Mazi Smith Madden Career 2024-2026 - Peak 73 OVR

Mazi Smith arrived with a reputation for freakish power, ranked the number-one athlete on The Athletic's college football Freaks list, a Michigan run-stuffer so strong he seemed built to anchor a defense for a decade. Dallas made him the 26th pick in 2023, the franchise's first first-round defensive tackle in more than thirty years, betting the raw strength would translate.

The Madden card is a flat line, and that flatness is the story. He opened at a 73 and basically stayed there, a 73 peak, a dip to 72, the grade of a rotational player rather than the cornerstone a first-round nose tackle is supposed to be. The production drew steady criticism, a single sack across his first two seasons and modest tackle totals even as his starts climbed, and the number simply refused to rise because the tape gave it no reason to. The strength was real, the disruption was not.

By late 2025 the experiment had run its course in Dallas, a trade sending him to the Jets to try again elsewhere. Smith is a cautionary tale about the gap between measurable traits and football production, a player who was everything a testing chart could want and not yet what a defense needs. The stuck 73 on his card is Madden declining to reward potential that never showed up on Sundays.