Caleb
Banks.
Caleb
Banks.
Florida· 6'6"· 327 lb· 5.04s 40
"Elite-length interior lineman with rare bend and burst for 327 pounds — but the case rests on one true full season (2024) and a broken foot that limited 2025 to three games."Pre-draft read
He aligns primarily at nose and 3-technique, with reps at 4i and head-up on the center in pass-rush situations. He wins with length, using a long-arm punch to lock out one-armed blockers and reset the line, followed by a heavy hip-toss. His movement displays legitimate get-off against the snap, first-step penetration through half-man alignments, and sufficient ankle bend to flatten a rush.
As a rusher, he leans on power counters like a bull-to-swipe. His pass-rush plan is still developing beyond the initial gap threat. His motor cycles, dominating the first four steps but sometimes stalling mid-rep against double teams. His hand placement pops when engaged fresh but can drift wide when tired.
This prospect fits best in a one-gap 4-3 penetrating front that asks its defensive linemen to attack upfield and disrupt the backfield.
Rotational interior pass-rusher Year 1 with the ceiling of a starting 1-Gap interior lineman who can rush from multiple alignments.
He would be a poor fit in a two-gap 3-4 scheme that requires him to consistently hold the point of attack and read run schemes.
With his rare combination of size, athleticism, and versatility, he offers significant upside as an interior disruptor, provided his technical development and motor consistency improve.
Caleb Banks College Football Highlights | Florida DT | NFL Draft Film
4-minute college cutup of Banks' Florida career, heavy on 2024 breakout reps and 2023 reserve snaps.
Caleb Banks is a city block! His combine performance proved he is worth the risk
McShay breaks down the 6-6¼, 327-pound frame and 5.04 forty from the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine.
Caleb Banks' INSANE combine
PFF short on the on-field workout in Indianapolis — 40, vertical and broad numbers in context.
This prospect presents as a high-ceiling defensive lineman, with teams buying into his elite physical tools and rare movement skills for his size, despite a limited track record of high-level production. The plan for an acquiring team is to develop a more consistent pass-rush repertoire around his foundational power and get-off, allowing him to eventually anchor the interior defensive line.
His career saw a slow build, starting as a redshirt at Louisville and then transferring to Florida. He was a rotational reserve in 2023 before a breakout 2024 season, where he recorded 7 TFL and 4.5 sacks, pushing him into draft conversations. However, his 2025 super-senior season was cut short by a broken left foot requiring surgery, which limited him to three games and left evaluators with an incomplete picture of his growth and potential.
The clear tension on draft boards stemmed from his elite 6-6¼, 327-pound frame and remarkable 9.84 RAS score, which contrasted sharply with only one full season of significant production. Scouts weighed the ceiling his athleticism offered against the limited film and the durability concerns raised by his recent foot injury. He was ultimately drafted at pick 18, representing a bet on traits and future development over an extensive college résumé.
- 01
Elite length
6-6¼, 327 pounds with 35-inch arms and an 85¾" wingspan provide a reach advantage that resets pocket depth on initial contact.
- 02
Rare movement for size
5.04 forty and 114-inch broad jump at 327 pounds resulted in a 9.84 RAS, indicating top-tier athleticism for an interior defensive lineman.
- 03
First-step penetration
Legit get-off and quick hands allow him to beat one-gap concepts and force interior linemen to react after the snap.
- 04
Power counters
Utilizes bull-to-swipe and long-arm punch to generate consistent push from A- and B-gap alignments, impacting the pocket.
- 05
Position flexibility
Has extensive reps at 0-technique, 1-technique, 3-technique, and 4i under multiple defensive-line coaches.
- 01
Thin body of work
Only one true high-volume season (2024 with 7 TFL and 4.5 sacks); the 2025 broken foot cost him most of a key evaluation year.
- 02
Pass-rush plan still developing
Relies heavily on bull rushes and long-arm punches, lacking true secondary counters when initial moves are stifled.
- 03
Motor consistency
Dominates early in reps but often stalls mid-rep against double teams, which limits his ability to consistently finish against inside runs.
- 04
Medical file concerns
Left-foot surgery in September 2025 and a late November clearance raise questions about long-term durability for a 327-pound player.
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
- 5.04sp50
- Vertical
- 32inp50
- Broad jump
- 114inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Louisville | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Florida | 12 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | Florida | 12 | 21 | 4.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2025 | Florida | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 32 | 48 | 6.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Interior lineman who wins with hands, first-step and versatility across techniques, built around a 4-5 sack floor with occasional 7-8 sack seasons.
If the technique fully catches up to the traits, the ceiling is a long-armed, position-flex disruptor with a decade of high-floor Pro Bowl football.
Massive nose-shaded body that eats blocks and holds two gaps but never translates the frame into meaningful pass-rush production.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
PRE-DRAFT CONTEXT — Banks arrived at Florida in 2023 as a Louisville transfer with 65 college snaps to his name and left three years later as one of the great riser stories of the 2026 cycle. The 2024 tape did the heavy lifting: 7 TFL, 4.5 sacks and a run of double-team reps against Georgia and Texas that put him on early first-round boards. Then September 2025 happened — a broken left foot in the second quarter at LSU, surgery a week later, and a ten-week rehab that cost him nine starts. He fought back to play the final three games of the regular season and Florida's bowl loss, but scouts left the tape with an incomplete evaluation and a small sample of a player who had just started to peak.
NFL FIT — MINNESOTA VIKINGS. Minnesota traded up two spots on Day One to grab Banks at 18 as the anchor of a defensive front that had rotated Harrison Phillips and Jonathan Bullard on nose in 2025. An attacking four-man front scheme runs him at 0-tech in base and kicks him to a shaded 3 in nickel, letting the length win against reach blocks and the get-off show up on stunts with Dallas Turner and Jonathan Greenard. Camp reports flagged the foot as fully cleared but limited his early team-drill work, which pushed the summer rotation ahead of the pre-season opener. Projected rookie role: 40–50% snaps against the run, with growth into a three-down job by mid-season if the pass-rush counters keep expanding.
RETROSPECTIVE — This pick will be scored on whether the 2024 season was signal or the outlier and on how the foot ages inside a 327-pound frame. The Vikings are betting the traits (length, RAS, get-off) don't come around twice and that a strong developmental program can install the pass-rush plan Florida never fully developed. Comp file is wide open: Calais Campbell if the technique catches up to the tools, Christian Wilkins if the interior-rush juice sticks, Star Lotulelei if the mass never translates to sacks. The evaluation the day of the pick was the right one — you draft the ceiling here — but the margin between hit and mixed is thinner than the 9.84 RAS suggests.