Football

Las Vegas Raiders project DJ Glaze to stick at tackle

With several Terps looking to hear their names called during the 2024 NFL Draft, offensive lineman DJ Glaze became the first to come off the board on Friday after the Oakland Raiders used their 77^th overall pick on the multi-year starter. Glaze signed with the program as a three-star prospect out of West Mecklenburg (NC) in the 2020 cycle after battling injuries through his high school career, but it didn’t take long for him to become an integral piece in the trenches for Maryland.

After redshirting his first season, Glaze broke into a rotation that featured three eventual NFL linemen and started in six games – four at right tackle – while appearing in all 13. After starting at right tackle in all but one game in 2022, Glaze made the offseason transition to the full-time starting left tackle in 2023 as his NFL profile began steadily building. In the end, the former three-star signee became the program’s highest-drafted offensive lineman since Melvin Fowler became a third-round pick back in 2002.

“DJ [had] high school injuries, maybe why some people backed off of him. We believed in what we saw out of him,” head coach Mike Locksley said after the spring game. “And to see a guy that was a low three-star evaluation, I guess some of those people you guys work for, but gets drafted in the third round and I think it’s a testament to the job that our coaches like Brian Braswell has done in their development.”

While there was little doubt Glaze would eventually land in the pros based off the last three seasons, the biggest question would be where Glaze would line up in the NFL with scouts eyeing an interior role as his best fit. Raiders GM Tom Telesco said he sees Glaze sticking at tackle.

“He’s played both left and right. Probably see [him] more on the right side of tackle right now,” Telesco said. While the overwhelming majority of Glaze’s college experience has been at tackle, Telesco noted Glaze’s positional versatility as a “possible guard in the future” – which helped elevate his draft stock.

“Typically you’re dressing eight offensive linemen, the more they can do the better because we know there’s been injuries during the year, but we see [Glaze] more as a right tackle. Big frame, long arms, really productive college player. I mean, he just really just blocks the guy in front of him very consistently. Keep it real general, really easy — guy over him, run game, pass game, blocked his man. Balance, body control, some strength and again we think there’s a lot of future upside with him too.”

Glaze joins former Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson in the Raiders’ draft class as first-year head coach Antonio Pierce gets to replenish the trenches, while he also gets to reconnect with a former teammate as cornerback Jakorian Bennett enters his second season.

Of course, Glaze was the prize of the offseason for Maryland with a stay-or-go decision fluid through the season into bowl prep before he accepted his invite to the Reese’s Senior Bowl. The chance for Glaze to return to Maryland for another season and shift inside to bolster his draft stock for the 2025 Draft loomed large, but the chance to prove himself in a senior bowl was always too much to overcome. That invite gave Glaze a chance to assert himself as an NFL prospect down in Mobile where he became a frequent standout, eventually drawing an invite to the NFL Combine.

Glaze went on to post 29 reps on bench press in Indianapolis, the seventh-most among linemen at the NFL Combine, but Glaze’s performance in the Senior Bowl reinforced what the Raiders already saw on his college tape.

“The great thing about the Senior Bowl is you’re practicing every day against somebody who’s an NFL player. A regular college game, no matter what conference the player you’re playing against, the next year, he may be an accountant somewhere, maybe a great college player, maybe not a pro prospect. You’re in the Senior Bowl. They’re all pro prospects, they’re all going to play in the league. So if you do well there like DJ did yeah, it certainly helps him, but his college tape was really good too so it’s really more of a confirmation of what do you think he can do at this level.”

Glaze noted the Raiders’ need for versatility from their linemen was clear during the draft process as he worked to show “my football IQ, show them I can recall things easily, show them I know kind of the structure of things.” Now, he’ll get to showcase that first-hand for Pierce and the Raiders’ staff.

“He seems real cool,” Glaze said about Pierce. “He’s a young coach, so he told me to come in and bring energy, be able to be a guy that’s going to come in and be able to protect the quarterback. That’s what I want to do.”