Alfred
Collins.
Alfred
Collins.
Texas· 6'6"· 332 lb
"Collins is a gap-controlling, long-armed interior defender whose sudden, fifth-year surge in production and pass breakups made him an irresistible early-down anchor, despite a limited pass-rush history."Pre-draft read
Collins is a massive, long-armed interior defensive lineman who made his living as a run-game eraser in Texas' four-man front. He aligns anywhere from a 3-technique to a head-up nose, and the tape is built on length: he shoots his hands early, locks the blocker out at full extension, and controls the rep before it ever reaches his frame. Against down blocks he sinks and holds ground without getting displaced.
The secondary trait is grip strength and disengagement — he stacks, finds the ball, then discards late and closes on the runner. Pass rush is the trailing part of the profile: he wins with a long-arm bull and by squeezing the pocket, not with a plan or bend. The signature is stopping the play from ever getting to the second level.
Gap-and-a-half four-man front that asks its interior linemen to hold the point on early downs — the even fronts an attacking four-man front runs, or any 4-3 built on run fits first.
Year 1 he is a 25-30 snap early-down anchor who plays first and second down and comes off the field on obvious passing situations. The ceiling is a full-time base defensive tackle who erases the interior run game and keeps two linebackers clean on every snap.
An attacking, get-up-the-field defense that grades its interior linemen by pressure rate and asks them to shoot single gaps on passing downs. Collins wins after contact, not before it, so a front that rushes four and waits would expose the missing rush plan.
The Miami Dolphins drafted him to rebuild the run defense next to Nick Bosa, which is the exact job description his Texas tape earned.
Alfred Collins College Football Highlights | Texas Defensive Tackle
Texas career film showing the length, extension and run-game control that carried the evaluation.
ROOKIE Alfred Collins Every Snap Vs Jaguars | Week 4
Every rookie snap from Week 4, a clean look at his early-down role in San Francisco's rotation.
Why 49ers DT Alfred Collins has ELITE UPSIDE
Breakdown of his fit next to Nick Bosa and what still separates him from full-time snaps.
Collins is a size-and-length run defender first, and the identity is unusually clean for a Day 2 interior player. He was recruited as a blue-chip talent, waited four years for a full-time job, and then played the best football of his career at exactly the right moment. What a team is buying is a lineman who can be asked to hold two gaps on early downs without being schemed around.
The production curve tells the story: 22, 25, 17 and 22 tackles in his first four seasons, then 55 tackles with 5.5 tackles for loss and seven pass breakups as a fifth-year senior on a Texas defense that reached the College Football Playoff. That one season carried the evaluation, and the flag is obvious — the breakout is a single year, and the pass-rush résumé across five seasons is seven sacks. He is a first- and second-down player who leaves the field on obvious throwing situations until he proves otherwise.
Boards had him in the late-first-to-early-second range, with the split coming down to how much a team valued run-defense floor over rush upside. The Miami Dolphins, rebuilding a defensive front, took him at 43 to be a rotational body immediately and the early-down anchor next to Nick Bosa over time — a floor pick in a spot where floor was the point.
- 01
Length and extension
Plays with genuinely rare arm length for the position and uses it, locking blockers out at full extension before they can get into his frame.
- 02
Anchor versus doubles
Sinks his hips and holds ground against down blocks and combination blocks, which is the single most translatable trait in the profile.
- 03
Grip and disengage
Stacks the blocker, locates the ball, then discards late and finishes; the shed timing on early downs is genuinely NFL-caliber.
- 04
Positional flexibility
Took snaps from 3-technique to head-up nose at Texas, so a defensive coordinator can move him without changing his job description.
- 05
Fifth-year growth
Jumped from 22 tackles to 55 with 5.5 tackles for loss and seven pass breakups in 2024, showing the coaching finally stuck at the right time.
- 01
One-year breakout
Four seasons of rotational production preceded the 2024 tape, and betting on the newest version of a 24-year-old carries real risk.
- 02
Pass-rush plan
Seven career sacks in 64 games; he squeezes the pocket with a long-arm bull but has no counter once the first move is handled.
- 03
First-step burst
Gets out of his stance heavy and late, so he wins after contact rather than before it and rarely creates negative plays on his own.
- 04
Third-down value
Without a rush plan he projects as a two-down player, which caps snap share and pushes his value into a rotational band.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
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- Vertical
- 26inp50
- Broad jump
- 96inp50
- Three-cone
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- Shuttle
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- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Texas | 10 | 23 | 1.5 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2021 | Texas | 12 | 25 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Texas | 12 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Texas | 14 | 22 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | Texas | 16 | 55 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| Career | — | 64 | 141 | 7.5 | 1 | 10 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A run-defense specialist who starts on early downs, holds the point against doubles, and never posts a box score that matches the value.
A long, powerful early-down anchor who eventually adds enough hand work to stay on the field for 800 snaps a year.
A big body who stays in the league on run downs but settles into a 350-snap rotational role without ever winning a starting job outright.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
San Francisco used him immediately but carefully. He played all 16 games he was available for as a rookie in 2025 with one start, logging 17 tackles, a sack, four quarterback hits, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries on roughly 490 defensive snaps in a rotation alongside fellow rookies Mykel Williams and C.J. West. The role was exactly what the pick implied: early-down interior snaps, run defense on first and second, off the field on obvious passing downs. He added two tackles in two playoff games as the 49ers finished 12-5 and returned to the postseason, and he opened the 2026 offseason on the physically unable to perform list.
In hindsight the pick reads as honest rather than exciting. The forced fumbles and the willingness of a rebuilt Saleh front to trust him with real snaps in October are the encouraging part; the 42-ish pass-rush grade and thin box score are the reminder that the pre-draft flag was correct. He is on track to be exactly what the board said — a starting-caliber early-down anchor whose ceiling depends entirely on whether a rush move ever arrives.