Film room: Grant a long, athletic project in trenches

Breaking down the third-round pick’s game

Las Vegas Raiders general manager John Spytek was playing the long game in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft by using the 99th overall selection on William & Mary offensive tackle Charles Grant.

Granted dominated his competition last season, earning a 91.2 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, which led all FCS offensive tackles. He posted a mark of 90.4 as a run blocker (second-highest) and 88.1 in pass protection (seventh-best), while surrendering just nine pressures (two sacks) in 12 games.

However, the William & Mary product will be making a steep jump in competition and needs to improve his technique before he’s ready for action in the NFL. Luckily, the Raiders don’t have an immediate need at offensive tackle with Kolton Miller and DJ Glaze returning this season, and Grant’s athleticism and 34¾-inch arms give him a high ceiling.

So, let’s dive into the tape and see what he can bring to the table.

Grant can be a very effective zone run blocker as his tape is littered with impressive reach blocks and backside cut-offs, as the latter is seen above.

The Tribe call an outside zone run to the right, which makes him responsible for cutting off a 2-technique defensive tackle, lined up head up on guard.

That means the offensive tackle is at a significant disadvantage pre-snap since he has to cover a lot of ground laterally while the defender can just work straight up the field. Granted, Grant does get some help with the defensive tackle slanting into the B-gap post-snap, but the defender still has inside positioning to tilt the battle in his favor.

That’s where Grant’s quickness and agility come into play as he works across the defensive tackle’s face, flips his hips and seals the defensive tackle outside to help create a backside cutback lane for the running back.

What makes this rep even more impressive is that Grant false steps out of his stance, where he steps inside his stance with his right foot instead of gaining ground laterally or using a bucket step, yet he still effectively executes the block. That will need to get cleaned up at the next level, but the movement skills are there to work with.

This time, Grant is on the front side of the outside zone call and shows off some impressive strength.

He’s responsible for reach blocking the defensive end, but this time, he doesn’t get to the edge to seal the defensive end. Instead, the offensive tackle shows off some impressive upper body and core strength to generate some torque and toss the defender out of the way to execute his assignment; get the defensive end out of the C-gap.

Now, this type of move is going to be a lot harder to pull off against NFL-level competition. But the strength to pull this off, even at the FCS level, is good to see as it helps lay the foundation for him to build on and develop down the line.

This next clip is similar to the first one, where Grant is on the backside of outside zone and responsible for cutting off a defender who has a pre-snap advantage by lining up inside of him. Only this rep is more impressive as he’s working up to the second level to block a linebacker and still manages to create the cutback line by beating the backer inside.

However, Grant does have a bad habit of shooting his hands wide and gets flagged for holding here. Had he kept his hands tight and inside/on the defender’s chest instead of bear-hugging the defender, this would be a perfect rep that results in a good gain on the ground. This is another area where the William & Mary product’s technique could use some fine-tuning.

We’ll get an additional example of Grant working up to the second level, just via a combo block this time.

At the line of scrimmage, he does an excellent job of using his inside arm to turn the defensive lineman’s outside shoulder and help the guard get outside positioning on the block. Then, the offensive tackle cuts off the linebacker and seals the backer inside, putting the finishing touches on the outside rushing lane for the running back.

Moving onto pass protection, Grant’s football intelligence stands out as he’s effective at sniffing out line games and/or blitzes to effectively pick them up. We’ll get a good example of the latter here.

Pre-snap, it looks like he senses the defense is up to something as he taps his hip. Most likely, and this is a guess without knowing the offense, Grant is telling the running back that he’ll pick up the blitzer off the edge, so the back can just scan the interior of the line before releasing on his route.

Post-snap, Grant eyes the defensive end initially. But once he sees the defensive end work inside, he knows his pre-snap intuition was correct and gets his eyes outside to pick up the blitzer off the edge. As a result, the defense’s play-call is ineffective and the quarterback has plenty of time to throw down the field for an explosive play.

Finally, the third-round pick’s athleticism also stands out as a pass blocker, allowing him to redirect and win against inside moves from edge rushers.

He’s going up against a wide-9-technique on this rep, where the outside linebacker is lined up well outside the offensive line. A lot of pass-rushers do that to get offensive tackles to overset or work too far laterally, opening up an inside pass-rush lane. It looks like that was this edge-rusher’s goal as he takes two steps up the field before working inside.

However, Grant trusts his feet and stays patient and under control to avoid oversetting. Then, once the rusher goes inside, he plants his outside foot in the ground and uses his hands to stay in front of the rusher. Finally, Grant’s athleticism comes into play as he redirects, opens his hips and washes the defender to the other side of the line before finishing the play by putting the defender on the ground.

Overall, the 99th overall pick needs some development before he’s ready to hit the field in the NFL. But his physical traits and athleticism give him a high ceiling to develop into a starter down the line.