Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\nAt 6-3, and 307 pounds, Cleveland is a stout defensive tackle who can control his gap. He’s naturally strong. The NC State defensive tackle has a quick first step to fire off the ball. He uses active hands to keep himself clean and work off blocks. He anticipates well against the run and is quick to locate the pigskin. He plays with a revved-up motor. This past season, he recorded career-highs in tackles for loss (seven) and stops (21). The NC State defensive tackle can clog up running lanes. He’s not just a roadblock though; he has active traits to make plays behind the line of scrimmage.<\/p>\n
“Cleveland was always good about picking up the slack from the rest of the defensive line, which struggled on the interior at times against the run,” Sennett said. “He deterred teams from running up the middle with consistency, which played into NC State\u2019s defensive strengths at linebacker and edge. His motor was always solid and as long as he was healthy, he was ready to roll against the run.”<\/p>\n
With his first-step quickness, Cleveland can build up momentum quickly as a bull rusher. While he doesn’t have a deep bag of tricks as a pass rusher, he has the power to push the pocket. This past season he recorded a career-high two sacks and over the past two seasons, he recorded 32 pressures.<\/p>\n
“Cleveland has the body to be more effective against the pass, but just needs more work and reps as a pass rusher to really be considered valuable there,” Sennett said. “He showed the ability a few times for sure, but he has to work on his speed even more if he wants to lift his ceiling as a pass rusher. That being said, he might benefit from being alongside better players in that area.”<\/p>\n
Fit with the Packers<\/p>\n
Given the state of Green Bay’s defensive tackle depth chart, it would not be shocking to see Brian Gutekunst use a pair of picks on the position.<\/p>\n
Devonte Wyatt is coming off a season-ending injury and also entering the final year of his rookie contract. Karl Brooks is also entering the final year of his rookie contract. It’s a room that needs help both in the short-term and the long-term.<\/p>\n
With his ability to muck things up against the run and his power as an interior pass rusher, Cleveland could be an ideal target for the Packers late on Day 3 of the upcoming draft.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s a big, athletic body, which you can never have enough of in the NFL from my perspective,” Sennett said. “NC State players tend to carve out roles in the NFL somehow and some way, so it wouldn\u2019t be surprising if Cleveland ends up being a valuable rotation guy in the league.”<\/p>\n
As a rookie, Cleveland could quickly carve out a role in Green Bay’s rotation as a two-down defender. He enjoys doing the dirty work against the run and he has potential upside as a pass rusher. Adding that type of player late on Day 3 is never a bad way to spend a late-round pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 6, 2026, 4:20 p.m. CT The Unpacking Future Packers\u00a0Countdown is a countdown of 100\u00a0prospects who the\u00a0Green Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[95878,7,41,345,2514,2513,6,4779,428,95980,95981,95882,100752,107907,95896,95888,95906,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-858175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-green-bay","11":"tag-green-bay-packers","12":"tag-greenbay","13":"tag-greenbaypackers","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-oh","16":"tag-packers","17":"tag-sstssportsnflpackers","18":"tag-sstsnpackers","19":"tag-tagamerican-football","20":"tag-tagcleveland","21":"tag-tagjavon-hargrave","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagnfl","24":"tag-tagoverall-positive","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116361548692404046","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}