With the 2027 NFL Draft comes another crop of versatile iOL prospects, and it's anyone's guess how the position group stacks up next April.
There aren't many pure guards in the early top-end rankings of the 2027 NFL Draft, nor is there an abundance of quality center prospects past the first few, but at the very least, a foundation has been set, and a number of promising tackle-to-guard converts build upon it.
Below, you'll find my Top 10 2027 NFL Draft iOL rankings as it stands, heading into the 2026 regular season. If you see a player who currently plays tackle on the list, operate with the assumption that he's being projected inside at the NFL level.
Cayden Green is a position-versatile OL prospect with early-round potential. While his most recent experience has come at tackle, I'm of the mind that he projects best at guard in the NFL.
Green played high school football in Missouri as a four-star recruit, but originally comitted to play for the Oklahoma Sooners in college. He played one season at Oklahoma, starting five of 11 games played at guard as a true freshman, before transferring back home to play for the Missouri Tigers.
In 2024, he started all 13 games at LG before kicking to left tackle for a 2025 campaign in which he earned first-team All-SEC recognition. Green's 2025 PFSN OL Impact grade of 89.2 was near-elite, and alongside that figure, he allowed just a 2.4% true dropback pressure rate.
At 6'5″, 324 pounds, Green has ideal height and mass, to go along with elite proportional length. His domineering stature alone makes him a challenge to beat at the contact point, as well as a venerable test for rushers aiming to work around him.
Green is explosive on the linear plane, with fearsome raw power capacity, knockback force at contact, and overwhelming grip and core strength.
In pass protection, he's patient, alert, and heavy-handed, with strong punches, latches, and snatch moves in his arsenal, while in the run game, he's a natural displacer and displacement reducer on the line.
There are some limitations to Green's profile that might confine him to guard long-term. He doesn't play with much knee bend, his leverage acquisition skills are average, and he struggles managing his pad level later in reps.
Additionally, he lacks great flexibility in his hips or recovery capacity; he becomes disjointed too often in pass protection, and struggles to stay square at times.
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Green's OT experience insulates his depth and flex value, but his ceiling is highest at guard, where he can become an impact starter in power, inside zone, and duo-heavy schemes.
Samson Okunlola is a high-upside interior OL prospect with early-round potential in the 2027 NFL Draft.
A five-star recruit, Okunlola joined up with the Miami Hurricanes in 2023, redshirting his first season before entering the fold as a key rotational blocker in 2024.
In 2025, Okunlola reprised that role, playing in all 16 games with one start against Ohio State in the CFB Playoffs. While veterans Anez Cooper and Matthew McCoy took the higher volume of snaps, Okunlola made an impression in his limited 2025 action and will have a chance to start full-time in 2026 and catalyze his NFL Draft stock.
At around 6'6″, 330 pounds, Okunlola is a lab-built colossus with elite height, mass, and length, as well as volcanic explosiveness, rare size-adjusted short-area quickness, and blazing range working in space or to the second level.
With his combined size, explosion, length, and lower-body power, Okunlola can unleash devastating amounts of displacement force off the line, plowing interior defenders 5-10 yards down the field on power reps.
Okunlola can finish with grueling physicality, and he also has core, grip, and anchor strength to hold the line against opposing power and seal open gaps.
As of now, Okunlola's game features a good amount of projection. Despite taking under 500 snaps in 2025, Okunlola drew 10 penalties. On his true dropback pass sets, he allowed a mere 2.8% pressure rate, which reflects his ability to match, obstruct, and anchor.
However, that over-reliance on physical tools can also yield inconsistency with hand and feet replacement, and by extension increases his penalty risk, as well as affects his consistency against stunts, where Okunlola can get tunnel vision on initial defenders.
Additionally, Okunlola can drift too tall at times, with subpar knee bend and leverage maintenance, and particularly later in reps, upright pad level drift can contribute to a nullified base and inconsistent balance.
Overall, Okunlola still needs more refinement with his operational prowess and leverage game, but his raw tools are first-round caliber, and another year of refinement can help him reach the scheme-diverse impact starter upside present.
Trevor Lauck is a mid-round OL prospect with early-round potential, who could see a future either as an NFL tackle or guard.
Carrying a three-star recruit billing out of Indianapolis, Lauck signed with the Iowa Hawkeyes and proceeded to play just three games total in his first two seasons. In 2025, Lauck entered the lineup as the team's left tackle, and delivered incredible results in his first year as a starter.
Starting in all 13 games, Lauck earned third-team All-Big Ten recognition, was a pivotal part of the Hawkeyes' Joe Moore Award-winning unit, and fielded an elite PFN OL Impact score of 91.0.
Encased within that grade, Lauck graded as one of the best run blockers in the nation, allowed a true dropback pressure rate of just 1.9%, and didn't allow a single sack on 291 pass blocking reps.
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At around 6'6″, 314 pounds, Lauck has a somewhat unorthdox build, with impressive height and good lean mass, but just average proportional length. Tall, high-cut, and barrel-chested, Lauck's prime physical traits are his explosive athleticism, lower-body power, and raw core strength.
He fires off the line and can cover ground swiftly in the run game, and with his power drive, he can plow through defenders and finish into the turf. He's not just a linear brawler, however; Lauck also shows off elite angle IQ, and can stack blocks while climbing to seal out lanes successively.
In pass protection, Lauck is fleet-footed, patient, and discipline, with a vast hand arsenal that includes feigned swats, circle punches, and pillar fits, all of which he can apply with a keen situational intelligence.
Lauck is still learning how to process and respond to more complex stunts, as his game against Indiana exemplified, and his pad level can also be an issue; while Lauck has decent leverage acquisition and balance, he lacks great knee bend and can drift taller and more upright the longer reps drag on.
He can also shorten the corner working on an island, without the elite hip flexibility to compensate as an apex sealer.
These factors, combined with Lauck's middling length, hint at a potential transition to guard down the line, but regardless, impact starter ability across schemes is present.
Braelin Moore is undersized, but nevertheless presents as one of the more compelling early-round sleepers at the center position.
Moore preserved his redshirt as a three-star recruit at Virginia Tech in 2022, then started 12 games at left guard as a redshirt freshman. In 2024, he kicked inside to center, and played well enough to earn the interest of the LSU Tigers .
At LSU, Moore's ascent continued; he started all 12 games and logged a strong PFSN OL Impact grade of 84.9, a figure that ranked 17th among all qualifying centers.
Particularly in pass protection, Moore proved himself to be near-elite, as he allowed just five pressures on true dropbacks for a rate of 2.1%, and only one sack total on the year.
At 6'2″, 301 pounds, Moore has below-average height and only average mass, to go along with sub-standard proportional length. But what he lacks in measureables, he makes up for with a few select superpowers: Explosiveness, consistent leverage acquisition, high-level two-phase intelligence and awareness, and tenacious competitive energy.
Moore fires off the snap in the run game and can both surge to landmarks and get outside adjacent gap defenders on reach blocks.
While his lacking size and length impact his finishing ability and render him easy to wrench upright at times, he's still angle-sound, assignment-sound, and urgent, with the rotational torque to get the most out of his frame on extensions.
In pass protection, Moore's upper-lower synergy is nearly infallible; it's very difficult to catch him out-of-sync, and he excels at staying square and gathering rushers from different alignments with bounding lateral mobility, active and patient hands, and a dutiful anchor.
Moore doesn't have elite range for a zone-blocking center, but regardless, he has the gap-to-gap explosion, leverage play, football IQ, and technical prowess to be a quality starter.
Iapani Laloulu is an experienced center prospect with a high floor but potential schematic limitations.
He left high school as a four-star guard recruit, and played in 14 games as a true freshman for the Ducks, splitting over 400 reps almost evenly between left guard, right guard, and center. In 2024, he started the first two games at guard before kicking inside to center, where he thrived and earned honorable mention All-Big Ten recognition.
In 2025, Laloulu started all 15 games at the fulcrum, fielding first-team All-American and second-team All-Big Ten honors, while putting up a solid PFSN OL Impact score of 83.4.
Laloulu mulled over declaring for the 2025 NFL Draft, but ultimately returned to join Oregon's bid for a National Championship.
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Laloulu will have started over 40 games by the time he declares, and along with that experience, he brings positional versatility and a well-built 6'2″, 329-pound frame.
He's stout and hyper-dense, with great natural leverage, elite latch and anchor strength, fearsome power and rotational torque, and a true mauling mentality.
Laloulu's experience lends well to all operational categories. As a pass protector, he's alert and instinctive against stunts, as well as synergetic and opportunistic with his hands, and in the run game, he's physical and relatively angle-sound.
While Laloulu has great natural leverage, he can divert too far upright off the snap, and doesn't have exceptional knee bend when opponents are able to nullify his pad level. He's also just an average athlete, with below-average hip flexibility on recovery.
Laloulu's limitations with athleticism and flexibility likely confine him to gap, duo, and power-heavy schemes, but he has a high floor as a capable starter.
Brandon Baker is a position-diverse OL prospect who projects best at guard as an NFL talent.
He was a four-star and Top 50 national recruit coming out of high school, who played in eight games as a reserve lineman for the Longhorns as a true freshman in 2024.
In 2025, Baker succeeded Cameron Williams at right tackle and started in 11 games, producing a PFSN OL Impact score of 77.8.
A classic "bend, don't break" lineman, 65.2% of Baker's 23 pressures allowed in 2025 were long dropback pressures, and he never allowed a sack.
However, some would-be sacks were no doubt negated by tugs and grabs that resulted in penalties; Baker saw 20 yellow flags come his way in 2025, a number that needs to decrease in 2026.
Baker's move inside from tackle to guard should help, as he'll no longer be on an island, and guard is a position that has always suited him best.
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At a stout, squatty 6'4″, 308 pounds, Baker is well-leveraged, well-proportioned, and strong and powerful for his size. He excels at acquiring leverage and loading his base, as well as his full-length profile, into power exertions, and he's a wide-set blocker with the grip and core strength to keep defenders within his frame while staying square.
In both pass protection and the running game, Baker's technician skill set shines. He's patient, precise, and synergetic as a pass-down sentry, has elite stunt vision and responsiveness, is angle-sound in zone and power looks, and brings a mauler's finishing edge.
Baker is less quick and rangy than he is explosive in short areas, and he doesn't have high-level flexibility. Nevertheless, on the interior, Baker has the raw strength, power, leverage play, physicality, and technician's imprint to be a quality starter.
Kade Pieper is a strong candidate to be the first center taken in the 2027 NFL Draft, and another year of growth and experience at the fulcrum can seal the deal.
As a three-star recruit from Nebraska and a state champion in the shot put, Pieper originally committed to FCS titan North Dakota State, but later flipped his commitment to Iowa.
He redshirted in 2023 and played in 11 games in 2024, before ascending to the full-time starting right guard role in 2025. In 2025, Pieper earned third-team All-Big Ten recognition and was a key cog on an Iowa offensive line that won the Joe Moore Award.
Along the way, Pieper secured an excellent PFSN OL Impact grade of 87.9, didn't draw a single penalty, and allowed pressure on less than 5% of his true dropbacks.
Pieper's 2025 production is an encouraging precursor for a move to center, following in the footsteps of 2026 draft pick Logan Jones, that will test him in new and different ways.
Even with acclimation necessary, Pieper's raw tools are easy to bank on. At 6'4″, 290 pounds, Pieper is a compact, streamlined blocker with extraordinary athleticism.
Per Bruce Feldman's Freaks reporting, he's rumored to have a legendary 10-yard split of 1.52, a vertical jump of 37.4″, and a short-shuttle of 4.13, all of which would rank in the 100th percentile among centers all-time.
That athleticism is clearly visible on film, as Pieper has the raw explosiveness to teleport across gaps and work across-face, as well as pull across the formation and climb to the second level without restraint.
He also has the hip and torso flexibility to swivel around at landmarks, seal off defenders, and aid in leverage acquisition and base load on driving blocks.
Sourced from his rare explosive athleticism, Pieper's lower-body power is overwhelming. He's an asset in the run game, but also brings active hands, alert eyes, and an improving anchor in pass protection.
Pieper needs to continue adding mass and improving his grip and core strength, but for zone-heavy schemes, Pieper has high-level starter upside, and can be a game changer at the apex point.
Greg Johnson is a potential early-round OL prospect in the 2027 NFL Draft, who offers a unique brand of positional versatility.
Johnson carried a four-star recruit billing in high school, and would sign with his in-state Golden Gophers. He made an immediate impact as a true freshman, starting 2 of 11 games played.
In 2024, Johnson kicked inside to center, where he started all 13 games. And in 2025, Johnson started 11 games at left guard, as well as one each at left and right tackle.
For his play in 2025, Johnson earned honorable mention All-Big Ten recognition and took home a strong 84.8 PFN OL Impact score. While Johnson fielded 8 penalties, he allowed just 3 sacks on the year, and led by a true dropback pressure rate of just 2.9%.
At 6'6 1/2″ and 327 pounds, Johnson is a well-sized, high-mass blocker with great length and width, and in spite of his size, he plays with impressive knee bend, pad level, and a strong base.
Johnson's positional versatility is in large part a product of his football IQ. In pass protection, he's alert and active, with great footwork and extension placement, and he's shown he can seamlessly pick up stunts and loopers while staying square to gaps.
Meanwhile, in the running game, Johnson has keen angle IQ and urgency, and has the role awareness to seal out backside defenders or climb to the second level and undercut crashing LBs.
In 1-on-1 pass protection situations, Johnson has the anchor and square power to latch and gather rushers, and his torso flexibility aids in power absorption.
Johnson is a good-enough athlete, but falls short of the elite mark, and this lack of elite recovery capacity can exacerbate issues with balance; he's not fleet-of-foot on recovery after planting prematurely, and can be prone to lurches and grabs when worked out of optimal angle leverage.
Having said all this, Johnson boasts a sturdy foundation with his size, anchor, physicality, and square power.
His skill set is reminiscent of Steve Avila , as is his ability to displace, limit opposing displacement, and serve as a linchpin from different positions. Similar to Avila, Johnson has quality starter and scheme-versatile ability.
Austin Siereveld is a potential early-round offensive line prospect in the 2027 NFL Draft, who has played primarily at tackle but projects better at guard long-term.
Siereveld joined the Buckeyes as a three-star recruit in 2023 and redshirted his first season, then started seven of 16 games played in 2024.
In 2025, he emerged as Ohio State's full-time starter at left tackle, and was a crucial force on the front as Ohio State reached the Big Ten Championship game and the CFB Playoffs.
He was a second-team All-Big Ten performer, who earned a strong PFSN OL Impact grade of 83.9. In the run game, he proved dependable and consistent as a tone-setter and people-mover.
Meanwhile, in pass protection, Siereveld didn't allow a sack, and allowed a true dropback pressure rate of just 5.8%. Just as stark was Siereveld's discipline; he only drew two penalties in his redshirt sophomore season.
At 6'5″, 325 pounds, Siereveld has impressive mass, and while his proportional length is closer to average, he compensates with high-level compact power, rotational torque at contact, and overwhelming leg drive post-contact.
He's a born displacer in the run game with elite contact authority and a tough, gritty play style, and in pass protection, he's relatively synergetic, acquires leverage well, naturally plays with controlled lean, and has shown he can erode opposing extensions with snatches and heavy-handed chops.
While Siereveld has the torso flexibility and bend to acquire leverage and maximize base load, his measured hip stiffness can impact recovery and serves as an underlying factor for his guard projection, along with his middling length.
Nevertheless, Siereveld is strong, powerful, intelligent, uber-physical, and is athletic enough to reach landmarks and enjoy scheme diversity. Ultimately, he's a future impact starter at guard or center.
Carter Smith is a potential early-round offensive line prospect with projected alignment versatility. He's thrived as a tackle for Indiana, but I project him inside to guard at the next level, and think he can be tremendous within that role.
Smith originally joined the Indiana Hoosiers as a prized four-star recruit under head coach Tom Allen.
After redshirting in 2022, he started all 12 games at left tackle in 2023, and mulled over transferring out in 2024 with the arrival of Curt Cignetti. Ultimately, Smith's transfer portal stint was short-lived; he returned to Indiana and became an indispensable blocker for Cignetti and future first overall pick Fernando Mendoza.
His 2024 campaign was strong, but his 2025 was certifiably elite: His 92.8 PFSN OL Impact score was seventh-highest in the nation and third in the Big Ten. He didn't allow a single sack in pass protection, and put up an opposing pressure rate of just 2%.
Smith's numbers place him among the ranks of NFL starters, and the film corroborates his proficiency.
At around 6'5″, 313 pounds, without great length, Smith's modest physical caps have stirred discussions surrounding a potential move inside. But Smith has nonetheless excelled at OT in college with an elite operational skill set.
He's assuredly explosive and rangy enough, with good functional power and play strength, but Smith most often wins with his ultra-consistent footwork and leveraging, patient and precise hand usage, high-level intelligence and football IQ, relentless finishing physicality, and contact authority.
He's a true master at playing with a consistent anchor and controlled lean, using leverage acquisition and overarching flexibility to calibrate balance. That foundation helps maximize his power and strength in the run game, and in pass protection, he's a nuanced and synergetic operator who can execute pillar fits, circle punches, and anchor.
On film, Smith bears striking similarity to 2023 first-round pick Peter Skoronski. A similar transition to guard might await him in the NFL, but at that spot, Smith can be an impact starter with scheme versatility.
