Former Penn State Nittany Lion Dani Dennis-Sutton was a fourth-round pick with first-round talent.
Like almost all of the draft-eligible Nittany Lions this season, edge rusher Dani Dennis-Sutton suffered from the debacle that was the 2025 season in Happy Valley.
At one point, he was leading a defensive line that was 60 minutes away from playing against Ohio State in the National Championship game. Then, in the blink of an eye, they lost to Northwestern for their third straight loss, their coach got fired, their quarterback broke his ankle in the season, and the team was in a free-fall.
You know the story well enough, but one of the side effects of it was that every player aside from Vega Ioane lost at least 1.5 rounds to their draft stock. Dani Dennis-Sutton was one of those players.
Dennis-Sutton is in an elite group of edge rushers in college football. Coming into the NFL, he is one of six players to have a Relative Athletic Score (RAS) of more than 9.89 and a pressure rate in college that is greater than 17 percent.
The others on that list are Aiden Hutchinson, Malachi Lawrence, Montez Sweat, TJ Watt, and Myles Garrett.
That's a nice table to sit at for Dennis-Sutton.
The RAS is a score that is calculated in a player's pre-draft process as he is putting together his official sizes and testing numbers. It calculates how athletic a player is based on their position and factors nearly every data point in.
Each of those players was drafted in the first round except for Watt and Dennis-Sutton. The veterans in that group have made a pretty formidable name for themselves in the NFL, and a couple of them will be heading to Canton, Ohio, whenever they do decide to hang them up.
For Dennis-Sutton, who was a fourth-round pick of the Green Bay Packers, he has a little bit of a runway before he is relied upon to be a top pass rusher in this league. He will not be required to step in right away and be a top rusher for the Packers.
However, whatever he can give will be icing on the cake, and he will have some good opportunities to do so. Rushing on the opposite side of another Nittany Lion, Micah Parsons has the chance to free up Dennis-Sutton a lot on the offensive line.
Dani Dennis-Sutton is one of the most intriguing prospects in the NFL Draft, and if he pans out, the Packers could have themselves a diamond in the rough.
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