LA Rams Draft: Impossible athleticism yields extraordinary results

With the 219th pick

…of the 2022 NFL Draft, the Los Angeles Rams have selected Matt Henningsen, interior defensive lineman, from the University of Wisconsin.

Defensive line coach Eric Henderson does incredible things with the players entrusted to his unit, but he will need reinforcements to get through the 2023 NFL Free Agency market. What would be an ideal prospect to grab from the 2022 NFL Draft? A player who is coachable, who has insane athleticism, who is under the radar even while playing for a top NCAA football program, and who has the hunger and drive to flourish at #DAWGWORK.

Coach Henny would love to work with Matt Henningsen.

That’s from a defensive lineman, no less. But that doesn’t mean that doors opened for him. In fact, despite a solid Shrine Bowl performance where he matched up well against some of the best offensive linemen in the country, he didn’t get his invitation.

Over his 37 game NCAAF career, he tallied 92 tackles, 8.5 quarterback sacks, four deflected passes and two fumble recoveries that resulted in touchdowns.  That was not enough production to warrant an invitation to the 2022 NFL Scouting Combine, despite the insane athleticism he demonstrated on his Pro Day. Perhaps NFL decision-makers were intimidated at the fact that Matt Henningsen, an NFL defensive linemen prospect, was also in the running for the ‘academic Heisman‘.

Henningsen is more than a three-point stance on the football field. Some of his most impressive work happens due to what he does with that grey matter between his ears. Not only was he a team captain (a trait that the LA Rams love to add to their locker room), but he maintained a 4.0-GPA while dual-majoring in electrical and computer engineering. His specialty? Machine learning and signal processing.

There simply is not a surplus of talent at the defensive line position in the 2022 Draft class, but Henningsen is a solid developmental player to add to the roster in any year. Will he be there at 219 for the LA Rams? If he is, the Rams can add their third athletic prospect in this draft. And if that works out, he may even spend some of his free time hanging out in the Rams’ Nerds Nest, helping them to add artificial intelligence to their data analytics applications.