Maason
Smith.
Maason
Smith.
LSU· 6'5"· 306 lb· 5.01s 40
"The best physical tools of any interior lineman in the class attached to twenty-one career games, taken 48th by a team that decided the traits were worth more than the tape."Pre-draft read
Smith plays as a base three-technique with the frame to slide to nose in even fronts, and everything starts with the snap. He is one of the quickest first-step interior linemen of the class, beating guards to the play side before they can drop their hips, and he uses length to stack, extend and squeeze the A-gap on down blocks. When he wins early he is a genuine backfield disruptor.
The rush is more burst than plan. He wins on the get-off, the long-arm and the occasional swim, but the counters are unfinished and the pad level rises when the first move dies. Against the run he is a stout point-of-attack anchor when he plays low; the athletic ceiling is rare at 306 pounds, and that get-off is the trait that separates him.
An attacking one-gap front that lets him fire upfield and play on the other side of the line of scrimmage rather than read-and-react.
Year 1: rotational interior rusher on 30-35 snaps a game in an even front. Ceiling: full-time starting three-technique whose get-off collapses the pocket from the inside.
A two-gap 3-4 that asks him to read the block, hold the point on both sides of the blocker and eat double teams on every early down — the reads slow his one true elite trait.
The closer the scheme gets to pure penetration, the better his tape looks.
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Smith arrived at LSU as the top defensive line recruit in the country and left it as one of the least proven high-upside linemen in the class. The tools are unmistakable: a 306-pound interior body with the get-off, length and lower-body flexibility to play every front, plus the raw power to hold ground on early downs. He is a projection of traits over a production sheet.
The reason the sheet is thin is availability. He flashed as a true freshman in 2021 with 19 tackles and four sacks in nine games, then lost the entire 2022 season to a knee injury suffered in the opener. His 2023 return was steady rather than dominant — 12 games, 27 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks — with the burst intact and the rush plan still unbuilt. Evaluators saw a player who had barely two seasons of real football at 21 years old.
The board split him hard. Trait-first rooms had him in the top 50 as a bet on the athlete; production-first rooms slid him toward Day 3. Jacksonville traded back into the second round at 48 to make the trait bet, wagering that health and coaching would turn flashes into a starting three-technique.
- 01
Elite first step
Fires off the ball faster than almost any 300-pound interior lineman in the class, beating guards to the play side before they can reset their hips.
- 02
Rare frame and length
A 6-foot-5, 306-pound body with the arm length to stack blockers, extend, and keep his chest clean against down blocks.
- 03
Point-of-attack anchor
When he plays with knee bend he holds ground against single blocks and squeezes the A-gap without giving up depth in the run fit.
- 04
Positional flexibility
Has the size to play nose in even fronts and the quickness to align as a three-technique, which lets a front move him around by down and distance.
- 05
Untapped upside
Barely two seasons of real football at 21 years old, so the gap between his current tape and his physical ceiling is unusually wide.
- 01
Unfinished rush plan
Wins on the get-off and the long-arm but rarely strings a counter together when the first move dies, so pressure comes in bursts rather than sequences.
- 02
Availability record
Missed the entire 2022 season with a knee injury suffered in the opener and has never carried a full workload across a college year.
- 03
Thin production
Twenty-one career games with 46 tackles and 6.5 sacks is very little evidence for a top-50 pick built on projection.
- 04
Pad level rises
Plays tall when he is asked to two-gap or when he loses the snap, and better guards wash him out of the fit once he is upright.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.01sp50
- Vertical
- 31inp50
- Broad jump
- 108inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.62sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.69sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | LSU | 9 | 19 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | LSU | 12 | 27 | 2.5 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Career | — | 21 | 46 | 6.5 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Missed the entire 2022 season with a knee injury suffered in the opener; no 2022 season row exists. Fumble data not verified.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Early-down interior body who holds the point, plays real snaps and contributes as a run defender without ever becoming a pass-rush centerpiece.
The version where the get-off, length and power finally sync into a disruptive full-time three-technique who wrecks both phases.
Toolsy big man who never builds the plan or the consistency and washes out as a bottom-of-the-roster rotational lineman.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jacksonville brought him along as a rotational piece rather than an immediate anchor. He started five of the 11 games he appeared in as a rookie in 2024, logged 384 defensive snaps at roughly a third of the team's total, and produced 17 tackles with three sacks and three tackles for loss — encouraging pass-rush flashes from a player still learning to sustain a plan. The 2025 season was quieter: 13 games, two starts, 311 defensive snaps, 15 tackles and no sacks, with his role narrowing as Jacksonville reshaped the interior around him.
Two years in, the verdict is that the bet has not paid off yet and has not failed either. The burst that made him a second-round pick still shows on tape in flashes, but the rush plan and the down-to-down consistency that separate rotational linemen from starters have not arrived. He enters his third season needing to prove he can hold a full-time role, and for a pick made purely on upside, the clock on that projection is now the story.
Data note: Missed the entire 2022 season with a knee injury suffered in the opener; no 2022 season row exists. Fumble data not verified.