Jordan
Phillips.
Jordan
Phillips.
Maryland· 6'2"· 312 lb
"Jordan Phillips is a high-motor interior defender with an elite bull rush and tenacious hands, but his limited pass-rush repertoire and raw technique make him a project."Pre-draft read
Phillips is a low-slung interior player who wins by getting underneath people. At 6-1 5/8 and 312 pounds he gives up length everywhere -- 31 1/2-inch arms are short for the position -- and he compensates by living below the blocker's pads and generating force from a base most linemen cannot get down to. Maryland played him as a nose and a three-technique on early downs, and the run defense on his tape is genuinely stout: he squats against down blocks, keeps his gap, and does not get displaced.
The pass rush is a work in progress that never really progressed in college. Zero sacks across three seasons is not a rounding error; it is a player whose quickness shows up in the first two steps and disappears once the blocker gets hands on him, because the short arms mean he has no way to create separation. His disruption comes from push and from being hard to move, not from wins. The athletic testing -- 29 bench reps, a 4.65 shuttle, a 7.65 three-cone at 312 pounds -- says the movement is there. The film says the plan is not.
Phillips' scheme fit is primarily as a 3-4 nose tackle or a 4-3 one-technique, focusing on eating blocks and occupying gaps.
Year 1 role as a rotational run-stuffing interior lineman, with a ceiling as an elite two-gapping run defender.
A penetration-focused one-gap 4-3 defense that prioritizes speed and agility over raw power and block absorption.
Phillips thrives in schemes that ask him to anchor at the line of scrimmage, absorbing double teams and stoutly defending the run.
Jordan Phillips College Highlights | Maryland Defensive Tackle
Leverage and anchor work against Big Ten run games.
2025 NFL Draft Highlights: Jordan Phillips | DT | Maryland
Draft cutup of his final Maryland season.
Jordan Phillips Highlights
Interior reps at nose and three-technique.
Jordan Phillips is a leverage-and-strength interior defender whose college production was almost entirely invisible on a stat sheet. A three-star recruit out of Ocoee, Florida who chose Tennessee over Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech and Maryland, he played three games as a freshman in Knoxville before transferring. At Maryland he became an immediate starter, and his career line reconciles exactly: 28 games, 58 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and zero sacks across 2022 through 2024, with 28 tackles in 2023 and 29 in 2024.
The athletic testing is what got him drafted. At the Combine he measured 6-1 5/8, 312 pounds, with 31 1/2-inch arms, 9 3/4-inch hands and a 6-7 1/8 wingspan, then posted 29 bench reps, a 31-inch vertical, a 9-0 broad, a 4.65 short shuttle and a 7.65 three-cone. He did not run the forty. For a 312-pound interior player, that agility profile plus that upper-body strength is a starter's workup, and it explains why a defender with no career sacks went in the fifth round rather than after the draft.
He also accepted an East-West Shrine Bowl invitation, which gave evaluators a week of practice reps against better competition than the Big Ten schedule always provided. The consensus grade was a Day 3 run-defending interior body with more physical upside than the production implied -- short-armed, quick-footed, and priced accordingly. Miami took him at 143 and, unusually for that range, planned to play him right away.
- 01
Natural leverage
At 6-1 5/8, he plays under the pads of taller blockers, converting a size disadvantage into a force advantage in the run game.
- 02
Serious functional strength
His 29 bench reps at 312 pounds demonstrate an anchor that resists displacement by single blocks.
- 03
Legitimate agility for mass
A 4.65 short shuttle and 7.65 three-cone at his weight are starter-quality movement numbers inside.
- 04
Big Ten starting experience
He has 23 starts in 25 games over two full seasons at Maryland, establishing durability and workload capacity.
- 05
High motor at attack point
He plays through the whistle and maintains gap integrity even when the play goes away from him.
- 01
No pass-rush production
He has zero career sacks and only 2.5 tackles for loss across 28 games, showing no evidence of pass-rush output.
- 02
Short arm length
His arms measure 31 1/2 inches, which is short for an interior player and prevents separation once blockers engage.
- 03
Undeveloped rush plan
His first two steps are quick, but he lacks counters when the initial push stalls.
- 04
No straight-line data
He declined the forty at the Combine, leaving a lack of explosive testing information in his profile.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 31inp50
- Broad jump
- 108inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.65sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.65sp50
- Bench
- 29repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Tennessee | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Maryland | 13 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | Maryland | 12 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 28 | 58 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Undersized interior anchor who starts for years without producing meaningful sack numbers.
Short-armed leverage nose who becomes a decade-long every-down starter on run defense alone.
Two-down body whose complete absence of pass rush limits him to rotational snaps and short contracts.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Rookie year in Miami: 17 games with 16 starts, 34 tackles (eight solo, 26 assisted), one tackle for loss, no sacks. Never waived or placed on injured reserve.
Nobody expected the rookie season Phillips had. He played all 17 games and started 16 of them as a fifth-round pick, finishing with 34 combined tackles (eight solo, 26 assisted) and one tackle for loss. He was never waived, never stashed, never on injured reserve. For a defensive tackle drafted 143rd with zero college sacks, walking into a starting job in week one and holding it for a full season is the most meaningful thing that could have happened, and it validates exactly what the tape said: the run defense is real and it translated immediately.
The caveat is the same one that followed him out of Maryland. Zero sacks in college became 0.0 sacks as a rookie, and a 16-game starter who does not affect the quarterback is a two-down player wearing a starter's designation. Miami will need him to add something -- a club-rip, a push-pull, anything that turns his 4.65 shuttle into a win rather than a stalemate -- because the short arms mean he will never win late in a rep. The floor is now established and it is higher than his draft slot: a durable, leverage-based starting nose who plays every snap of early-down defense. The ceiling depends entirely on whether the pass-rush zero ever moves.