Matt
Lee.
Matt
Lee.
Miami (FL)· 6'4"· 301 lb· 5.03s 40
"A five-year starting center who ran two college offenses with his mind and lost the reps his body could not hold up under, which is exactly the trade a team signs up for at pick 237."Pre-draft read
Lee is a true center and nothing else, a five-year starter who spent every college snap with his hand on the ball and the protection call in his mouth. His carrying trait is angle-hunting quickness out of the stance: he snaps and slides in one motion, gets his hips around on reach blocks, and beats shaded nose tackles to the play side before they can restack.
Pass protection is where the tape splits. He sets quickly and accurately, passes off games cleanly and finds late pressure with his eyes, but he plays with a narrow base and gets walked into the pocket when true nose power lands first. The signature is the mind, not the mass: he wins most downs before the snap and loses the ones that turn into a phone booth.
Outside zone and stretch-based run game that asks him to reach shades and climb, paired with a quick-game passing attack that limits deep sets.
Year 1: backup center and emergency snapper who can run a protection. Ceiling: low-end starting center in a full zone offense.
A duo/gap front-side scheme that asks him to drive a 340-pound nose off the ball and hold a two-way go on the goal line.
He is a scheme-specific answer, not a plug-and-play interior body.
Miami OL Matt Lee | 2024 NFL Draft Tape
Full draft-tape cutup of his 2023 season at center for Miami.
Matt Lee Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft (Round 7, Pick 237)
Draft highlight reel showing his reach blocks and second-level climbs.
Miami Hurricanes OL Matt Lee at Pro Day
Pro day workout footage and post-workout interview.
Lee is the archetype of the modern zone center: a light-footed, high-IQ pivot who was handed the line calls as a redshirt freshman and never gave them back. He started 47 games across two programs, first as the anchor of a UCF offense that leaned on tempo and stretch runs, then as the veteran import who steadied a Miami front that needed an adult in the middle.
The production case is easy. He was first-team All-AAC in 2020, third-team in 2021, second-team All-ACC in 2022 and again in 2023, and he was named ACC Offensive Lineman of the Week in November of his final year. Miami's line landed on the Joe Moore Award midseason honor roll with him making the calls. The flags are just as easy to see: at 301 pounds with 32-inch arms, he lacks the mass and length to hold ground against heavy nose tackles, and he tends to overset and lose his base when he tries to compensate with quickness.
Boards had him as a late Day 3 developmental backup — a center-only body with starter-caliber processing and backup-caliber power. Cincinnati took him at 237, which is the right price for that profile: a player who can run a huddle and a zone scheme immediately, but who has to add functional strength before anyone trusts him to hold up 17 Sundays.
- 01
Snap-and-slide quickness
Gets out of his stance and onto reach blocks in one motion, regularly cutting off shaded noses on outside zone before they can restack the front side.
- 02
Line-call processing
Ran the protection calls at two programs from his redshirt freshman year on, identifying fronts and passing off games without needing help from the quarterback.
- 03
Second-level accuracy
Climbs on schedule and fits linebackers on the move with controlled feet instead of lunging, which keeps him attached on cutbacks rather than whiffing in space.
- 04
Five-year production floor
47 career starts and four all-conference nods across the AAC and ACC, with no lost jobs and no positional shuffling to muddy the evaluation.
- 05
Pin-and-pull comfort
Sets his angles well on gap-scheme pulls and arrives under control in the hole, an unusual second gear for a center who is not a top-tier tester.
- 01
Anchor against true power
At 301 pounds he gets walked into the pocket by heavy nose tackles who land first, and the pocket collapses on the quarterback's back foot.
- 02
Play strength at the point
Struggles to generate movement on down blocks in a phone booth, which caps him in gap-heavy run games that demand vertical displacement.
- 03
Base discipline under duress
Oversets to compensate for a lack of power and narrows his feet, turning a manageable bull rush into a lost rep more often than the tape should allow.
- 04
Center-only positional value
Has no meaningful guard tape, so he takes up a roster spot that most teams reserve for an interior backup who can cover three spots.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.03sp50
- Vertical
- 31inp50
- Broad jump
- 111inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.97sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.69sp50
- Bench
- 25repp50
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | UCF | 4 |
| 2020 | UCF | 10 |
| 2021 | UCF | 12 |
| 2022 | UCF | 13 |
| 2023 | Miami (FL) | 12 |
| Career | — | 51 |
Offensive linemen do not accumulate box-score statistics; games and starts only. 2019 was a redshirt year (four appearances, no starts). 2023 starts confirmed by Miami's official bio: started all 12 regular-season games and did not play in the bowl after declaring for the draft. Season totals sum to the career line of 51 games and 47 starts.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- First-team All-AAC (2020)
- Third-team All-AAC (2021)
- Second-team All-ACC (2022)
- Second-team All-ACC (2023)
- ACC Offensive Lineman of the Week (Nov. 2023)
Center-only Day 3 pick who sticks as a backup pivot and special-teams body without winning a starting job.
Same undersized, call-making zone center who turned processing and durability into a decade-long starting career.
Light, smart center whose anchor limits kept him on practice squads rather than active rosters.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cincinnati kept him on the 53 as a rookie and used him the way seventh-round centers get used: he dressed for all 17 games in 2024, worked on every core special-teams unit, and made one spot start behind Ted Karras. Year two started the same way, then stalled — five appearances before a knee injury put him on Reserve/Injured on October 28, 2025, and although the Bengals opened his practice window on December 24 he never got back onto the field. The team waived him on April 7, 2026, an unusual move that left the depth chart behind Karras nearly bare, and he entered the 2026 offseason as a free agent with 22 games and one start on his ledger.
In hindsight the evaluation was right and the outcome was ordinary. Everything the tape promised showed up — the calls, the zone footwork, the professionalism — and everything the tape warned about also showed up, because a 301-pound center who cannot anchor is a backup until he adds weight he never added. That is not a miss at pick 237; a third year on a roster and a start is roughly the expected return there. The disappointment is only in what it might have been if the knee had not cost him the reps that were supposed to be his audition.
Data note: Offensive linemen do not accumulate box-score statistics; games and starts only. 2019 was a redshirt year (four appearances, no starts). 2023 starts confirmed by Miami's official bio: started all 12 regular-season games and did not play in the bowl after declaring for the draft. Season totals sum to the career line of 51 games and 47 starts.