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Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft Prospect Rankings: Offensive Tackles

With the NFL Draft a few weeks away, our College Football expert Thor Nystrom shares his official OT rankings. Read on for Thor’s player comps and analysis on the next crop of pro football offensive tackles.

Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft OT Rankings

Tier 1: Top-10 Overall

1. Joe Alt (Notre Dame)
6085/321 | RAS: 9.92
Player Comparison: Mike McGlinchey

Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft OT Rankings

Tier 1: Top-10 Overall

1. Joe Alt (Notre Dame)
6085/321 | RAS: 9.92
Player Comparison: Mike McGlinchey

Notes: This spectacular offensive tackle class has a Tier 1 of one. Joe Alt, the son of former Chiefs two-time Pro Bowler John Alt, was a high school TE and DE who also played basketball. He took to offensive tackle play very quickly — he’s already a high-end player — and is still, intriguingly, getting better. Allowed two sacks in 25 starts on the blind side. Powerful leg drive in the run game that generates movement. Shockingly comfortable in his post — Alt is one of the most patient collegiate tackles you’ll see in pass-pro, sitting back and allowing the interaction to come to him.

Trying to steal the edge from him is a losing battle — his feet are too quick, his arms are too long and his understanding of angles is too great. Alt never gets baited by movement. He forces his man to come into his frame to try to generate separation. In this way, Alt is the one who has set the trap — at that point, you’re trying to swim through a tsunami of length and strength. Alt is the complete package. He’s a two-way tackle who excelled at the highest level — 90+ Pro Football Focus (PFF) grades each of the last two seasons — with a prototype build and athletic profile, and NFL bloodlines coursing through his veins. He’s the type you can build your offensive line around for the next decade.

Tier 2: Round 1

2. JC Latham (Alabama)
6056/342 | RAS: N/A
Player Comparison: Jawaan Taylor

3. Taliese Fuaga (Oregon State)
6056/324 | RAS: 9.61
Player Comparison: Darnell Wright

4. Olumuyiwa Fashanu (Penn State)
6060/312 | RAS: 9.59
Player Comparison: Anton Harrison

5. Amarius Mims (Georgia)
6076/340 | RAS: 9.58
Player Comparison: Phil Loadholt

6. Troy Fautanu (Washington)
6036/317 | RAS: 9.45
Player Comparison: Matthew Bergeron

Notes: Tier 2 is stacked — all five guys listed above are extremely likely to get taken in the first. JC Latham, a former five-star recruit and a Second-Team All-American in 2023, is my favorite of the bunch. Colossus build. Huge power. Great coordination and balance for his size. Cruise ship anchor in pass-pro. Only speed can frustrate him — lack of elite lateral agility can get him in trouble on inside counters. Latham will be an RT in the pros — a very, very good one. Taliese Fuaga is a bully who generates high-octane wattage into contact to dictate interactions. He has hilarious reps wrecking LBs at the second level. Should be a strong starting RT, but if leverage and stiffness issues get him in trouble on the perimeter, he’s going to make for a tone-setting starting NFL OG.

I’m a little lower on Olumuyiwa Fashanu than others. He’s an awesome pass-protector, with one sack allowed over 20 games the last two years. He’s also a fluid side-to-side mover who will make you work for it. He also drops a mean anchor against power. My biggest issue is the other phase of the game — Fashanu’s run-blocking has improved but still has a long way to go. He doesn’t play with the same natural feel in that phase. Fashanu can lumber down into contact and his feet can stall when confronted with power. I struggled the most with Amarius Mims’ ranking. Full disclosure, at one point earlier in the process, I had him as high as OT3. My belief in the ceiling remains but an honest assessment of the risk profile caused me to lower him slightly. Has elite length, power and hand usage. Length and punch make it extremely difficult to beat him around the outside in pass-pro off the right side.

I am less concerned by Mims’ “inexperience” than others — he showed enough in his eight starts, along with his athletic and analytical profile, to project as a long-term standout starting RT at the next level. Rather, my question about his next-level transition centers around his durability. Mims had tightrope surgery following an ankle injury against South Carolina last September. Then he suffered a right hamstring injury during testing at the NFL Combine. It’s concerning that a 6-foot-8/340-pound prospect has suffered multiple lower-body injuries despite minimal collegiate playing time. Does that portend more issues to come or were both flukes? If the answer is the latter, Mims will be a standout starter for a long time. If it’s the former, that’s the scenario where Mims will not be allowed to take advantage of his natural physical gifts.

Tier 3: Round 2

7. Kingsley Suamataia (BYU)
6045/326 | RAS: 9.38
Player Comparison: Eugene Monroe

8. Jordan Morgan (Arizona)
6050/311 | RAS: 9.23
Player Comparison: La’el Collins

9. Patrick Paul (Houston)
6074/331 | RAS: 9.76
Player Comparison: Nicholas Petit-Frere

10. Tyler Guyton (Oklahoma)
6076/322 | RAS: 9.71
Player Comparison: Kwame Harris

11. Blake Fisher (Notre Dame)
6056/310 | RAS: 7.69
Player Comparison: Wanya Morris

12. Roger Rosengarten (Washington)
6053/308 | RAS: 9.62
Player Comparison: Spencer Brown

Notes: Tier 3 is also stacked as well How stacked? My top-10 OTs will all be inside my top 50 overall prospects. Kingsley Suamataia and Jordan Morgan are extremely close to having first-round grades. I’m higher on Suamataia than consensus. That discrepancy comes down to the projection — Suamataia did not have the seventh-best tape of this group last year. But I love his pedigree and analytical profile. Suamataia is a former five-star recruit with strong splits and a best-in-class bench press despite above-average arm length.

Morgan may be headed inside at the next level due to vacillating pass-pro technique on the outside. Morgan has good strength, particularly in his hands. He shocks defenders with his punch. Skilled run-blocker who generates serious north-south force and consistently hits the play-side shoulder of his mark in zone concepts. In pass-pro, his lack of length and elite side-to-side movement skills get him in trouble against speed rushers.

I’m a bit lower on Tyler Guyton than others. Though his overall athletic profile sparkles, Guyton is slightly below average in the tests most conducive to NFL success. His tape shows a high-variance prospect whose technique needs serious fine-tuning. Guyton has upside, no doubt, but he’s probably not ready to step into an NFL lineup immediately.

Tier 4: Round 3

13. Christian Jones (Texas)
6052/305 | RAS: 6.12
Player Comparison: Kenyatta Walker

14. Kiran Amegadjie (Yale)
6053/323 | RAS: N/A
Player Comparison: Matt Peart

15. Delmar Glaze (Maryland)
6041/315 | RAS: 6.6
Player Comparison: Tyrell Crosby

16. Javon Foster (Missouri)
6054/313 | RAS: 6.28
Player Comparison: Will Richardson

17. Walter Rouse (Oklahoma)
6056/313 | RAS: 7.84
Player Comparison: Cedric Ogbuehi

Notes: In this year’s stacked OT class, I firmly believe at least one multi-time Pro Bowler at the position will be picked outside of round two. The question becomes who? Choose your flavor. My favorite of the Tier 4 grouping is Texas’ Christian Jones. Jones may not be the most athletic of this bunch but he boasts the best length. He also has a well-rounded game backed with multi-year experience as a good starter in the Big 12. Delmar Glaze is a sleeper.

Many automatically project him to guard due to his frame. But he was a fabulous pass-blocking OT in the Big Ten — RT in 2022, LT in 2023 — who shut down Ohio State’s Jack Sawyer in a marquee matchup last fall. Glaze has the fluidity, length and strong hands to become a starting RT at the next level.

Tier 5: Early Day 3

18. Caedan Wallace (Penn State)
6047/314 | RAS: 8.2
Player Comparison: Nick Saldiveri

19. Garret Greenfield (South Dakota State)
6056/311 | RAS: 8.66
Player Comparison: Jaelyn Duncan

20. Julian Pearl (Illinois)
6060/312 | RAS: N/A
Player Comparison: Yosh Nijman

Notes: All three of these guys have work to do. Each finished with a PFF grade between 66.2-68.8 last fall but each has NFL starter traits if they can tighten up their games. Tier 4 is where your hopes of adding immediate help ends. The trio above headlining Tier 5 is my preference for higher-odds developmental swings for teams that miss out on the OT gold rush on the first and second days of the NFL Draft.