Tyrice
Knight.
Tyrice
Knight.
Texas-El Paso· 6'1"· 233 lb· 4.63s 40
"A small-school tackle machine who read guards better than he read routes, Knight was the kind of instinctive downhill linebacker whose Day 3 grade was about play strength and coverage, never about effort or production."Pre-draft read
Knight is a weakside off-ball linebacker who plays with his eyes and gets downhill in a hurry. He diagnoses run action quickly, attacks the A and B gaps before pullers can wall him and finishes with textbook form tackling. His pursuit angles to the sideline are efficient and his closing burst gets him to fringe plays other linebackers concede.
The second trait is zone awareness. He reads the quarterback, anticipates crossers into his area and has the hand-eye coordination to knock balls down. Against the run he is an attacker; on passing downs he is a spot-drop defender rather than a man-cover option. The signature is speed to contact: he plays 4.63 fast in a straight line and the tape almost always matches it.
Single-high match zone defenses that let the weakside linebacker key the guard, run downhill and drop into spot zones rather than travel with tight ends in man.
Year 1: core special teamer and run-down Will who plays 25-40 snaps a week. Ceiling: multi-year starting weakside linebacker on a defense that subs him out on third down.
A defense that asks its off-ball linebackers to two-gap through fullbacks in a 3-4 front and match backs and tight ends in man coverage on third down, where the frame and the hips both get exposed.
His value is highest where the defensive front keeps him clean and lets his eyes and speed play.
Tyrice Knight | Linebacker | UTEP | 2023 Highlights
Senior-year UTEP tape: downhill triggers, sideline pursuit and form tackling.
Tyrice Knight Rookie Highlights 2024
Rookie-season Seahawks reel from the stretch where he took over as a starter.
Why Seahawks Tyrice Knight has IMPRESSED on Tape
Film breakdown of his run fits and zone drops in Seattle.
Knight came from Independence Community College to UTEP and became the engine of the Miners defense, a lean 233-pound weakside linebacker whose game is built on eyes, angles and pursuit rather than mass. He is a run-first second-level defender who wants to trigger downhill and hunt ball carriers.
The production is real: 353 tackles, 29.0 tackles for loss, 7.5 sacks, two interceptions and 14 pass breakups across 45 games at UTEP, capped by a 113-tackle senior season in 2023 with 13 tackles for loss. He tested well enough to matter, running 4.63 with a 7.25 three-cone, and he held up in Senior Bowl week against better competition than Conference USA gave him. The flags were physical and structural: a lean frame with little sand in his pants, pad level that gets him stuck on blocks, and man coverage reps that were consistently uncomfortable.
The board read him as a fourth-round instinct linebacker who would earn his way onto the field through special teams and run downs. Seattle, installing a new defense under Mike Macdonald and short on young linebacker bodies, took the trigger and the tackling at 118 rather than reaching for coverage traits it did not need immediately.
- 01
Run-fit instincts
reads guards and flow fast, triggers downhill without hesitation and consistently meets ball carriers at or near the line of scrimmage.
- 02
Tackling technique
a sure form tackler who wraps and drives, one of the cleaner finishers in the class rather than a shoulder-thumper who misses.
- 03
Sideline range
takes efficient angles and has the closing burst to chase outside runs and screens across the field.
- 04
Zone eye discipline
reads the quarterback in spot drops, anticipates routes into his zone and generated 14 career pass breakups from underneath.
- 05
Production volume
353 tackles and 29 tackles for loss in 45 games at UTEP, with a 113-tackle senior year that led the defense.
- 01
Play strength
a lean build with narrow lower half means he gets stuck on second-level blocks and struggles to reset the line of scrimmage.
- 02
Stack and shed
his hands are late and his pad level rises at the point of attack, so free-releasing linemen can wash him out of gaps.
- 03
Man coverage
uncomfortable carrying backs and tight ends in space, which caps his snap count on obvious passing downs.
- 04
Undisciplined triggers
chases flash and over-commits laterally at times, giving up cutback lanes on inside zone concepts.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.63sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 119inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.25sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.40sp50
- Bench
- 21repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | UTEP | 8 | 54 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | UTEP | 13 | 89 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2022 | UTEP | 12 | 97 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| 2023 | UTEP | 12 | 113 | 3.5 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| Career | — | 45 | 353 | 7.5 | 2 | 14 | 0 |
Season totals verified against CFBD; the four UTEP seasons sum exactly to the career line (45 games, 353 tackles, 29.0 TFL, 7.5 sacks, 14 PD, 5 FR). Forced fumbles are not published season by season for this profile and are left unfilled rather than zeroed.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A valued special-teams core piece who starts in stretches on run downs and holds real roster value on a cheap deal.
The ceiling: a rangy weakside starter who racks up tackles for years without ever becoming an every-down coverage answer.
A pure special-teams linebacker who never sticks as a defensive starter once the roster gets better.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Seattle got instant value. Knight barely played early in 2024, then took over as a starter down the stretch and finished the rookie year with 88 tackles and 1.5 sacks, earning the Seahawks defensive rookie of the year honors from local voters. In 2025 he opened as the weakside starter, put up 57 tackles with two sacks and two forced fumbles across 17 games, then lost the job in October to undrafted overachiever Drake Thomas and slid into a rotational and special-teams role as Seattle went on a run that ended with a Super Bowl LX win. He entered 2026 back on the roster in that same complementary role behind Ernest Jones IV and Thomas.
In hindsight the grade was accurate to the dollar. Knight is exactly what a good fourth-round linebacker should be: an immediate special-teams contributor and run-down starter whose ceiling is capped by the same play strength and coverage limitations that pushed him out of Day 2. He is a real NFL player with a Super Bowl ring who was beaten out by a better all-around linebacker, not a miss. The teams that wanted a three-down defender were right to wait, and Seattle was right to buy the tackling.
Data note: Season totals verified against CFBD; the four UTEP seasons sum exactly to the career line (45 games, 353 tackles, 29.0 TFL, 7.5 sacks, 14 PD, 5 FR). Forced fumbles are not published season by season for this profile and are left unfilled rather than zeroed.