NFL Analysis
11/5/24
6 min read
Charles Grant 2025 NFL Draft: Scouting Report For William & Mary Tribe OT
Height: 6040 (unofficial)
Weight: 300 (unofficial)
Year: Fifth Year Senior
Pro Comparison: Wanya Morris
Scouting Overview
William & Mary offensive tackle Charles Grant is, despite being a fifth-year senior, a high-upside developmental choice that should warrant consideration by the end of Day 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Grant has ample potential to tap into with a leap in coaching and strength and conditioning resources. He also possesses all of the clear benchmarks of a quality starting offensive tackle at the NFL level. He has uncoachable levels of athleticism, length, and short-area explosiveness and has an NFL build that should only get better as he develops his body in a professional setting.
Expecting Grant to come in and start off the jump would be unwise, but stable organizations that ask their offensive line to play with urgency and create movement at the point of attack will give him the best opportunity to reach his potential.
2025 NFL Combine Results
TBD
Positives
- Top-shelf functional athleticism will aid his ability to accommodate to NFL speed and allow him to be an effective blocker in space
- Definitive offensive tackle length offers him a greater strike zone to influence around the arc
- Developmental upside is through the roof — get him in the hands of the right offensive line coach and get out of the way
Negatives
- Punch timing and hand placement are in need of additional growth to increase precision and control at first contact
- Angles in the run game and in pass sets can put him in disadvantageous recovery mode
- Needs to get stronger and further fill out his frame to handle NFL power with consistency
Background
Grant is from Portsmouth, VA, and played high school football for Churchland HS. He was a wrestler until his junior year when he began playing football and quickly found his footing along the offensive line.
Grant received two football offers coming out of Churchland, William & Mary and UVA Wise. Upon arrival at William & Mary, Grant played in the FCS 2021 spring season, participating in three contests while maintaining his fourth year of eligibility. Grant started his first career game in the fall of 2022 as a redshirt freshman and has served as the Tribe’s full-time starting tackle for each of the last three seasons.
Grant has been credited with gaining approximately 60 pounds since arriving on the William & Mary campus as part of his late start in football and transition from wrestling.
Tale Of The Tape
Grant has several indicators as a developmental offensive line prospect that suggest he’s a player worth betting on. Grant was under-recruited thanks to a late start with football, as he had only been playing since his junior year of high school.
With elite athleticism, a wrestler’s background, ample room for technical growth, and a good reason for not having polish at this stage of the game, there’s the foundation of an impactful NFL starter. He should be considered a more high-risk/reward prospect than some teams want to take on with a top-100 selection, but teams with a strong track record of development upfront should be lining up to take the chance.
Grant is explosive. He carries his weight extremely gracefully and will be afforded more room on his frame to carry more mass and build his functional strength while still being an upper-echelon athlete. He’s capable of exploding out of his stance and climbing to the second level or creating space through his first three steps on his tracks.
With his range, backside cutoff blocks to second-level defenders should allow him to do his part to help create explosive runs, too. The zone schemes are looking at a true weapon in the run game with his athleticism, provided you can enhance and hone his hand usage.
Grant has a strong grip, but his punch placement is erratic, and it robs him of some of his knockback power when fitting the run or stunning pass rushers on the edge. His initial fit can stray wide, and his hands need to become more active and less complacent to get back into the strike zone of defenders and ensure he’s not at risk of a holding penalty.
When he can fit on the breastplate, Grant showcases good upper-body power and grip strength to squeeze and keep defenders inside his gravitational pull, ensuring backs can cut off blocks. These instances also afford a peak at his short-area agility, as he often works across the face and gains leverage on a preferred gap while engaged hand to hand.
The initial exit angles out of his stance or when faced with stunts or adjusted landmarks can betray him at times and create variance in the consistency of his fit.
As a result, Grant can spin off at the point of attack or allow penetration across his face or up the field. Controlling his athleticism and urgency through the first three steps of his release will be essential to better consistency.
As a pass blocker, Grant’s elite length and short-area agility afford him plenty of room for error in his sets. He can set hands, flip the hips, and ride defenders past the peak of the turn, but functional strength and anchor versus power loom are underlying issues that will need development.
Explosive rushers and dense pass rushers will be threats to compress him on the edge and shorten angles unless he gets thicker and stronger and develops more of a better-timed first strike to offset charges into his space. Grant has all the movement skills needed to be a vertical set tackle in a dropback passing game, but the layers needed to add to his game at that level are the furthest away from where he is at.
Ideal Scheme Fit, Role
The Shanahan schemes should love the potential fit here. Grant is explosive off the football and capable of creating sticky run fits while stringing out the point of attack.
Building the passing game off of this run action limits one of Grant’s biggest areas for growth as a true pass-setter and opens the pathway to playing time more quickly. However, the ceiling in this system as a developmental starter is still immense, given his rare physical gifts.
Grade: 75.00/100.00, Third Round Value
Big Board Rank: TBD
Position Rank: TBD
