Calijah Kancey

3 seasons, 13 sacks from an interior DT — Year 2 was his breakout before a 2025 wipeout.

Picked 19th overall in 2023, Kancey hit the ground running with 5.5 sacks as a rookie — and improved across the board in Year 2 with 7.5 sacks and 17 QB hits. The 2025 line is the injury story: 1 tackle, 1 QB hit through limited availability. The trajectory before that was a Pro-Bowl-track interior pass-rusher entering Year 3.

7.5 sacks in 2024 — top-12 among all interior DLs that season.

For a pure 3-technique DT built at 6'1" and ~280 lbs — undersized for the position by modern standards — 7.5 sacks and 17 QB hits in 2024 ranked him inside the top-12 interior rushers in football. Among 3-techs specifically (not edges miscoded as DL), the only younger interior rusher with comparable pressure rate was Kobie Turner.

12 TFLs in each of his first two seasons — disruption is his identity, sacks are the byproduct.

The TFL line is the most consistent number on his sheet: 12 in 2023, 12 in 2024. That's elite interior-DT disruption — he's blowing up runs in the backfield at the same rate top-3 picks like Jalen Carter or Jordan Davis produce them.

Take the 24 TFLs across 2 years and the 31 QB hits: that's a 55-event pressure pace per 2 seasons, which is roughly what Aaron Donald produced in his Year 1-2 window (different era, but the comparable shape is what scouts saw in him at Pitt).

From 7.5 sacks in 2024 to 1 tackle in 2025 — the worst Year-2-to-Year-3 drop of any recent 1st-round DT.

Through limited 2025 availability, Kancey has produced 1 tackle, 0 sacks, 1 QB hit, 1 TFL across a fraction of the snaps he played in his first two years. The previous two seasons combined: 41 tackles, 13 sacks, 31 QB hits, 24 TFLs.

The Bucs invested a top-20 pick on a player whose first 2 years tracked toward an All-Pro arc. The cliff in 2025 is entirely an availability story — when he's been on the field, the disruption hasn't disappeared (1 TFL on just 1 tackle is a 100% TFL rate). The question for Tampa is which Kancey returns in 2026.

Among 2023 1st-round DTs, only Jalen Carter has more career sacks.

The 2023 DT class drafted in Round 1: Jalen Carter (PHI), Calijah Kancey (TB), Bryan Bresee (NO), Mazi Smith (DAL). Across the first 3 seasons of that class, Carter and Kancey are the only two with 13+ career sacks.

Kancey's 13 career sacks through Years 1-2 (he hasn't added in 2025) puts him on a per-game production rate equal to or better than Carter's when both are healthy — and ahead of Bresee, Smith, and the entire interior DT cohort from that draft. The talent is real; the durability has to follow.