 7.5 for loss, 5.5 sacks, a forced fumble and two recoveries — led the Southland in sacks. The flags were competition level, a short 6-2 frame that lands him at nose in most fronts, and hips that limit him when linemen get width on him.
The board move happened late. He was MVP of the Tropical Bowl with 3.5 sacks, tested well at a pro day at 300 pounds, and was profiled anonymously by The Athletic as the class's most overlooked player. Most staffs had him as a priority free agent with a late-round upside grade; Minnesota, needing rotational bulk behind an aging interior, spent a seventh on the traits and the makeup rather than the level of opponent.
- 01
Hand power
Strikes with heavy, accurate hands and gets thumbs under the pads, which lets him stack, extend and reset the line of scrimmage against single blocks.
- 02
Natural leverage
A 6-2, 300-pound build with a naturally low pad level means centers and guards rarely get under him at the point of attack.
- 03
Motor and finish
Plays through the whistle on every snap and generated multiple second-effort sacks; the rush does not die when the first move fails.
- 04
Anchor versus double teams
Sinks his hips and splits the seam rather than getting displaced, which is the trait that made him a real nose tackle projection.
- 05
Makeup and self-improvement
Went from NAIA two-sport walk-on body to FCS All-American by adding 30 pounds and living in the facility; the growth curve is documented, not theoretical.
- 01
Level of competition
Five college seasons split between NAIA and a first-year FCS program, so the dominance came against blockers who will never play on Sundays.
- 02
Length limitations
Short arms and a compact frame let longer NFL guards get into his chest first and steer him once they land the initial punch.
- 03
Pass-rush plan
Wins with power and effort more than sequencing; the counters are limited to a club-swim and he lacks the bend to threaten a corner.
- 04
Range in space
Heavy-footed in pursuit beyond the tackle box and will be exposed if asked to chase zone-read or wide-zone runs to the far hash.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.01sp50
- Vertical
- 26inp50
- Broad jump
- 107inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.64sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.68sp50
- Bench
- 26repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | SAGU | 10 | 44 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | SAGU | 7 | 31 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | SAGU | 12 | 58 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | Texas A&M-Commerce | 11 | 32 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Texas A&M-Commerce | 10 | 56 | 5.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Career | — | 50 | 221 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
2019-2021 at SAGU (NAIA), 2022-2023 at Texas A&M-Commerce (FCS). Season sums match the 50-game, 221-tackle, 43.5-TFL, 22.0-sack career line. Interceptions and pass breakups were never published at either level and are left null.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- First-team All-Southland (2023)
- PFF FCS All-American (2023)
- Tropical Bowl MVP (3.5 sacks)
- First-team All-SAC (2019, 2021)
- NCCAA All-American (2021)
Rotational early-down plugger who eats double teams and gives you 400-500 clean snaps a year without pass-rush production.
Undersized, low-to-the-ground nose who outplayed his draft slot by winning with leverage and hands rather than length.
Rotational interior body who bounces between the back of a roster and the practice squad once the run-defense edge fades.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Minnesota redshirted him in practice, essentially. Rodriguez appeared in only two games as a rookie in 2024 (one tackle, one pass defensed) behind a veteran interior, spending most of the fall as a healthy inactive while he learned the front. The 2025 offseason changed the depth chart: with the veterans ahead of him gone, he won a rotational nose job in camp and never gave it back, playing 16 games with 43 tackles, two sacks and ten run stops. He also became a special-teams weapon, blocking a field goal in the Week 9 win over Detroit that earned him NFC Special Teams Player of the Week.
Entering 2026 he is competing to start at nose after Minnesota let two well-paid veteran linemen go in March, and local coverage has him among the most important players on the roster. For a 232nd pick out of an NAIA-to-FCS pipeline, that is already a clear win: he is a three-year contributor on a rookie contract with a defined role and a special-teams value add. The pre-draft concerns were fair — he is still not a first- or second-down mismatch and the pass-rush production is situational — but the traits scouts liked, the leverage, the hands and the motor, translated exactly as advertised.
Data note: 2019-2021 at SAGU (NAIA), 2022-2023 at Texas A&M-Commerce (FCS). Season sums match the 50-game, 221-tackle, 43.5-TFL, 22.0-sack career line. Interceptions and pass breakups were never published at either level and are left null.