Dante Stills 2023 NFL Draft profile: Scout report for the West Virginia IDL

Dante Stills, West Virginia: 6’4”, 285 pounds; SR.

A three-star recruit back in 2017, Dante Stills immediately stepped in for the Mountaineers as a freshman. In year two he led the team with 14 tackles for loss and eight sacks, making him a second-team All-Big 12 selection.

His stats dipped slightly in 2020, before cracking 15 TFLs and seven sacks, plus an interception and forced fumble each in ’21, landing him first-team All-Big 12 honors. Last season, his numbers again went down a little (26 tackles, nine for loss, 4.5 sacks and two FF), but he repeated as first-team all-conference.

Dante Stills' father Gary Stills played in the NFL as a linebacker for a decade, and his cousin Kenny Stills did the same at wide receiver.

Dante Stills scout report: Strengths

Defensive lineman Dante Stills #55 of the West Virginia Mountaineers dives on a fumble by quarterback Garret Rangel

+ Dante Stills has a longer body-build than his brother Darius (who he played alongside until 2020) and lined up everywhere more from 2i- to a 6-technique for WVU.

+ I was surprised to see him “only” measure in at 32 and 3/8-inch arms, because of the way he consistently maximizes that length.

+ You can ask this guy to two-gap or penetrate up one gap, with his team even lining him up at a true zero-technique at times.

+ Brings a lot of juice off the ball and disrupts a bunch when getting upfield or tasked with slants across the face of offensive linemen.

+ Has become much better at playing with extension and going through blockers. When he shoots his hands and just attacks the chest of blockers, he can make their heads snap backwards and take them a couple of steps into the backfield.

+ Constantly plays with active hands and is looking to disengage in order to create negative plays.

+ Regularly back-doors blockers on zone concepts, with a fluid high-swim.

+ With those long arms, Stills can swipe down or rip through the reach of blockers and create angles towards the ball for himself even if he doesn’t step into the gap initially.

+ Ran a 4.85 in the 40, with a 1.72 ten-yard split at 286 pounds in Indy. He looked explosive in the way he planted off his foot to change directions and navigate through the bags. His ability to dip that shoulder and effortlessly execute the figure-eight on the “run the hoop” drill was also very impressive for his height.

+ His combination of explosiveness, power and agility can create problems for anybody along the front-five in passing situations.

+ From 2020 on, we saw him ride offensive linemen back into the quarterback’s lap at a much higher frequency.

+ Has a tremendous swipe-rip combo, where he keeps the blocker on his hip, and he is very effective with engaging and pulling yanking linemen’s pads.

+ Despite his height, his ability to corner his rushes is pretty damn impressive, plus his arm length gives him that extra room for error on hand-swipes, being able to knock away the reach of blockers routinely.

+ Showcases the flexibility to torque his upper body and turn the near shoulder away from contact as he steps to the hip of blockers.

+ The closing burst shows up when asked to execute those wide loops and not allowing quarterbacks to get out to the sideline as somebody flushes him by slanting inside.

+ A non-stop worker in the run and pass game, who continues fighting with his hands and eventually finds ways to make quarterbacks move, chasing them out to the sideline regularly.

+ Has been one of the most productive interior pass-rushers in college football over the last three years. He had a career-high 30 total pressures across 334 pass-rush snaps this past season, despite the gap next to him regularly being free and extra linemen sliding his way.

+ Was basically unblockable throughout Shrine Bowl week, where I’m pretty sure he led all players there in TFLs and constantly got those quick W’s during one-on-ones (either by being quicker into the gap or beating guys across their face).

Dante Stills scout report: Weaknesses

Defensive lineman Dante Stills of West Virginia participates in the 40-yard dash during the NFL Combine

– Dante Stills plays too tall in the run game and spins off blockers, which leads to him giving up ground unnecessarily.

– Allows his base to narrow a little too much and can’t anchor against hip-checks coming in on an angle.

– Still has to do a better job of anticipating when linemen will strike, hitting the right aiming spots to get rid of their arms and add some variety to his pass rush arsenal in general.

– You’d like to see Stills just play under a little more control overall and not get off his rush lanes as much (in part because there was so much traffic due to all the three-man lines they used).

– I thought I saw a bunch of screens go right over his head through the years and him not showing the awareness to redirect towards the recipient.

Dante Stills scout report: Grade

If there’s one prospect in this entire draft who I just have no idea about why he’s projected to go where he currently is, it's Dante Stills.

This guy is very solidly built, his initial quickness to win the gap is excellent, yet he also understands how to lock out and create angles for himself eventually in the run game. He’s hyper-active with his hands and has the agility to get around blockers, which makes him one of the most productive interior pass-rushers we’ve had in recent years.

I do believe he plays too high at times and would benefit from being under better control generally, but the fact he’s projected to be a sixth-/seventh-round pick based on consensus boards is unfathomable to me. The only reason I could see him fall a little bit is that teams don’t know exactly where to put him. I personally have Dante Stills as a third-round type of player.

Grade: Top-100 overall

You might like other 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Reports: Tyree Wilson (EDGE), Texas Tech; Will Anderson Jr. (EDGE), Alabama; Jaxon Smith-Njigba (WR), Ohio; Zay Flowers (WR), Boston; Jordan Addison (WR), USC; Jordan Addison (WR), USC; Quentin Johnston (WR), TCU; Zach Charbonnet (RB), UCLA; Bijan Robinson (RB), Texas.

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