2020 NFL Draft - First Defensive End Drafted Odds & Betting Predictions

With the NFL Draft teams will have a chance to improve their edge rush quite a bit. The edge has quite a few good prospects coming out. However, like most of the rest of the positions that are up for grabs in the draft this year most of the players coming out are juniors or even a single sophomore that are towards the top of the table. With that in mind, we decided it was time to find who we felt is the first defensive end or edge rusher who will be picked in the draft this year.

Chase Young is easily the top prospect coming out for the edge rush. Young is coming out of Ohio State, the same school that has produced couple of great draft picks in the recent past with the Bosa brothers being the top 2 names that come to mind. Young is coming into the draft sitting at 6’5” 264 pounds. While the weight could be an issue, Young definitely is the complete package and definitely will bolster up a defensive line almost immediately.

K’Lavon Chaisson is coming out of LSU as a sophomore. Is that going to hurt Chaisson at all? That is a key question, but coming out this early definitely will not provide the LSU faithful with a good taste in their mouth. At the same time, though, Chaisson did play good in college and that could make him into one of the better impact players. On the downside Chaisson will have to rely on skill as he is only 6’3” and 254 pounds, which is fairly small for the edge rush.

A.J. Epenesa is coming out of Iowa and has looked decent in the skill set that he has available. However, it is really questionable if Epenesa has the talent level that is needed to be a first round pick. The last 2 years of his college career Epenesa had 22 sacks, but also managed to get 30.5 tackles and that is somewhat impressive, but not overly impressive. On the plus side A.J. Epenesa is 6’5” and 275 pounds, which definitely can help his draft stock for teams looking for size.

Yetur Gross-Matos is the a standout junior coming out of Penn State. Now, Matos was impressive at times during the regular season and for a man his size does have a good skill set. At the same time, Matos is one player that can come into the game and not really be a lineman that can run people down from behind. Now, Gross-Matos was impressive last year with 15 out of his 40 tackles being tackles for loss and managed to hit 9.5 sacks.

Julian Okwara is the only senior who made the top 5 list of prospective defensive ends coming out. Okwara is coming out of Notre Dame and is somewhat shorter at 6’4” and 252 pounds. One aspect of play that Okwara could have going good for him is the power factor. Okwara was able to complete 27 reps on the bench press and that is among the best with the defensive ends.