Payton
Wilson.
Payton
Wilson.
NC State· 6'4"· 233 lb· 4.43s 40
"He was the most decorated defender in the class and the seventh linebacker drafted, which tells you nothing about the tape and everything about what a medical chart can do to a first-round grade."Pre-draft read
Payton Wilson played every off-ball linebacker job NC State asked for, but his identity was as a downhill mike who diagnosed and ran. He triggers on run keys faster than almost anyone in the class, shoots gaps before the guard climbs, and finishes with force at 233 pounds. Volume followed: 138 tackles as a senior.
In coverage he is a rare athlete for the position — 4.43 speed that lets him carry seams, match backs out of the backfield and close throwing windows from depth. He blitzes with timing rather than power and comes free as a delayed rusher. The signature is range: he covers ground sideline to sideline in a way that erases the offense's edges.
Attacking one-gap front that keeps the linebackers clean — a 3-4 or nickel-heavy structure where big bodies eat blocks and the mike is free to run and hit.
Year 1: sub-package coverage linebacker and core special-teamer with early-down rotational reps. Ceiling: three-down starting mike who calls the defense, runs the alley in the run game and matches backs and tight ends without coming off the field.
A two-gap, take-on front that asks the mike to stack and shed guards in a phone booth on early downs, or a heavy-box scheme that keeps him downhill into traffic instead of letting him run to the football.
His value is inseparable from the defensive line in front of him; put him behind a front that gets washed and the same speed becomes wasted motion on the back side.
Payton Wilson 2023 Full Season Highlights | NC State LB | 2024 NFL Draft Prospect
Payton Wilson 2023 Regular Season Highlights | NC State LB
Payton Wilson 2022 Regular Season Highlights | NC State LB
Wilson is an every-down linebacker whose game is built on speed of thought paired with genuine speed. He plays fast because he sees it early, and the tape shows a defender who reduces plays to their simplest outcome — the ball carrier is where he is, and he arrives with bad intentions.
The production is the class's best at the position: 395 tackles, 47.0 tackles for loss, 15.0 sacks and six interceptions across 46 games, capped by a 2023 season that won the Butkus Award, the Bednarik and ACC Defensive Player of the Year. The flags were never about football. He missed almost all of 2020 and nearly all of 2021 to shoulder and arm surgeries, and his medical file carried a long-standing knee issue that teams' doctors treated as a structural risk.
Boards graded him as a first-round talent and medicals dropped him to 98, the third-to-last pick of the third round and the seventh linebacker off the board. Pittsburgh, a franchise that has always been comfortable betting on linebackers, took the discount and got the class's most decorated defender at a price that only made sense because of what was on the chart, not the film.
- 01
Run diagnosis
reads guards and backfield flow instantly, arriving in the gap before the block gets there rather than reacting after the handoff.
- 02
Sideline-to-sideline range
4.43 speed at 233 pounds turns wide-zone runs and perimeter screens into short gains because he outruns the play to the boundary.
- 03
Production at scale
395 tackles, 47.0 TFL, 15.0 sacks and six interceptions in 46 games, with a 138-tackle senior year that won the Butkus and Bednarik.
- 04
Coverage utility
carries seams, matches running backs and reads the quarterback from zone depth; his six career picks came from real coverage reps, not tips.
- 05
Blitz timing
times his trigger through the A-gap on delayed pressures and consistently arrives unblocked, which is how a linebacker gets to 15 career sacks.
- 01
Medical file
shoulder and arm surgeries cost him most of 2020 and 2021, and a long-standing knee condition made multiple medical staffs downgrade him entirely.
- 02
Play strength at the point
gets displaced when a guard climbs cleanly and locks on; he wins by avoiding blocks, not by stacking and shedding them.
- 03
Frame and durability
long-limbed 233-pound build takes a beating in a job that requires collisions on every snap, and the injury history compounds the concern.
- 04
Aggression against misdirection
his speed to trigger is also his exposure; counters, boots and cutbacks catch him a step past the ball.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.43sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 119inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | NC State | 11 | 69 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2020 | NC State | 10 | 108 | 3.5 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | NC State | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | NC State | 11 | 75 | 4.5 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2023 | NC State | 12 | 138 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 0 |
| Career | — | 46 | 395 | 15 | 6 | 13 | 0 |
Season totals sum exactly to the career line: 69+108+5+75+138 = 395 tackles, 5.0+11.5+1.5+11.5+17.5 = 47.0 TFL, 15.0 sacks, six interceptions and 13 pass breakups across 46 games. The 2020 and 2021 seasons were cut short by shoulder and arm surgeries. Forced fumbles were not verified and are left null.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A productive tackle-machine starter who wins with diagnosis and speed while giving up some ground when blocks reach him.
The realistic best case is that ceiling of range plus coverage instincts — a mike who never leaves the field and defines a defense's tempo.
High-volume linebacker whose availability and consistency, rather than talent, decide how long he holds a starting job.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Pittsburgh brought him along carefully and then handed him the job. As a rookie in 2024 he played all 17 games with four starts, mostly on special teams and in packages behind Patrick Queen and Elandon Roberts, finishing with 72 tackles, an interception and two fumble recoveries — production that outpaced his snap count. With Roberts gone in 2025 he became the every-down starter and posted a career-high tackle total with two sacks and an interception, though the season played as a rollercoaster: heavy volume, real splash plays, and stretches where he was a step off in the run fits. He entered the 2026 camp as the lead inside linebacker under a new defensive coordinator, praised by the staff and still working to prove he can be a true all-situations player.
The medical discount looks like the Steelers' win. Two seasons in, the knee that scared the league has not cost him a game, and a player with a first-round grade has been a starter at third-round money. The honest caveat is that the tape still matches the pre-draft evaluation — the range and the trigger are elite, the block-shedding and the misdirection discipline are not — so his ceiling depends on refinement rather than health. That is a much better problem than the one teams thought they were avoiding.
Data note: Season totals sum exactly to the career line: 69+108+5+75+138 = 395 tackles, 5.0+11.5+1.5+11.5+17.5 = 47.0 TFL, 15.0 sacks, six interceptions and 13 pass breakups across 46 games. The 2020 and 2021 seasons were cut short by shoulder and arm surgeries. Forced fumbles were not verified and are left null.