By admin 
If you want to know just how important interior linemen are to modern defenses, ask the Philadelphia Eagles.
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On March 10, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman signed 2022 first-round pick Jordan Davis to a new three-year, $78 million contract extension with $64.438 million guaranteed. And on Monday, it was announced that the team had signed 2023 first-round pick Jalen Carter to a new four-year, $152 million extension worth up to $160 million, including $106 million guaranteed.
That’s a lot of money to put on the inside of your line, but the Eagles haven’t thought twice about putting all that scratch where most teams throughout history would bank it elsewhere. Overall in today’s NFL, the big men are catching up to the smaller, faster guys on the edge. For the 2026 league year, there are 18 players classified as interior defensive linemen with an average annual contractual value of at least $20 million, while 22 edge defenders have such contracts.
You’re going to see more of these positive value judgments as regards the larger people on those lines. Why?
- With quick game becoming more of a thing in the NFL, quarterbacks are looking to get the ball out before pass rushers can converge, and before secondaries and linebackers can define their coverages in the down. The best interior linemen can get to the quarterback more quickly because the shortest distance between two points – the line of scrimmage and Mr. Quarterback – is indeed a straight line.
- The Vic Fangio/Mike Macdonald/Jesse Minter schools of defensive scheme have teams playing more two-high safety shells, which leave lighter boxes up front with that additional safety patrolling the deep third of the field. So, your big men are required to take a gap and a half more often than not, and they still need to be elite disruptors.
- NFL defenses are tasked to stunt more and blitz less these days, which means that interior defensive linemen need to define those stunts as the epicenters of their lines, whether they’re the loopers who go around other linemen to confuse protections, or the pickers who bail out so that the men moving to the inside can get there with surety.
- NFL defenses are also playing more nickel and dime defenses than ever before. We’re way past the whole “Oh, gosh – nickel is the NFL’s base defense now!” era. We are now in an era where the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks can put six defensive backs on the field more than half the time in the biggest game of the year and actually get away with it. Well, you can’t get away with that unless your interior guys are solid enough to prevent the opposing offense from running all over those lighter fronts.
- An increase in the importance of multi-gap versatility has brought a new kind of IDL into the NFL – players able to control the point of attack as true nose tackles as well as they are inclined to bomb offensive lines as aggressive three-tech tackles, and even make moves as edge defenders from time to time. Once you unleash those specific kinds of physical one-offs on the NFL, the NFL will ensure that such players aren’t going anywhere.
People much smarter than I are in lockstep on this particular subject.
What position is becoming increasingly important in the NFL?@gregcosell says defensive tackle. pic.twitter.com/64mjAer0H3
— PHLY Eagles (@PHLY_Eagles) July 24, 2026
Based on tape study and Sumer Sports data over the last two seasons, here are my seven best interior defensive linemen in the NFL today.
1. Jeffery Simmons, Tennessee Titans
The Titans have won a grand total of six games in the last two seasons, which means that Jeffery Simmons does not get the praise he deserves as the best at his position(s) in the league right now. But if you ask people in the NFL who have to deal with Simmons as a run-stopper and disruptor, the point is clear: Nobody does it better.
Over the last two seasons, Simmons has amassed 112 total pressures and 114 run stops, and wherever he lines up in the front, he’s going to create absolute havoc. Last season alone, he had 11 sacks, 16 tackles for loss, and three forced fumbles, and he did all that from every possible gap – 3% as a nose tackle, 72% as a three-tech, and 25% on the edge. Simmons has the core strength, speed through the hole, pass-rush moves, and stunt ability you’d want in any IDL. He’s the complete package.
It’s also why he faced 252 double teams last season, and more often than not, those double teams were prayers in the wind for opposing offenses.
Double-teaming Jeffery Simmons is mandatory.
It is also hopeless more often than not. pic.twitter.com/HqA6emECmA
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) June 19, 2026
2. Zach Allen, Denver Broncos
The Arizona Cardinals selected Allen in the third round of the 2019 draft out of Boston College, and it took a few seasons for the 6-foot-4, 285-pound Allen to put it all together at the NFL level. He did so in 2022 with a breakout season that had the Broncos giving him a three-year, $45.75 million contract with $32.5 million guaranteed in 2023, and bumping that up with a four-year, $102 million contract extension with $44.25 million guaranteed in 2025.
In 2024-2025 for the Broncos’ aggressive fronts, Allen had 139 pressures and 72 run stops, and the 2025 season may have been his best overall. That’s when he put up seven sacks, four tackles for loss, and six pass breakups. Allen faced 196 double teams last season, and he did a lot of his best work against it. He lined up at nose tackle on 2% of his snaps, with 78% over or outside the guards, and 20% outside.
Wherever he aligns, Allen has been a chaos generator with his speed, agility, gap-switching abilities, and surprising power for his size.
Zach Allen of the @Broncos has turned the pass deflection into his own personal art form. This may be the closest you get to the legendary @JJWatt swat in the NFL today. pic.twitter.com/9HCBUYMorR
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 29, 2026
3. Chris Jones, Kansas City Chiefs
Jones totaled 12 sacks in his age 30 and 31 seasons (2024-2025) as opposed to 26 in 2022-2023, so you may think that he’s on the decline.
Not so fast, as they say.
Jones has 131 pressures and 54 run stops in 2024-2025, and 25 of his pressures last season came against double teams – he was doubled 239 times overall in 2025. The Chiefs may have missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014, but that wasn’t on No. 95, whose tape showed just as much aggression and disruption as in the years before. Jones’ gap versatility has always been his calling card – last season, he lined up 1% of the time as a nose tackle, 74% as a three-tech tackle or over the guards, and 25% on the edge – where it’s amazing the damage he can do at 6-foot-6 and 310 pounds.
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you would think that double-teaming chris jones would get easier over the years
you would be wrong pic.twitter.com/DlZE4zp6Ai
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 29, 2026
4. Leonard Williams, Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks’ trade with the New York Giants for Williams on October 23, 2023, predated the Mike Macdonald era, as the former Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator was hired to be Seattle’s head coach after the 2023 season was done. Still, it was the perfect mixture of player and schemes, as Macdonald’s two-high/light box stuff requires the kinds of linemen who can wreak utter havoc all over the place.
Few are better right now in that regard than Williams. In his two full seasons as a Seahawk, the 6-foot-5, 302-pound Williams put up 104 pressures and 91 run stops, and some of the tape borders on science fiction when you see how quickly Williams can get to the ball off the snap, and what he does to the ballcarriers when he gets there. Last season, Williams lined up 26% of the time as an edge defender, and the rest of the time inside. Wherever it happened, it was Very Bad News for any opposing offense.
Good god, Leonard Williams. pic.twitter.com/Drb4VJtl7R
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) July 28, 2026
5. Nnamdi Madubuike, Baltimore Ravens
Madubuike missed all but the first two games of the 2025 season due to a severe neck injury that put his NFL future in doubt for a while, so it was obviously great for the Ravens to deem him ready for training camp activities on Wednesday. Even with all that missed time, he totaled 70 pressures and 71 run stops over the last two seasons, and at his peak, there are very few defensive linemen in any gap who are ore effective at creating Godzilla-sized problems for offenses.
Nnamdi Madubuike’s movement skills make him special. You don’t usually see 6’3″, 305-pound guys chasing quarterbacks to the sideline over and over, or jumping gaps inside from Wide 9 to enact further demolition. That’s just how No. 92 rolls. pic.twitter.com/7xi0Ds6j02
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) August 13, 2025
And as we’ve already revealed, Baltimore’s defense took a big fat nose dive when Madubuike was off the field in 2025. Getting him back fully healthy might be the difference between the Ravens making the playoffs (which they didn’t last season) and not.
6. Osa Odighizuwa, San Francisco 49ers
The most unheralded player on this list in terms of production and consistency versus name recognition, Odighizuwa had 112 pressures and 76 run stops with the Dallas Cowboys over the last two seasons, which had the San Francisco 49ers signing him to a four-year, $80 million contract with $39 million guaranteed.
The 6-foot-2, 280-pound Odighizuwa may not look like your prototypical IDL, but that matters not when he hits the field, and opposing offensive linemen tend to scatter like bowling pins in his wake. With 17 sacks in his five-year career, he’s proof positive that you have to look at a lot more than takedown totals when it comes to deciding who the best men in the middle are.
Last season, Odighizuwa lined up as a nose tackle on 2% of his snaps, 22% outside, and the rest of the time making the lives of offensive guards utterly miserable.
Throughout his estimable NFL career, Osa Odighizuwa has been that rarest of beings — an underrated Dallas Cowboy. Maybe a move to the Bay Area will get him the props he deserves. pic.twitter.com/hiPQ9tfL8l
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 29, 2026
7. Kobie Turner, Los Angeles Rams
Subject No. 1 when discussing the Rams’ defensive line right now is the trade that brought Myles Garrett in – a move that should take that line from nuclear to thermonuclear. Subject No. 2 is the possible return from retirement of one Aaron Donald, and as a Seattle resident, I can tell you that nobody in the Emerald City is at all happy about that idea.
Still, the Rams had a bunch of quarterback and running back demolition experts before the Garrett move and after Donald’s retirement, and Kobie Turner is right up there. One reason that Turner goes somewhat underrated is the fact that he’s great against the pass and REALLY great against the run, with 54 pressures and 139 run stops in 2024-2025. Run stops may not be “sexy,” but they are exceedingly important for reasons we have already discussed – especially for a defense like the Rams’ defense, which had more snaps of dime (six defensive backs) than any other in the NFL last season.
And when it’s time to generate quick pressure, the 6-foot-3, 288-pound Turner has had that on lock since his rookie season of 2023. Not bad for a third-round pick out of Wake Forest.
Rams rookie DL Kobie Turner had 17 pressures and six sacks on plays in which the quarterback took three or fewer drops. All from 0- to 3-tech. In an era when there’s more quick game than ever, inside disruptors are crucial to defensive success. pic.twitter.com/sdZPJIwgul
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— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 29, 2024
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This story was originally published July 30, 2026 at 4:45 AM.