2024 Draft Profile: Illinois DT Jer'Zhan Newton

We begin our journey through the defensive tackles with quite a prospect from Illinois.

We begin the next phase of our Sturm 60 by working on the defensive front 7 prospects who are considered to be top players in this draft. We will begin at DT, work our way to LB and then spend some time on the edges (because you can never have too many). Today, we study a player that has been on the radar since last summer:

No. 4 - Jer’Zhan Newton - Age 21 - 6’2 - 295 - Junior - Illinois

Johnny Newton is really an impressive player as you would expect from anyone who has won the Nagurski-Wooden Trophy for Big 10 Defensive Player of the Year. He was also a consensus All American and certainly understood his reputation, but was eager to see what sort of tape he put out there.

Know this about Johnny, he has played a ton of football already, with 2,400 snaps and splash plays for days at Illinois as the focal point of their defense this season. He is a 3-technique who penetrates at will and is equally impressive as a pass rusher as he is against the run.

Now, he is not the world’s biggest tackle, but at about 300, he is plenty big enough and should really become one of those tackles on the inside who is dancing around guards and centers all day. We are not willing to use Aaron Donald’s name as a comp, but we do think you can look at some slightly less-elite versions and assume that Newton might be there soon. Take a look at this tape.