The 2024 NFL Draft is getting close, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.
Here's our report on Braden Fiske.
Fiske is one of the better DT prospects in the 2024 draft class with his desirable combination of strength, balance and explosiveness with light athletic feet. Fiske showed the ability to 2-gap with anchor strength and excellent functional arm length to lock out, keeping his lower body clean with space to work and move, followed by explosive short-area quickness to make plays in the run game.
As an inside pass rusher, he uses his functional arm length and initial vertical quickness to torque OLs off their feet and out of balance and get the edge on them. Fiske is a complete DT prospect who will likely begin his NFL career as a base defense DT, who could play in even and odd fronts without any limitations in his game.
My sense is he will become a three-down DT with experience since he has the kind of sudden explosive movement to win as a pass rusher with strength-power hand usage, and quickness to clear half a man. What consistently stood out watching Fiske’s tape was his confined space and short stroke strength to initiate and then play off contact.
He is country strong, and there were many dominant snaps throughout his tape in which his contact strength put the interior OL in a reactive recovery position. Fiske may lack the ideal measurables and mass you want to see from DT position, but his 2023 tape was strong overall, and he has a chance to develop into an impact inside defender in the NFL, with the question being how teams and coaches will see him best deployed in a base front.
My belief that he can be an effective 3-technique in a four-man front or a 4i in a five-man front, but there is no question that he is scheme and position versatile.
Fiske played one season at Florida State after five seasons at Western Michigan, where he had 30 starts in 45 career games. At Florida State, he started 13 games, recording six QB sacks and nine TFL.
Fiske lined up in multiple DT positions depending on the defensive front. He was both a 1-gap and 2-gap player and showed the athletic and physical traits to play both techniques effectively
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