Top 10 interior defensive linemen in the 2019 NFL Draft

#6 Jerry Tillery, Notre Dame

Tillery can hook his arm under the pads of an offensive lineman and run down the line to pursue the ball-carrier

Rated as one of the nation’s top offensive linemen out of Christian academy in Lousiana, Tillery made more noise at Notre Dame early on off the field and with some actions after the snaps.

However, he emerged as a junior, recording 4.5 sacks and nine tackles for loss and was one of the disruptive interior forces in 2018, when he went for eight sacks, 10.5 TFLs, three fumble recoveries and two blocked kicks.

Tillery is very long for a defensive tackle, which helps him keep vision on the backfield when he extends in the run game. The 6’6” body has shown that he can hold his ground straight-up against the power run game already and still has room to add to his frame, while also being able to redirect very well for a big man and chase after people from behind.

Tillery can hook his arm under the pads of an offensive lineman and run down the line to pursue the ball-carrier. The former Irish big man shows signs of winning with quickness and arm-over swim moves, as well as the ability to take advantage of blockers leaning one way and then pulling them to the side. His natural strength is very impressive and he shows some serious flashes.

As far as pass-rushing goes, I wanted to see more early wins from Tillery rather than trying to run through people and then get past late once that guy is completely off balance, and he looked like a different player in 2018. He displays a heavy club and a rapid follow-up on the rip, which he can also use after engaging in a bull-rush initially.

Tillery grabs cloth and yanks pads, often placing the hand underneath the shoulder plate and getting offensive linemen off balance. He has those trees as arms to take away passing lanes.

When he arrives at the quarterback, he delivers some devastating shots. He went absolutely nuts against a pretty good Stanford O-line when he racked up four sacks, with two of them coming on consecutive snaps. Tillery recorded 48 total pressures on just over 400 pass rushing snaps, earning himself Pro Football Focus’ fifth-highest pass-rushing grade among all interior defensive linemen in the nation.

While it changed for the most part in 2018, Tillery has stretches of sheer dominance, but then somehow disappears again. He shows the potential to be an excellent run-stuffer, but inconsistent pad-level limit the actual output and he just bumps into people, which might be due to a lack of feel for blocking schemes.

He will try to get around blockers too much at times and gives up ground in the process or shades one way and gives up an easy cut-back inside. Tillery’s pass-rush arsenal is very limited with about 90 percent of his moves being club-rip combos or some type of bull or push-pull and his angles around the blocker get too wide.

The obvious red flags are his suspension as a freshman for an undisclosed reason and the incident where he kicked a USC player. His worth ethic has been questioned in the past as well.

While there are areas that clearly have to be addressed, if he checks those boxes I like what I saw from him last season a whole lot. He played with a motor on a snap-to-snap basis and showed tremendous potential.

Even though I think he might fit at base D-end in a 3-4 as well, Tillery should be at his best when he can one-gap and use that initial burst to put offensive linemen at a disadvantage off the snap.