Will Earnest Greene III be the next player up in the Georgia Bulldogs’ NFL pipeline at the offensive tackle position? As the 2025 NFL Draft cycle approaches, Greene’s scouting report is one of the most compelling on the offensive line. Here’s what he has to offer.
Earnest Greene III’s Draft Profile and Measurements
- Height: 6’4″
- Weight: 320 pounds
- Position: Offensive Tackle
- School: Georgia
- Current Year: Redshirt Sophomore
Over the past five NFL Drafts, the Bulldogs have had four offensive tackles taken in Round 1: Andrew Thomas and Isaiah Wilson in 2020, Broderick Jones in 2023, and Amarius Mims most recently in the 2024 NFL Draft.
As Georgia’s football program has risen to prominence under head coach Kirby Smart, so too has its development system on the offensive line. There’s no denying Georgia’s track record, and that makes Greene a must-watch player in 2024.
Greene follows in the footsteps of two other redshirt sophomores, who went from highly touted recruits to first-round prospects. Greene himself was a four-star recruit and a four-year starter at St. John Bosco High School in California, and he started all 14 games at left tackle in 2023.
Greene is a different type of player than his predecessors, but many of the intriguing cosmetic factors are there on the surface. Taking a closer look at his game, does Greene deserve to be penciled in as a potential first-round pick?
Greene’s Scouting Report
Strengths
- At just under 6’4″, with 35″ arms, has an elite blend of natural leverage and length.
- Explosive linear mover who flashes high-level accelerative capacity on the attack.
- Shows off great quickness and urgency out of his stance and can kick to good depth.
- Has the lateral mobility and burst to redirect inside and wall off inside counters.
- Has high-end power capacity and knock-back force in his hands, drawing from hips.
- Can unlock menacing rotational torque on extensions and plow defenders out of lanes.
- Powerful lower body and length allow Greene to sustain power exertions all through reps.
- Has the raw strength to seal out edge setters and wall off lanes for ball carriers.
- Has shown to match rushers with corrective footwork after kicking to landmarks.
- Possesses the foot speed and quickness to correct his base width against counters.
- Able to envelop rushers with explosive bursts of lateral correction, then extend through.
- Has shown to levy successive violent extensions inside the torso and delay rushes.
- Has the awareness to pick out blitz threats from wide alignments and pick up stunts.
- Mauler who exudes over-bearing physicality and pummels opponents at contact.
- Has left and right tackle experience, and could translate well at the guard spot.
Weaknesses
- Despite short-area burst, visibly lacks elite malleability and recovery athleticism.
- Hands are sometimes too wide out of his kick, exposing Greene’s frame to opposing power.
- At times, throws and swings his hands, rather than loading his elbows and launching.
- Strike and latch placement can be more consistent to properly combat extensions.
- Overall, hands are still very imprecise, with inefficient energy channeling.
- Punches can pull him upright, negating base load and disrupting pad level.
- Relatively upright nature can inadvertently shorten the corner for speed-rushing threats.
- Could improve at optimizing natural leverage profile by playing with controlled lean.
- Sometimes sways too far back on his skates when kicking to get depth versus rushers.
- Inconsistency in dropping the anchor and aligning his base can leave him imbalanced.
- Sometimes struggles to vary his footwork technique to flip his hips up the apex track.
- Doesn’t have elite hip flexibility, which can cause slight hitches on sharp transitions.
- Non-elite hip flexibility sometimes impacts Greene’s quickness when sealing off the apex.
- Has dealt with immobilizing injuries in the past and missed 2022 after back surgery.
Current Draft Projection and Summary
Entering the 2025 NFL Draft cycle, Greene grades out as an early-to-mid Day 3 prospect. That said, he has an exciting combination of explosiveness, power, strength, mass, and length, and that combination sets the foundation for a potential early-round rise.
Greene is only a redshirt sophomore, so he’s still fairly early in his career as a starting OT. Thus, there’s an expected level of refinement that he still has yet to undergo.
There are many operational areas in which Greene is still very inconsistent. In particular, his leverage management, pad level, and hand usage all require considerable development. To that end, he also doesn’t have the high-end flexibility to recover and counteract those deficiencies.
With his various technical deficiencies and physical profile — where explosiveness and power are strengths and flexibility is a weakness — Greene could eventually move inside to guard. But any conclusion as to his future position is pending growth across his 2024 campaign.
Overall, while Greene isn’t yet in the mix for an early-round spot as an offensive tackle, he has enough physical upside to warrant monitoring — especially given Georgia’s track record of development at the position. If Greene can improve his leverage and hand usage, he has early-round potential as an OT or a guard convert.