NFL Draft
12/15/24
6 min read
Mike Green 2025 NFL Draft: Scouting Report For Marshall Thundering Herd EDGE
Height: 6040 (unofficial)
Weight: 248 lbs (unofficial)
Year: Redshirt Junior
Pro Comparison: Alex Highsmith
Scouting Overview
Marshall Thundering Herd EDGE defender Mike Green is one of the most impressive pass rushers in the country. Green declared early for the 2025 NFL Draft after leading the FBS in sacks with 17. He boasts dominant first-step twitch, sudden short area quickness, fluidity, and body control to reduce through contact and a bevy of rush counters to attack tackles of all shapes and sizes.
His instincts are impressive after a modest beginning to his career with the Virginia Cavaliers program. Green has illustrated more physicality in defeating blocks in the run game, but his power is one of the more modest elements of his game, and he will likely always be better when playing around contact versus through it.
Green’s motor helps to alleviate his lack of power and will put him back in a position to challenge the ball on extended plays instead of being glued to blockers and being sealed from pursuit.
2025 NFL Combine Results
TBD
Positives
- Robust bag of pass rush counters and an endless variety of ways to attack the quarterback from the edge
- Fluid athlete in short spaces to win across the face of tackles or otherwise dip and accelerate off the corner
- Spatial awareness and feel for developing creases to the quarterback helps maximize pressures
Negatives
- Anchor at the point of attack is modest in the run game
- Ability to stack and deconstruct blocks has shown growth but is unlikely to ever be a major strength
- Lacks alignment versatility and should be considered a rush linebacker who attacks outside in
Background
Green is from Williamsburg, VA, and played his high school football at Lafayette HS. In addition to his play on the gridiron, Green was an accomplished wrestler, finishing in the top three as a sophomore (185 lbs) and junior (220 lbs) while collecting offers from programs like Ole Miss, Boston College, Kentucky, Virginia Tech, and Virginia for football. Rated as a 3-star recruit while playing linebacker and tight end, Green would go on to commit to Virginia and play in 6 games as a true freshman in 2021.
Green spent the 2022 season away from the Cavaliers program for unclear reasons before entering the transfer portal and committing to Marshall for the 2023 season. Green emerged as a successful pass rusher as a third-year sophomore and then exploded as an All-American and the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year in 2024 while leading the country in sacks (17) and second in the FBS in pressures (63) through the conference championships.
Tale Of The Tape
Green is a quarterback hunter who boasts an impressive variety of attacks as an impact defender. This is a player who possesses a natural instinct for attacking space — as evidenced by his persistence around the quarterback in 2024.
Green wins with speed, agility, body control and flexibility in space, and his ability to play off of contact with rush counters and force empty punches from opposing tackles on the edge. Green’s best ability is crafting a rush plan. He’s won with an inside or outside spin, a cross chop, a two-handed swipe, a rip & dip combination, some flashes of speed to power, and a swim move at first contact. The willingness to run the loop but subsequently retrace his path to the quarterback has aided his ability to generate disruptive pockets.
Green can win inside against oversetting tackles or a tightly occupied guard when the B-gap is expanded — he can quickly cross face and flatten with inverse pressure on his outside shoulder just as he would if he were rushing off the outside. The ability to unlock the hips and carry with speed while sustaining a reduced pad level helps to bolster his ability to play with balance through contact, but Green’s functional strength and power are reliable largely when he’s got tackles playing backward.
As far as pure power, both through his hands and his hips/core, Green could use more of it. His dominance at Marshall came with limited opportunities against Group of 4 pass protectors. He did log a sack against Ohio State (2024) thanks to an outside spin on 3rd & 20, but his ability to compress the pocket and reduce angles with power is modest at best.
Further complicating this element of his game is his length, which appears to be functionally sufficient but limits his ability to press and extend. His best success utilizing length is with a firm two-hand strike to punch through contact, continue to attack space, and try to play around the frame of the tackle.
His run defense reps flash the most as an unblocked defender off the backside attacking the mesh. He’s successfully run down a number of plays and overwhelmed the back out of the mesh to create tackles for loss. His speed and first-step ability should translate to some production in these opportunities at the NFL level.
Projecting Green to the NFL, he has the athleticism and hip fluidity to play in space in simulated pressure situations to take away a shallow hook if necessary, but he was only dropped into coverage 21 times across more than 1,000 snaps in his two seasons of play at Marshall. So, this is a blind leap of faith in his ability to absorb these reps.
You’re not drafting him to take these reps in high volume, but you should feel good about the outlook of execution here based on his athletic profile. More concerning is filling out his physical profile to be a more complete player. He is generally a space and finesse defender who lacks the length to play through contact and the strength to press into contact to shine in close-quarters combat.
It impacts his ability to win against long, patient tackles — the kind he’ll find in the NFL. Assuming Green can play with some more functional strength and continue to master his pass-rush arsenal, he should have no issues being a high-volume defender. If he struggles with that leap, he may be relegated to a pass-rush specialist and rotational player, but the ways he wins should afford him opportunity-specific wins in the NFL as a high-floor pass rusher either way.
Ideal Scheme Fit, Role
Green projects best as an odd-front linebacker who is given extra space on the edge to work. His first step quickness affords him the ability to claim that real estate early in reps but avoid the close-quarters alignments that would otherwise compromise his integrity of setting the pocket or otherwise playing runs outside.
Green’s hands are active and offer sufficient punch, but he is unlikely to be an effective stack and shed defender. He’s likely a pass rush specialist early with the ceiling of a starting EDGE by the end of his rookie contract.
Grade: 79.50/100.00, Second Round Value
Big Board Rank: TBD
Position Rank: TBD
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