NFL Draft Scouting Notebook: Peter Woods

Reviewing a top defensive prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft

In the past few days, I watched film on Clemson defensive tackle Peter Woods. The three games of his that I watched were against LSU, Georgia Tech, and Boston College.

Let’s review some of my strengths and weaknesses for Woods as a draft prospect.

Strengths

Woods offers a high floor as a prospect thanks to his run defense. Technique and strength are his best two attributes defending the run.

Woods consistently comes out of his stance with active and tight hands, protecting himself against any blocks. He has good strike timing. As he extends, Woods keeps his hands tight. With his early strike timing and tight hands, he can locate them well against blocks. After he strikes, Woods is able to create extension, getting to his long arm. From there, he does a great job of consistently playing with active eyes. When Woods creates extension against a block, he can two-gap with his eyes and lower body strength. His lower body strength enables him to break down into his anchor and hold his gap. Woods’ hands remain active throughout the rep, and his grip strength allows him to disengage from blocks.

Woods is a smart player who can identify run blocking schemes. He showed great awareness taking on combo blocks, consistently trying to split between them. Woods also does a terrific job of peaking into the backfield to locate the ball.

From a pre-snap standpoint, Woods aligned anywhere from the zero (over the center) to the 4i (inside the tackle) technique on the defensive line. His snap timing was better the closer he aligned to the ball (zero and one technique). I also thought that the better his snap timing was, the more explosive he was out of his stance. Woods has some solid lateral explosion.

Against the pass, Woods’ hands remained active. He did a good job of getting his hands up in the throwing lane. He deflected one pass against Boston College. The main pass rush move he showed was a club to a swim. When he was used on stunts, he took good, tight angles.

In the few instances where he had to make tackles, Woods was reliable. He consistently plays with good effort, pursuing to the ball, hustling to finish plays.

Weaknesses

For the most part, Woods’ snap timing is late, especially when he lines up further from the ball as a three or four technique. His snap timing is also later against the pass than it is against the run.

Woods lacks natural knee bend to play from a balanced, strong base. He rises too high with his pads out of his stance. To get low against blocks, he just ducks his head, leaning forward into contact. His lack of bend limits his force on contact against blocks, there were not enough examples of him generating power.

Athletically, he did not overwhelm guards and centers. Especially when he is late out of his stance and moving linearly, where he lacks explosion. In tight spaces, he does not have the change of direction skills or speed to win. His lack of balance shows up when he works to gain or regain positional leverage against blocks. His lack of athleticism was also evident on stunts.

Woods showed no true dominance as a pass rusher. He hardly showed much of a plan or any counters. He comes out of his stance with a lot of wasted movement.

Final Thoughts

All in all, Woods offers a solid skill set with his ability to play the run. He may lack the athleticism to stress guards and centers in the passing game. However, his overall strength, consistent technique, and awareness against the run all give him the potential to be a great run defender.

It will be interesting to see how Woods projects throughout the draft process. He is currently talked about as a top-10 prospect despite much sack production. On the other hand, he will offer a team a strong interior presence who is hard to move off his spot in the running game.