Zane
Durant.
Zane
Durant.
Penn State· 6'0"· 290 lb· 4.75s 40
R5 · #181 · Buffalo Bills"Undersized penetrating three-technique whose 4.75 forty and 1.66 ten-yard split at 290 pounds set Indy records for interior DL and rewrote his projection from priority free agent to Day 3 traits swing."Pre-draft read
This sub-package three-technique wins by firing off the ball with elite get-off and short-area quickness. He secures first contact through leverage and hand placement, converting speed to power with a snap-through arm-over. He uses compact swim and cross-chop moves to beat slower guards to the near shoulder, prioritizing angled pass rushes over stacking.
Against the run, he plays low and shoots gaps aggressively, creating negative plays as a penetrator. However, he can be moved off his spot when reached and asked to two-gap. His motor runs hot, chasing screens and boot action. While his pass rush plan is instinct-driven, his length limitations show when guards make clean contact.
4-2-5 nickel attacking front with gap shooters and multiple fronts
Rotational 3-tech as a rookie who can develop into a designated pass rusher, ceiling as a pressure interior piece like Geno Stone.
This player's value would decline sharply in a two-gap 3-4 defense where he's asked to read, hold ground, and shed blocks against power run schemes.
Durant's elite athleticism and short-area burst make him an ideal fit for an attacking defense that prioritizes penetration and scheme flexibility over raw size.
2026 NFL Draft Highlights: DT Zane Durant — Penn State Football
Full college cutup — get-off wins, third-down pressures and 2024 CFP-run flashes against Big Ten guards.
What Makes Penn State DT Zane Durant The Most Unique Defender in College Football? | FTB Film Study
Film-room breakdown of his leverage, hand use and pass-rush plan against interior offensive linemen.
Zane Durant's 2026 NFL Scouting Combine Workout
Full Combine on-field workout — the 4.75 forty, 1.66 ten-yard split, 33.5-inch vertical and 9-foot-4 broad that reset his board.
Penn State's four-year starter projects as a sub-package rusher, valued for his disruptive interior presence. His evaluation traditionally centered on a stout 6-foot, 290-pound frame, but his 4.75 40-yard dash time at the Combine, the fastest among all players, repositioned him on draft boards as a high-upside athletic interior defender.
He spent his final two seasons as the disruptive interior piece next to bigger nose bodies and was a captain in 2025. His signature season in 2024, which included 11 TFL and 3 sacks over 16 games during Penn State's CFP run, showcased his ability to impact games. Despite some production dip in his senior year, his usage emphasized his penetrative role.
Evaluators noted his size and arm length as potential limitations against NFL-caliber offensive linemen, leading to pre-Combine projections as a priority free agent. However, his exceptional athletic testing in Indianapolis significantly altered his draft stock, elevating him to the middle of Day 3, where he was ultimately a fifth-round selection.
- 01
Elite short-area burst
4.75 forty and 1.66 ten-yard split at 290 pounds led every position group in Indy and defined his athletic profile as an interior rusher.
- 02
Get-off wins reps
beats slow-footed guards off the snap, forces early hand strikes and lives in the backfield on obvious passing downs against man-protection sets.
- 03
Leverage and pad level
plays low to counter the size deficit, wins the first hand and turns speed into power with a compact rip that flashes on third down.
- 04
Motor and chase
runs to every whistle, tracks screens and boot action beyond the tackle box, and finished plays in space at Penn State the way ends do.
- 05
Four-year starter and captain
54 games, 22 TFL and 10 career sacks under Manny Diaz's defense, with senior-year leadership snaps on a Big Ten front.
- 01
Frame is a real projection cap
6-foot, 290 with short arms leaves little room to add mass, and NFL centers will re-anchor him on early-down base runs.
- 02
Two-gap limitations
plays gap-shoot football; when reached and asked to hold ground against double teams he loses his spot and creates cutback creases.
- 03
Length shows up late in reps
once guards latch on cleanly his counter tree is thin and he lacks the arm extension to disengage in phase.
- 04
Pass rush plan still primarily instinct
leans on athleticism over sequenced hand counters, and the second-move production dropped year-over-year in 2025.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.75sp50
- Vertical
- 33.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 112inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Penn State | 13 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Penn State | 13 | 17 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | Penn State | 16 | 42 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2025 | Penn State | 12 | 25 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Career | — | 54 | 89 | 10 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Movement-first interior rusher whose Combine testing built the profile and whose role settled in as a passing-down rotational piece.
Undersized sub-package three-technique who parlayed elite short-area quicks and leverage into a starter-adjacent role.
Traits-and-testing interior body who bounced between practice squads because size limitations capped early-down snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
**Pre-draft context**
Durant arrived at Penn State as a three-star from Lake Nona (FL) and never left the two-deep. He redshirted-in-name-only as a true freshman in 2022, took a starter's workload as a sophomore, and became the disruptive interior piece next to bigger nose bodies during Penn State's 2024 College Football Playoff run (16 games, 42 tackles, 11 TFL, 3 sacks). Senior tape was more uneven — offenses double-teamed him more, production dipped to 25 stops and 4.5 TFL, and the pre-draft consensus tagged him as a size-limited priority free agent. Indianapolis rewrote that story in a single afternoon. At 6-foot, 290 pounds he ran a 4.75 40-yard dash with a 1.66 10-yard split — the fastest interior number of the 2026 Combine and inside the record book for defensive tackles at that weight — and added a 33.5-inch vertical plus a 9-foot-4 broad jump. NFL Media moved him from an undrafted grade into the middle of Day 3 within 48 hours.
**NFL fit — Buffalo Bills**
Buffalo took Durant at 181 as the fourth interior addition of their draft class, slotting him behind Ed Oliver, DaQuan Jones and second-year DT Tyler Davis. The defensive philosophy in place leans on Oliver's get-off from the three-technique, so Durant's profile duplicates a strength rather than filling a hole — the plan projects as a designated sub-package rusher who spells Oliver on third down and adds a rotational body in Buffalo's dime looks against RPO-heavy AFC East offenses. He signed his four-year rookie deal on June 12 and will need to win the fourth interior spot outright in camp because the roster ahead of him is stable.
**Retrospective**
Too early to grade. The pick is exactly the Bills' pattern in the fifth round — betting on premium athletic testing when the tape shows a translatable skill (here, the get-off) and allowing the personnel development staff to sort the role. Durant's upside is a passing-down interior specialist who trims Oliver's workload; his downside is a special-teams contributor whose size caps him in a rotation that already has three interior starters under contract.