Scouting Clemson DT Peter Woods and his Las Vegas Raiders fit
Position: DT
Height: 6’3
Weight: 310
Stats: 2025 (12 games) – 30 tackles, 3.5 TFL, 2 sacks, PBU | 15 pressures, 21 stops, 14.6% win rate
Class/Age: Junior, 20 (turns 21 in March)
Team: Clemson
Positives:
Despite a down year in 2025 largely due to defensive scheming and other issues along the Clemson roster, Woods still remains a massive playmaker at defensive tackle. Woods has a lethal first step for his size quickly getting into his rep in elite fashion allowing him to be a wrecker with size, speed, and initial quickness. Woods has elite movement skills beyond his first step showcasing exceptional lateral quickness to pair with his ankle/knee flexibility and fluid hips allowing him to turn and bend with good twitch as well. Woods pairs this with elite strength in his upper and lower body, he has a special ability to drive his legs through the rep and pair with upper body power to move lineman off their feet and positioning. Woods pairs this with his strong natural hand strength that allows him to grab on and jam his arms into lineman’s chest consistently winning with his power and speed to power traits. Woods consistently is able to out power offensive lineman, anchor in the run game, and utilize his lower body power in pass rush with an extremely effective bull rush. He uses his hands well in strength to win in hand combat but also shows a variety of pass rush moves including a rip, chop, and club along with an unrefined spin that he will translate with due to his athletic nature. He’s a highly effective and efficient pass rusher, consistently winning over 14% of his attempts in college while also being a high impact run defender with a career 53% run stop win rate. Woods understands rushing concepts, he consistently anchors well and is able to play one or two gap assignments due to his frame and strength. He works well as a looper and against double teams consistently combating them in the correct order and having the athletic traits to overpower or out maneuver lineman. Woods has an ability to collapse rushing lanes from the interior, work backside against the run, and utilize his athletic traits laterally to impact the play where he’s consistently pushing lineman back into the rushing lane, stacking, peeking, and shedding blocks to clear lanes. Woods utilizes his first step well to convert speed to power and does so through the rep also. He also displays an exceptional motor with sideline to sideline effort and high end conditioning. Woods has a good traditional frame with exceptional arm length that he pairs with natural leverage.
Weakness:
Woods will need to rely less on his strength which he does at times, solely trying to win with strength or bull rush attempts. He will need to refine his consistently approach to winning by overpowering lineman, though while effective and it should translate could lead to issues later on. Additionally, Woods is playing a little off and he will need to learn an effective pass rush strategy and plan that is versatile instead of solely using the power to speed he does. Woods will need to refine his pass rush traits as well not having a ton of high depth, highly effective moves but they’re refined enough to succeed in college and be building blocks in the NFL. Woods doesn’t maintain his balance the best, he’ll need to do better keeping his weight aligned instead of over reaching and extending outside his frame, additionally this can show with his pad level where he’ll get too tall and allow defenders into his chest where he’s able to adjust but not as effectively. Woods struggles with consistency, at times being out of position or leading with the wrong hand on a punch and opening up his inside chest, which will be taken advantage of in the NFL. Woods has rotated between different techniques and schemes, and in 2025 saw his first time working more as a traditional 2/3 tech causing a down year and his production to dip despite versatility being a key trait of his. Woods will also have to do better at putting his hands inside the tackles shoulders and preventing them from getting north into the facemask which has led to issues. The junior is young, will continue to grow but right now his production is a slight concern as well meeting below average thresholds and not seeing a ton of development year to year.
Grade: 1.21- Early Round 1
Pro-Comp: Jeffery Simmons (TEN)
Peter Woods is a freak human being, his raw strength isn’t natural having a 240/310 pound split of lean muscle mass while benching 505 pounds (37 reps of 225), squatting 700, deadlifting 855, and a 385 power clean. Additionally, Woods has been clocked with a 33 vertical and 4.84 40 which would all combine to give him near a 10 RAS. Athletic ability and strength is not a question for Woods, he’s going to need to get better with his consistency and refined technique but at just 21 years old that likely won’t be a too big knock to turn teams away from him in round 1. Woods has exceptional quickness and speed to power where he’s able to combine the two and consistently beat lineman to spots they’re not able to readjust at. There’s a real world where Woods will not have a massive impact in year one but with consistency and good coaching he’s going to develop into a gamewrecking, multi time All-Pro. The floor is high for Woods as well with the base being a high end run defender who can provide 2-5 sacks a season. The Raiders lack any interior pass rush consistency, and Woods would provide a key boost for them. It’s likely that Maxx Crosby returns but Las Vegas needs a true interior threat they have lacked for years. Woods likely is gone by the end of round 1 but if he remains, a trade up should be considered after taking QB early.
Category: General Sports
