Top 10 interior defensive linemen in the 2019 NFL Draft

#2 Ed Oliver, Houston

Oliver was even more disruptive as a sophomore, putting up similar numbers while winning the Outland Trophy award for the nation’s top interior lineman

Unlike most five-star recruits, Oliver decided against going to one of the Power Five school in favor of his hometown Houston Cougars.

He was one of the most impressive freshman defenders I have ever watched, earning first-team All-American honors off the bat with a crazy 22 tackles for loss, five sacks and six pass-knockdowns.

Oliver was even more disruptive as a sophomore, putting up similar numbers while winning the Outland Trophy award for the nation’s top interior lineman.

He ended up winning a third nomination as a first-team All-American last season despite appearing in just eight games and leaves the Cougars with 53 tackles for loss, 13.5 sacks, 11 passes defensed and five forced fumbles.

Oliver’s combination of quickness, speed and power is out of this world. He is a physically imposing player, who gets under the pads of his opponents and throws them to the side when he needs to.

Often times he gets past his initial blocker hits a lead-blocker and still gets a hand on the ball-carrier. Oliver has just been dominant in the run game, backed up by the Pro Football Focus’ numbers, which say that he had the highest run-stop percentage (23.8) of any interior defender in 2017 and he continued his dominance in that area last season.

Out of the necessity he played a lot of nose and shaded 1-technique, but when you get your hands on him as an NFL coach, you want to put him in a situation, where he can get up the field and feast on one-on-one blocking.

The star D-tackle has worked heavily on his ball get-off and is now consistently the first one off the snap with unbelievable initial quickness. I don’t think it’s fair to compare Oliver’s pressure and sack numbers to some of the other guys on this list.

He played so much in the A-gaps and had a guard sliding his way as well as playing with less talent around him, that you have to look more at the skill-set and potential as a pass rusher, rather than the pure production. However, he did have by far his best pass-rushing season in 2018, recording 26 pressures on just 270 attempts.

Oliver aims at the shoulder plate of the blocker and simultaneously rips or swims through with the other arm if he doesn’t just drive a guy into the quarterback’s lap. He uses some very unique moves as a pass rusher, occasionally almost jump-cutting by a guard. He gets into a two-point stance quite a bit on passing downs.

The difference between Oliver and some other dudes is the fact he doesn’t rely on his talents, as he shows excellent pursuit and never stops working. All of that makes him absolutely unblockable at times.

There is just no stop to his motor, whether he can run plays down from the backside or sprint all the way towards the sideline on screen passes. I have never seen a guy size that was so light on his feet and with the way he moves and changes directions in the open field, he has fielded requests to work out at linebacker.

I was convinced of what a special player Oliver was when I first watched him dominate versus Oklahoma in his first ever collegiate game. In the fourth quarter of that game, he just ran through the line, looped around a guy and still caught Baker Mayfield from behind. On another one, he dropped back and sprinted all the way to the sideline to bring down Joe Mixon.

Him sitting out games late with no obvious injuries and that sideline altercation he had with his head coach Major Applewhite for wearing an official team jacket reserved for active players has left a little bit of a bitter note in the mouths of some evaluators.

When it comes to his work on the field, Oliver gets caught up fighting with blockers and having the ball-carrier run past him at times. With the way he just runs into a block and tries to demolish a guy, he can be sealed on the back-side instead of trying to fight over the top of that point.

Overall I think his hand-work needs some refinement and I want him to be a little more pro-active in that aspect in general while showing better understanding of blocking schemes. He has had his troubles with offside penalties and plenty of those came on third down.

Oliver was the consensus first overall pick before last season and he was on his way to his best season yet, but somehow I have seen him fall out of the top ten in mock drafts frequently and I have no idea why.

Yes, his commitment to his team can be questioned and that confrontation with his coach was a bad look, but we are not killing Nick Bosa for deciding not to return for his final games when the Buckeyes still had a shot to make the playoff. Oliver showed up at the combine with 287 pounds to stop all this linebacker-nonsense and he will be a monster at the next level.