Ashton
Gillotte.
Ashton
Gillotte.
Louisville· 6'3"· 264 lb
"A powerful, compact edge defender whose highly productive 2023 tape stands in stark contrast to a muted 2024, leaving NFL teams to weigh a dominant outlier against a more pedestrian mean."Pre-draft read
Base right defensive end in a four-man front who plays with his hand in the dirt on early downs and kicks inside to a 3-tech in obvious passing situations. His first move is power: he times the snap, gets his pads under the tackle's chest and walks the pocket back into the quarterback's lap instead of trying to run an arc around it.
The counters off that bull rush are the second layer — long-arm to swipe, chop-club back inside — and they show up most on stunts, where his short-area burst and low center of gravity let him cross a guard's face in a blink. Against the run he sets a firm edge and squeezes down blocks without giving ground. The signature is a compact, heavy-handed rusher who wins on contact and effort, not on ankle flexion.
Attacking one-gap four-man front that lets him play a heavy 5-tech on early downs and reduce inside on passing downs.
Year 1: rotational base end and inside rusher in sub packages. Ceiling: every-down strongside end who wins with power and counters.
A wide-9 speed-rush system that isolates him in space and asks him to win the edge with bend and arc pressure.
His value spikes when he is the second or third rusher on a line that already commands double teams inside.
Louisville DL Ashton Gillotte | 2025 NFL Draft Tape
Full-game draft tape showing his power rush and run-defense reps.
Ashton Gillotte 2023 Regular Season Highlights | Louisville DL
The 11-sack breakout season that put him on NFL boards.
Boston College RT Ozzy Trapilo Vs Ashton Gillotte Full Matchup
Rep-by-rep matchup against a fellow 2025 draft pick at right tackle.
A four-year Louisville starter who left as one of the most productive pass rushers in program history, Gillotte is a power-first edge built like a big end at 6-3 and 264 pounds. He is a hands-and-leverage player rather than a speed-to-power convert: the get-off is average, the strike is not, and he finishes rushes because he keeps churning after first contact.
The tape is bookended by two very different seasons. The 2023 breakout was real and dominant — 11 sacks, 14.5 tackles for loss, three forced fumbles, first-team All-ACC — but the 2024 senior year fell back to 4.5 sacks as offenses slid protection and chipped him, and he never found a reliable answer when a tackle got hands on him first. Testing offered no easy tiebreaker either: he skipped the forty and posted a solid but unspectacular workout in Indianapolis.
Boards landed on him as a late second- to third-round rotational end with a starter's floor and a modest ceiling, exactly the profile Kansas City has repeatedly bet on. Taking him at 66 was a scheme-fit call more than an upside swing — a tough, low-maintenance body to rotate behind Chris Jones and George Karlaftis.
- 01
Heavy hands
lands a violent, well-placed strike and resets a tackle's chest before the blocker can get into his frame.
- 02
Power conversion
turns a compact base and strong hips into a bull rush that collapses the pocket rather than widening it.
- 03
Inside counters
chop-club and long-arm-to-swipe give him a second and third move when the initial power rush is absorbed.
- 04
Stunt quickness
short-area burst and low pad level make him an efficient looper who crosses a guard's face on games.
- 05
Run defense
sets a firm edge, squeezes down blocks and rarely gets displaced against gap and duo schemes on early downs.
- 01
Bend
stiff through the ankle and hip, so he flattens late around the corner and gives quarterbacks an escape lane.
- 02
Get-off
average first-step trigger means he is often blocked before his hands arrive against quick-setting tackles.
- 03
Production dip
sack output halved as a senior when opponents slid protection his way and dared him to counter.
- 04
Length
plays with adequate rather than plus reach, which lets long tackles reach his frame first on the edge.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 36.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 120inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 24repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Louisville | 13 | 19 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Louisville | 12 | 23 | 6.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2023 | Louisville | 14 | 41 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | Louisville | 12 | 43 | 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 51 | 126 | 25 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational power end who carves out a long career with 4-6 sacks and steady early-down snaps.
Tough, technique-driven strongside end who became a durable starter on the strength of hands and run defense.
Productive college rusher whose lack of bend and burst caps him as a depth body in the pros.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Kansas City did not ask him to be a difference-maker as a rookie. Gillotte played all 17 games in 2025 with two starts, working as the third and fourth end behind George Karlaftis and the interior rotation, and finished with 38 total tackles, 1.5 sacks, one pass defensed and an interception he plucked off a hurried Justin Herbert throw in Week 15. His splash plays came late — half-sacks in Weeks 9, 14 and 15 — and the Chiefs rewarded the workload by giving him the Mack Lee Hill Award as their top rookie.
In hindsight the pick reads exactly like the evaluation. He was drafted to be a durable rotational piece who holds up against the run and gives you a handful of pressures a game, and that is precisely what year one looked like. The pass-rush production still lags the college resume, and until the counter package translates against NFL tackles he profiles as a solid third end rather than a starter. Nothing about the rookie year moves the ceiling, but nothing dents the floor either.