Toward the end of a long conference call to preview next week’s NFL Draft, NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah was asked about what the Green Bay Packers might do at No. 23 of the first round.
Jeremiah mentioned Kentucky cornerback Maxwell Hairston and Texas A&M edge rusher Shemar Stewart.
“Usually, you just look for the most athletic and explosive SEC edge rusher – or SEC defensive front-seven player – and that’s one that is going to pique their interest a little bit,” Jeremiah said. “Shemar Stewart doesn’t have the production but, man, he would match all the explosive pieces that they’ve collected there over the last few years.”
Stewart, who had a predraft visit with the Packers, is the ultimate dilemma for scouts.
On the one hand, there’s the upside. Relative Athletic Score combines a prospect’s height, weight, 40-yard time and other measurables and puts them into one 0-to-10 score alongside other players at the same position.
At 6-foot-5 and 267 pounds with 4.59 speed and incredible overall explosiveness, Stewart scored a perfect 10, meaning he’s in the 100th percentile all-time.
On the other hand, there’s the production. Or lack of production. He had 1.5 sacks in 2022, 1.5 sacks in 2023 and 1.5 sacks in 2024.
“I’m curious to see [where he’s drafted],” Jeremiah said. “Shemar Stewart from Texas A&M is easily the most polarizing edge rusher in this draft. He is the ultimate example of traits vs. production. He has all kinds of twitch. He’s explosive. He’s disruptive. He just hasn’t been able to finish, to compile sacks.”
Last season, 17 NFL players recorded at least 10 sacks. Some of those players were studs in college, such as Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson, who had 13.5 sacks during his final season, and Cleveland’s Myles Garrett, who had 32.5 sacks in three seasons.
Some were duds, at least relatively speaking. Two players are at the forefront.
During his final season at Penn State, Odafe Oweh had zero sacks. The Ravens took him at No. 31 of the first round in 2021. After recording 11 sacks in his first three seasons, he had a breakout season of 10 sacks in 2024.
Danielle Hunter had five sacks in three seasons at Oklahoma State. A third-round pick by the Vikings in 2015, he had six sacks as a rookie, followed by the first of his six 10-sack seasons. In nine years in the NFL, he has 99.5 sacks.
“More and more, teams aren’t focusing quite as much on the sack number as they are on win percentage, pressure percentage, where he’s more than functional there,” Jeremiah said.
Stewart does have decent pressure numbers. According to Pro Football Focus, 140 draft-eligible, FBS-level edge defenders had at least 200 pass-rushing opportunities in 2024. Stewart ranked 52nd in pass-rush win rate. In 2022 and 2023, Stewart had 40 pressures in 365 pass-rushing snaps. In 2024, he had 39 pressures in 315 pass-rushing snaps.
So, there has been improvement. Now, can he put it all together? And how quickly?
Those are key questions for the Packers, who have made it perfectly clear their front-four pass rush must be better in 2025 than it was in 2024. Green Bay drafted edge defenders in the first round in 2019 with Rashan Gary and 2023 with Lukas Van Ness.
Gary, who had a much better career at Michigan than Stewart did at A&M, had two sacks as a rookie and seven through two sacks. Van Ness, who had a much better career at Iowa than Stewart, had four sacks as a rookie and seven in two seasons.
“I wasn't a sack-chasing warrior,” Stewart said at the Combine. “I just wanted to become the best player for my team. And sometimes the stats don't show that. Sometimes, I have to play dead to rights, and sometimes I just couldn't finish or just couldn't get there in time.”
For Stewart, the talent is there. So are the intangibles. Will those two ingredients deliver instant impact?
“He plays really, really hard,” Jeremiah said. “There are teams with wildly different grades on him. Top-10 grades, second-round grades.”
-1737894865-q80.webp "Why Packers trade could entice Seahawks WR DK Metcalf")
