The 2027 NFL Draft group of OTs is a polarizing group, but already, the class’ raw physical talent has been made apparent on early viewings. And when there’s talent at tackle, that’s often enough for NFL teams.
OT has always been a coveted position in the early rounds, but in recent years, that interest has strengthened even more. Over the past three NFL Draft cycles, an average of over six offensive tackles have been taken in Round 1.
The two-high revolution has put the onus on defenses to become heavier and more physical in the box, and by extension, trench play has become harder to neglect. But for natural OTs, there’s the added element of playing on an island that makes the supply-demand equation so distorted.
Finding a blue-chip OT is a privilege, and teams chomp at the bit every cycle to try and get their guy, early or otherwise. As of now, these are my Top 10 OT prospects in the 2027 NFL Draft, with two talented SEC blockers battling for the top spot.
10) Desmeal Leigh, Youngstown State
Desmeal Leigh is a mid-round OT prospect with early-round potential, who could also be one of the first FCS prospects selected in the 2027 NFL Draft.
Leigh started playing football in his senior year of high school, and wasn’t ranked as a recruit as a result. As such, he was forced to walk-on initially at Youngstown State, an FCS program in his home state.
After redshirting in 2022, however, Leigh would soon earn not only his scholarship, but All-MVFC recognition. He started 13 games as a redshirt freshman in 2023, all 12 games in 2024, and 13 games once again in 2025, earning second-team All-MVFC honors in his most recent season.
For his play in 2025, Leigh earned a strong PFN OL Impact score of 80.4. He let by a true dropback pressure rate of just 3.8%, and allowed just one sack on the year, while drawing 10 penalties.
Leigh’s penalty figure hints at a truth teams will have to live with: He’s big and physical, but is still relatively new to the position and will need time to keep honing his discipline and hand replacement. Additionally, at his height of 6’6 3/8″, Leigh can be a bit tall and lopsided with his leveraging, which can negatively affect his balance.
That said, for a prospect so early in his career at OT, Leigh shows immense promise, and has steadily developed across 38 career starts.
Athletically, he’s explosive and nimble for his size, with good range climbing to the second level, he has the core and grip strength to stay latched amidst resistance, and he has the angle IQ to seal out second-level defenders and drive his legs to generate power.
In pass protection, meanwhile, he flashes a strong anchor, has great stunt awareness and vision, and has shown glimpses of proactive hand usage, with feigned swipes and heavy-handed snatch-and-traps.
Additionally, while his leveraging skills can improve, Leigh’s knee bend is assuredly a strength for his size, and that unique leverage acquisition component insulates his development and reinforces his center of gravity.
With more experience, greater leverage work, and expanded use of his hand-usage arsenal, upper-lower synergy, and anchor footwork, Leigh has quality starter upside in power, gap, and inside-zone schemes and can be a competent swing OT early in his career.
9) Jacarrius Peak, South Carolina
Jacarrius Peak is a potential early-round OT prospect in the 2027 NFL Draft, with projected flexibility between tackle and guard.
A high school state runner-up in the shot put, who also played at OT and OG in his early days, Peak committed to the NC State Wolfpack as a four-star recruit in 2022, and redshirted his first season.
As a redshirt freshman, Peak started the final six games at right tackle, and carried that role through the entire 2024 campaign. In 2025, Peak shifted to left tackle, and delivered his best season yet.
Peak earned a glowing PFN OL Impact score of 87.2 and earned honorable mention All-ACC recognition. On true dropbacks, Peak allowed a pressure rate of just 3.1%, and let by just three sacks on the year.
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At around 6’4″, 292 pounds, Peak is an unorthodox OT prospect with visibly below-average height and weight. That said, he’s built with good compact mass and a dense center of gravity, and he appears to have ideal proportional length for his size.
Despite his natural leverage, Peak can still improve his knee bend and pad level maintenance, but he nonetheless has proven he can play with good controlled lean, base alignment, and balance on-engagement.
In the run game, his elite explosive element enables him to swiftly reach landmarks and channel point-of-attack power through physicality, and in pass protection, Peak has keen angle IQ on his kick, smooth matching ability, and has the advanced hand nuance to feign swipes and bait rushers into showing their hand.
Peak did draw 14 penalties in 2025, and that stat hints at a more pressing issue: With subpar size and modest hip stiffness stemming from his high-cut frame, Peak sometimes feels the need to grab and tug to keep leverage, and needs to improve his hand replacement.
Additionally, Peak’s anchor in pass protection is very inconsistent, a product of middling knee bend, and as his frame indicates, added mass is still a necessity.
Peak’s size limitations and modest stiffness could force him inside to guard, but if he can improve his hand replacement, anchor, and recovery skills, he has the athleticism and nuance to stick at OT as a quality starter.
8) Niki Prongos, Stanford
Niki Prongos is a potential early-round contender at the OT position in the 2027 NFL Draft, with the raw talent to underpin an exciting but polarizing evaluation.
Prongos didn’t start playing football until his senior year of high school, having previously been a standout in basketball and baseball. As such, he was forced to test the waters as a walk-on at UCLA.
Prongos would soon his stripes, however, starting eight of 10 games played across three seasons at UCLA. He earned a scholarship, and later transferred to Stanford, where he started all 12 games in 2025 and earned a PFN OL Impact grade of 77.9.
Prongos allowed six sacks on the year and fielded eight penalties, but also let by an opposing true dropback pressure percentage of just 4.6%.
At around 6’7″, 315 pounds, Prongos has all of the ideal physical traits. He’s well-built with great proportions, and he’s a visibly elite athlete with excellent initial burst, change-of-direction, recovery range, and ability in space.
On top of his athleticism, he’s also exceedingly flexible, and he can use that flexibility to acquire leverage and aid in recovery. Prongos’ size, athleticism, flexibility, and physicality alone will endear him to NFL teams, but he still has work to do before he realizes his early-round potential.
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In spite of his measurements, Prongos’ core, latch, and anchor strength are average at best, and his anchor footwork in pass protection is also below-average.
In a similar lens, it remains clear that Prongos is still accruing valuable experience at the position after scarcely playing in high school. His pass set angles can be inconsistent, he can be baited out of sync by more advanced rushers, and there are times when he struggles to properly pass off and pick up stunts.
Another year as a full-time starter can serve Prongos well, as he has real NFL impact starter potential and tantalizing raw traits, but needs more NFL-level refinement.
7) Lance Heard, Kentucky
Lance Heard is following a familiar path up the board in the 2027 NFL Draft cycle. His predecessor at tackle for the Tennessee Volunteers — Darnell Wright — was a five-star recruit who embarked on a rapid ascent in his final year, earning Round 1 capital.
Heard still has much to work on before he comes close to going that high, but the high-level natural talent is there for the former LSU and Tennessee transfer, and at Kentucky, he’ll have a chance to reset and put his best foot forward for his final season.
In 2025, Heard served as a full-time starter for Josh Heupel’s squad at left tackle, and though his PFN OL Impact score of 71.4 was relatively low, Heard still allowed pressure on just 7.8% of his true dropbacks.
The 6’6″, 325-pound behemoth has some of the most overwhelming raw power capacity and torque in the class, and he can bury defenders 1-on-1 with his length and violent extensions.
For his size, he also has eye-catching on-attack explosiveness, and he’s not just a raw physical talent, either. He can levy ruthless snatch-and-traps in pass protection, and he’s assignment-sound in the run game.
For Heard, the question marks stem mostly from his leverage maintenance and discipline. Heard can play lopsided at times, with a poor center of gravity and frequent lurching, and it can be easy for opposing rushers to work him out of sync.
Additionally, as evidenced by his 14 penalties last year, he still has plenty of room to improve with his hand precision, hand replacement, and recovery footwork to avoid being over-reliant on grabs and extraneous physicality.
Heard is a prospect with a translatable physical skill set and demeanor, but also a questionable operational floor that needs further attention.
Nevertheless, his tools and experience should earn him swing tackle interest at the very least, and distant impact starter upside is present.
6) PJ Williams, SMU
PJ Williams is a mid-round OT prospect in the 2027 NFL Draft with early-round upside, and another year of growth could render him a first-round sleeper.
Williams began his collegiate career as a highly-regarded four-star recruit at Texas A&M in 2022. However, a suspension and an arrest for marijuana possession marred his early career, and he transferred to SMU after just one season with the Aggies.
With the Mustangs, Williams began to remake himself. He started four of 12 games played in 2023, then started 14 games in 2024, three at right tackle and 11 at left tackle.
In 2025, Williams earned the title of team captain and started 13 more games, primarily at right tackle.
Williams has started 31 career games to this point, and the 2025 season was his best yet. He earned an excellent PFN OL Impact score of 86.7, distinguishing himself as a high-level run blocker while also allowing a mere 4.3% pressure percentage on true dropbacks.
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At 6’5″, 313 pounds, with decent length, Williams has a passable size profile to package with elite baseline athleticism and physicality.
He’s exceedingly explosive and quick-footed at his size, with the range to get out in space. And while he doesn’t quite have a domineering size profile, he plays beyond his parameters with menacing power output and rotational torque at contact.
Williams already has immediate swing tackle appeal with his experience on both sides of the line, but more improvement is needed for him to lock in early-round capital.
While he has great leverage acquisition and solid knee bend, he can be prone to lurches and over-extending in the run game at times. And as a pass protector, he can be prone to matching with improper angles, giving rushers optimal paths upfield through gaps, and his anchor technique is inconsistent.
Still, Williams has come a long way since arriving at SMU. He has the profile to be a valuable depth OT right away in the NFL, and his physical talent imbues legitimate starting upside.
5) Trevor Lauck, Iowa
Trevor Lauck is a mid-round OL prospect with early-round potential, who could see a future either as an NFL tackle or guard.
Carrying a three-star recruit billing out of Indianapolis, Lauck signed with the Iowa Hawkeyes and proceeded to play just three games total in his first two seasons.
In 2025, Lauck entered the lineup as the team’s left tackle, and delivered incredible results in his first year as a starter. Starting in all 13 games, Lauck earned third-team All-Big Ten recognition, was a pivotal part of the Hawkeyes’ Joe Moore Award-winning unit, and fielded an elite PFN OL Impact score of 91.0.
Encased within that grade, Lauck graded as one of the best run blockers in the nation, allowed a true dropback pressure rate of just 1.9%, and didn’t allow a single sack on 291 pass blocking reps.
At around 6’6″, 314 pounds, Lauck has a somewhat unorthodox build, with impressive height and good lean mass, but just average proportional length.
Tall, high-cut, and barrel-chested, Lauck’s prime physical traits are his explosive athleticism, lower-body power, and raw core strength. He fires off the line and can cover ground swiftly in the run game, and with his power drive, he can plow through defenders and finish into the turf.
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He’s not just a linear brawler, however; Lauck also shows off elite angle IQ, and can stack blocks while climbing to seal out lanes successively.
In pass protection, Lauck is fleet-footed, patient, and discipline, with a vast hand arsenal that includes feigned swats, circle punches, and pillar fits, all of which he can apply with a keen situational intelligence.
Lauck is still learning how to process and respond to more complex stunts, as his game against Indiana exemplified, and his pad level can also be an issue; while Lauck has decent leverage acquisition and balance, he lacks great knee bend and can drift taller and more upright the longer reps drag on.
He can also shorten the corner working on an island, without the elite hip flexibility to compensate as an apex sealer.
These factors, combined with Lauck’s middling length, hint at a potential transition to guard down the line, but regardless, impact starter ability across schemes is present, and more attention spent on his more pressing flaws can solidify a justifiable future at tackle.
4) Melvin Siani, Texas
Melvin Siani is a potential early-round riser in the 2027 NFL Draft OT class, who should see his development take a jump in Texas’ offense.
A product of Ontario, Canada, Siani received little attention as a high school recruit, but was already entrenched in the starting lineup for the Temple Owls as a redshirt freshman in 2024.
After starting nine games and shifting between left and right tackle, Siani transferred to Wake Forest, where he started all 13 games as the Demon Deacons’ blindside blocker in 2025.
Siani led Wake Forest in offensive snaps played, and didn’t allow a single sack across that stretch. His efforts earned him a PFN OL Impact score of 78.2, and while he accrued 10 penalties, he allowed a pressure percentage of just 3.6% on true dropbacks.
Siani leveraged his strong play into a second transfer opportunity at Texas, where he now starts across from fellow early-round OT prospect Trevor Goosby.
Goosby is more established as a prospect, but Siani’s potential is in a similar tier. At around 6’6″, 313 pounds, with stellar proportional length, Siani is an elite athlete with high-level explosiveness and range, as well as menacing power capacity that’s magnified by his leg drive and rotational torque.
In the run game, Siani thrives out on the move, where his leg action and explosiveness can feed into power sustain, and in pass protection, he acquits himself well for a younger blocker.
While his outside hand can get stronger, and his inconsistent hand replacement can lead to grabs and holds, he’s shown he can get depth on his kick, match and redirect, and feign strikes to bait rushers into more predictable paths before anchoring.
Siani needs to keep improving his upper-lower synergy, and especially in the running game, upright pad level drift and streaky balance can be an issue. But with more growth, Siani has early-round and impact starter upside at LT or RT.
3) Carter Smith, Indiana
Carter Smith is a potential early-round offensive line prospect with projected alignment versatility between tackle and guard, who stands out as one of college football’s most proficient performers up front.
He originally joined the Indiana Hoosiers as a prized four-star recruit under head coach Tom Allen. After redshirting in 2022, he started all 12 games at left tackle in 2023, and mulled over transferring out in 2024 with the arrival of Curt Cignetti.
Ultimately, Smith’s transfer portal stint was short-lived; he returned to Indiana and became an indispensable blocker for Cignetti and future first overall pick Fernando Mendoza.
Smith’s 2024 campaign was strong, but his 2025 was certifiably elite: His 92.8 PFSN OL Impact score was seventh-highest in the nation and third in the Big Ten. He didn’t allow a single sack in pass protection, and put up an opposing pressure rate of just 2%.
Smith’s numbers place him among the ranks of NFL starters, and the film corroborates his proficiency.
At around 6’5″, 313 pounds, without great length, Smith’s modest physical caps have stirred discussions surrounding a potential move inside. But Smith has nonetheless excelled at OT in college with an elite operational skill set.
He’s assuredly explosive and rangy enough, with good functional power and play strength, but Smith most often wins with his ultra-consistent footwork and leveraging, patient and precise hand usage, high-level intelligence and football IQ, relentless finishing physicality, and contact authority.
He’s a true master at playing with a consistent anchor and controlled lean, using leverage acquisition and overarching flexibility to calibrate balance. That foundation helps maximize his power and strength in the run game, and in pass protection, he’s a nuanced and synergetic operator who can execute pillar fits, circle punches, and anchor.
On film, Smith bears striking similarity to 2023 first-round pick Peter Skoronski. A similar transition to guard might await him, but at either tackle or guard, Smith can be an impact starter with scheme versatility.
2) Trevor Goosby, Texas
Trevor Goosby is a potential first-round OT prospect in the 2027 NFL Draft, who possesses blue-chip upside with more experience.
A three-star gem in the Longhorns’ 2023 recruiting class, Goosby redshirted his first season, and was primarily a reserve in 2024.
Late in the year, however, he started two games in relief, one at right tackle and one at left tackle, and showed off his potential. In 2025, he returned as the full-time starter on the blindside for Arch Manning, and earned first-team All-SEC honors for his play.
Goosby’s near-elite PFSN OL Impact grade of 89.1 was Top 25 in the entire nation, and his true dropback pressure percentage was just 4.6%, with only three sacks allowed.
Standing at 6’7″, 325 pounds, Goosby has an impressively long and lean frame, with excellent compact mass.
While he’s a bit high-hipped and has trouble with waist-bending at times, he does a good job acquiring leverage and playing with controlled lean for his size, and his explosive, nimble athleticism serves as an asset in both phases.
In pass protection, he can get depth on his kick and use his explosive range to manipulate depth, or to close ground and latch against apex rushers. And in the run game, Goosby is a rangy puller and second-level climber, and a flexible reach blocker who can use his length and rotational torque to fold and bury defenders in the turf.
Goosby has a strong sense of patience, timing, and upper-lower sync as a pass protector, but can improve at adapting, replacing his hands, and incorporating more counter strategies when rushers change the picture mid-rep.
To that end, his tendency to grab against apex rushers who attain superior leverage renders him penalty-prone at times.
Nevertheless, Goosby has an impact starter projection at a premium position, with two-phase security and left-right flex.
1) Jordan Seaton, LSU
Jordan Seaton is a potential first-round OT prospect in the 2027 NFL Draft, and as of now, he takes the OT1 mantle on my board, by a very slim margin over Goosby.
A prestigious five-star recruit, Seaton was the prized signing of Deion Sanders’ inaugural recruiting class at Colorado.
He won the starting left tackle job as a true freshman and later earned Freshman All-American honors, and in 2025, he earned second-team All-Big 12 honors, while putting up a PFSN OL Impact grade of 76.9 and allowing a true dropback pressure percentage of just 2.3%.
Seaton’s eventual NFL Draft ascent has been heavily anticipated, and now in 2025, he’ll get to prove himself against SEC competition as LSU’s blindside blocker.
In terms of traits, Seaton has what is coveted. He’s a touch light at 307 pounds, but sports a lean 6’5″ frame with good dimensions and proportional length. He’s an explosive, twitched-up, and rangy athlete at his size, and doubles as a heavy-handed combatant with excellent elbow load and force efficiency on punches.
In pass protection, Seaton has stellar synergetic feel and patient, nuanced hands; he can latch and anchor rushers with well-timed circle punches after matching, or flash hands to bait extensions before gathering. And in the run game, Seaton is angle-sound and adaptable.
Still, Seaton is far from a finished product. He plays with inconsistent knee bend and a relatively high center of gravity, and needs to improve his hand and core strength.
Additionally, in pass protection, he can be baited into over-setting or prematurely turning his hips and opening counter lanes, and his high-energy motion can yield inefficiency.
Nonetheless, Seaton is an elite physical talent with certain soft skills that bode well for his development into a franchise cornerstone, and a year at the SEC level, with an SEC training regimen, can mold him into his final form.
Honorable Mentions
- Xavier Chaplin, Florida State
- Ben Murawski, Michigan State
- Stanton Ramil, Auburn
- Blake Frazier, Michigan
- Anthony Donkoh, Penn State
- Drew Azzopardi, Washington
- Frederick Williams, California
- Howard Sampson, Texas Tech
- Joe Cotton, Cincinnati
