Mike Hall Stays Home With Browns Pick

The 2024 NFL Draft could have had many more Buckeyes have their name called but the vast majority of players with a draft decision opted to come back for one more year.

Ohio State defensive tackle Mike Hall was one of the lone exceptions and entered the 2024 draft with eligibility left on the table and his gamble paid off as he was just selected by the Cleveland Browns with the No. 54th pick of the second round.

Hall came off a third-team All-Big Ten season in 2023 where he played in 12 games and had 24 tackles, two for loss and 1.5 sacks.

The former Ohio State lineman measured in a 6-foot-3 and 290-pounds, maybe a little smaller than the mauler that you would expect to lock down the position. But when Hall is ‘right’ he is almost impossible to block.

It has been two drafts since the Buckeyes have sent an interior defensive lineman to a NFL team via the draft when Tommy Togiai was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the 4^th round of the 2021 NFL Draft. The Buckeyes sent two the year before with Jashon Cornell and DaVon Hamilton in 2020.

NFL.com had Hall listed as the No. 6 defensive tackle behind the likes of Byron Murphy II, Jer’Zhan Newton and Kris Jenkins. Only time will tell how accurate those rankings end up being once players attempt to make rosters and go forward with their careers.

Hall was a four-star coming out of Streetsboro (Ohio) and was a member of the top-100 according to some services. It was easy to overlook Hall in his class with five five-stars and more than half-a-dozen players rated higher than him in the class.

He would make the most of his two years as a starter, even if he did not see the field on the first play of the game.

If Hall is able to build some consistency and avoid the injury bug, this could be one of the bigger sleeper picks of the draft, even going 54th overall in the entire draft.

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