Max Iheanachor keeps moving up, and now one of the draft’s most recognizable voices has put the Arizona State tackle among his personal favorites by position for the 2026 NFL Draft. ’s Mel Kiper Jr. said Iheanachor has the tools to belong in the first round, even if he expects the lineman to hear his name sometime on Day 2 when the picks are done.
That matters now because the 2026 NFL Draft opens in Pittsburgh on Thursday at 5 p.m. MST, and Iheanachor has become one of the names pushing into the late first-round conversation. Kiper had already tied him to the San Francisco 49ers at No. 27 overall in a mock draft five days earlier, a sign that the buzz around the 6-foot-6, 321-pound blocker is no longer limited to one analyst’s board.
Iheanachor’s path makes the attention easier to understand. He came to the United States from Nigeria at 13, did not play football until he got to East Los Angeles College and first tried to make the switch after spending years in basketball and soccer. Arizona State offered him after that first season, and by 2024 he was the Sun Devils’ full-time starting right tackle.
He did not just hold the job. In his last collegiate season, Iheanachor allowed zero sacks and 14 pressures across 860 total snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, while earning All-Big 12 Second-Team honors. He also turned in standout performances at the Senior Bowl and the NFL Combine, where he posted a 4.91-second 40-yard dash and measured with 33 7/8-inch arms. At Arizona State’s pro day, he worked one-on-one with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, another sign that teams are treating him as more than a developmental project.
That push has been building for weeks. ’s Matt Bowen recently named Iheanachor the most explosive offensive lineman available over the past week, and NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah slotted him at No. 31 overall in his top 150 prospects list. NFL Mock Draft Database has Iheanachor going around No. 30, while other draft analysts have linked him to the 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans and Patriots, with projections ranging from No. 23 to No. 31.
The contradiction in his profile is part of what makes him interesting. Iheanachor started just 31 games in college and still remains newer to the position than most of the top linemen in the class, yet evaluators keep circling back to the same point: the ceiling is high enough to justify a first-round grade. Kiper said exactly that, while also making clear that the final draft slot may land later than the talent suggests. For a player who only began football at the junior college level and is now drawing first-round talk in the week before the draft, that gap between projection and potential may end up defining his night.