The Styles Council: 2026 NFL Draft Linebackers

Stay tuned to the end of this lively-but-short list of off-ball linebackers for draft capsules on a specialist or two!

Sonny Styles, LB, Ohio State

It’s the unique curse of the 2026 NFL draft class to feature exactly one (1) great prospect at each of the lowest-leverage positions: Styles at linebacker, Jeremiyah Love at running back, Caleb Downs at safety, Kenyon Sadiq at tight end.

The players listed above are four of the ten best prospects in this class. They might be four of the top five. Each is so much better than the silver medalist at his position that there hasn’t been much to talk about throughout draft season. (Jacob Rodriguez is a damn fine LB2, but good luck sparking a pre-draft conversation about off-ball linebackers.) Yet each plays a position best avoided early in the first round of the draft due to its relative value. That will leave teams wondering whether to take the Best Available Athlete™ at positions where talent is typically abundant or select the wide receiver with a slower 40-time than the linebacker and the tight end instead.

Styles is unassailable as a linebacking prospect: big, blisteringly fast, experienced, alert, smart.

Sports Info Solutions charged Styles with just two broken tackles and zero missed tackles in 2025. Those are ridiculously low figures for a defender who played near the line of scrimmage for 664 snaps.

Styles dropped into coverage 281 times. His receivers were targeted for just 10 passes, catching 8 of them for a whopping 49 yards. He intercepted one pass and dropped a second potential interception.

Styles rushed the passer 65 times and produced 13 pressures, an excellent pressure rate for a situational blitzer. He didn’t blitz much because that was Arvell Reese’s job. You will find Reese among the edge rushers.

There are “negatives” listed on Styles’ scouting reports at various outlets, but I lack the patience to engage in such corniness. He’s a Fred Warner-caliber linebacker prospect and one of the safest picks in this draft class.

Ah, but where does Styles fit at the top of the draft board? Can the Jets afford to take him with the second pick? The Titans with the fourth? Can the Giants afford not to take him fifth? If he makes it to the Commanders at the seventh pick, will Dan Quinn have a sexual experience?

My answers to those four questions are: a) Maybe not, and they won’t; b) Maybe; c) Probably not; and d) Absolutely, but it’s best not to imagine it.

Jacob Rodriguez, LB, Texas Tech

Rodriguez led the Big 12 in solo tackles in 2024 and 2025. He forced seven fumbles last year. He finished fifth in the Heisman voting and won several of the major defensive trophies.

Rodriguez is not huge, nor is he an athletic marvel. He can get rocked by blockers, and he will miss a few tackles. But, by golly, Rodriguez ends up in the frame at the end of every single play from scrimmage!

Rodriguez diagnoses plays as if he were in the offensive huddle. He sifts and disengages from blocks well. He takes great angles when working his way across the field. Rodriguez can be playing zone coverage on the boundary side and end up tackling the receiver on a screen pass to the field side for a minimal gain. When he’s the second defender on the scene, he’s looking to rip the football away. If there’s a loose football on the ground, he teleports into frame to scoop it up.

When evaluating off-ball linebackers, it’s best not to overthink things. A defender who always finds his way to the football at a major college program is likely to also find his way to the football in the NFL. Rodriguez has the potential to be a Zaire Franklin-type.

Kyle Louis, LB, Pitt

Here is what I wrote about Louis at the Senior Bowl:

Kyle Louis is a compact, 224-pound guided missile of an off-ball linebacker. He recorded 10.0 sacks and 24.0 tackles for a loss in his final two seasons at Pitt. He also intercepted six passes. Louis has been an absolute demon all week during Senior Bowl practices.

I thought I saw Louis force a fumble in Wednesday’s practice. He pursued a sweep from the backside of the play so quickly that he was beside the ball carrier when all hell broke loose, but it turns out that another defender made the strip. No matter: Louis broke up several passes in coverage drills on Wednesday.

Then, on Thursday: an interception and a pass breakup in individual drills, another breakup and a for-real forced fumble in the open field in team drills, and a “tackle” (wrap and thud; no tackling to the ground) short of the goal line in a goal-to-go drill.

It sure looks like the 5-foot-11-and-change Louis has everything you could ask for from a linebacker except size.

“I never really think of myself as a smaller guy,” Louis said after Wednesday’s practice. “I think I’m physical. I don’t care what size anybody is in front of me.

“I know a lot of other guys around my height from my school. Aaron Donald, who was on my side of the ball: he had great technique and went a long way in the field. So as long as I stay on my technique and keep perfecting my craft, I’m going to be great.”

Let’s slowwwwww down a bit on Aaron Donald. I remember Donald at the 2014 Senior Bowl. It was a little like watching a Bruce Lee movie. But point taken: if a shorter defender can become a future Hall of Famer at defensive tackle, falling a few hairs under six feet tall shouldn’t be a dealbreaker for a linebacker.

Also, by Thursday, Louis started to look almost (but not quite) as impressive as Donald looked in Mobile 12 years ago. It was a truly dominant pair of practices.

A quick review of Louis’ tape shows a defender who can do more than streak into the backfield on blitzes and run stride-for-stride with tight ends. Louis locates the ball quickly on options and misdirection plays. He takes good pursuit angles. He sheds blockers to make tackles. And he’s starting to develop some pass-rush techniques when he blitzes.

“I’m here to prove that I can do everything that I’ve been doing,” Louis said. “It don’t matter that I’m just from the Pittsburgh Panthers, ACC or whatever. At the next level, I’m going to continue to do it.”

Louis made a convincing argument on the practice field this week.

A longer look at Louis’ film reveals two flaws: he’s smol (as already belabored), and he’s a gamble-and-guess defender who loves to attack the line of scrimmage on play action. Nothing can be done about Louis’ size, but NFL coaches would rather temper aggressiveness than teach it.

Denzel Perriman has had a long career as a 5-foot-11 linebacker. Louis could develop into a flashier version of Perriman.

Josiah Trotter, LB, Mizzou

Hey look: Jeremiah Trotter had another kid! And wouldn’t you know it, he’s an ultra-rugged linebacker!

Josiah’s game is like his father’s and brother’s game turned 90 degrees clockwise. Jeremiah and Jeremiah Jr. were/are downhill line-of-scrimmage penetrators. Josiah is at his best when strafing, shedding blocks and pursuing ball carriers. He’s exceptional against zone runs: he flows with the play, anticipates cutback lanes, thuds blockers to erase gaps, adjusts his pursuit angle when the ballcarrier bounces outside and makes clean, authoritative tackles.

Trotter is effective, if not stellar, in underneath coverage. He minds his zone assignments, anticipates screens and flares into the flat and uses his pursue/stack/shed/wrap abilities to turn catches into negligible gains. He’ll bite on play action, loses track of receivers who slip behind him and can’t be expected to turn and run with slot receivers. The Tigers did not use him much as a pass rusher, but he looked like a Trotter when allowed to explode through a gap on a blitz.

Trotter turns 21 on April 15. He played one year at West Virginia before beaming to Mizzou; a leg injury erased his true freshman season in 2023. He’s technically polished for such an inexperienced player, for obvious reasons. He may also have upside, particularly in pass coverage. Trotter’s a late Day 2 pick and potential starter as a Will or Mike linebacker. I cannot help but root for him for some reason.

CJ Allen, LB, Georgia

Allen played running back as well as linebacker in high school. He grew up in Georgia dreaming of being a Bulldog. He turned 21 on March 1st, yet he was one of the leaders on a defense that’s never short on grown-ass, essentially-professional alphas.

Allen has outstanding lateral quickness. He triggers quickly when he locates the ball or the intended receiver. He reads blocks well in the running game and can anticipate where the running back is heading. He’s a reliable open field tackler.

Allen is not an elite-tools-and-traits type. He can get rocked backwards or engulfed by blockers. He wasn’t used much as a pass rusher and recorded only seven tackles for a loss.

Allen projects as a steady NFL starter. His high-character rep will guarantee him a role. His age suggests some untapped potential.

Anthony Hill, LB, Texas

Anthony Hill has some of the worst great tape – or perhaps the best terrible tape – that I have ever seen.

Hill is always on the move. He backpedals. He shuffles. He strafes. He flips his hips to turn upfield. He does it all with remarkable fluidity for a 6-foot-4 240-pounder. Sometimes he does it all on the same routine play-action pass.

Watch the second play of this cutup of the 2024 Peach Bowl shootout against Arizona State, starting at the 19-second mark. Hill shuffles toward the line of scrimmage, then covers (hugs) Cam Skattebo, then flows to his right to mirror scrambling quarterback Sam Leavitt, changes direction when Leavitt does, explodes to make a tackle when Leavitt tucks, gathers himself, and … grabs Leavitt by the side of the helmet for a facemask foul.

Hill’s game is full of plays like that.

Hill recorded 17 sacks, three interceptions and seven forced fumbles in three seasons as a Longhorns regular, but his tape is loaded with overrun tackles and plays where he chases the running back on a zone-read quarterback keeper or arrives just in time to be the fourth guy in the pile. Sports Info Solutions charged Hill with zero broken tackles in 2025, but there’s no stat for “took a zany angle in the first place.”

Hill is the defender who rockets in from deep in the secondary to force the scrambler to throw, but never gets within three strides of making the sack. I can almost see him now, hands in the air, not quite preventing Caleb Williams from throwing a fourth-and-4 touchdown pass off his back foot next season. There’s a Wile E. Coyote element to Hill’s game.

Oh, but Hill is so tall, and moves so well, that he is always around the ball. He forces fumbles by being the second defender on the scene, arriving from a surprising angle. He recovers fumbles by being a few steps away and on the hoof. All those shuffles and adjustments in the open field show that he’s reading the quarterback and trying to anticipate the throw. When he diagnoses properly – as in his interception against Georgia this year – he can make the quarterback look silly.

Hill turned 21 on Valentine’s Day. In addition to playing football, he was a triple-jumper and relay runner at Billy Ryan High School in Denton, Texas. He started as a true freshman, then became one of the stars of a college football playoff team, lining up all over the field as a linebacker/sometimes-edge/sometimes-slot defender. Hill’s “whoopsie” plays appear to be the result of an overabundance of athleticism and an eagerness to guess right. He’s a special athlete who is still developing his instincts and fundamentals. He could be this year’s Nick Emmanwori.

Or maybe the absolute lack of exciting talent in the 2026 draft class just has me overreacting to anyone who looks different.

Deontae Lawson, LB, Alabama

Lawson spent four years in Tuscaloosa, four as a regular on the Tide defense. He turned 23 in February.

Lawson is a long-armed, ultra-lean, quick, energetic defender. He’s willing to thump against bigger blockers and can stack and shed. He’s smart and alert in underneath coverage. Lawson forced two fumbles in 2025: one on a Peanut Punch as the scrambling quarterback was going down, the other a rip as the second man to arrive.

The days when Alabama cranked out a first-round linebacker per year are gone. Lawson looks more like a fifth linebacker and a special teamer than a starter. He has an effort/leadership reputation that should help him land and keep jobs.

Jake Golday, LB, Cincinnati

Golday spent three years at Central Arkansas, then two with the Bearcats. He turns 23 in May. He earns a B or C-plus in just about every off-ball LB trait: size (maybe an A-minus here), quickness, physicality, stack-and-shed, play diagnosis, instincts in underneath coverage, tackling, blitz capability. Nothing leaps off the tape, but Golday will fill holes in run defense, fend off blockers on screens and flow to the football to disrupt some passes. He has a little dip move and a knack for knocking blockers off balance, giving him a high pressure rate as a blitzer.

Golday projects as more of a Sam linebacker in base packages than a future star. But he can be a useful role player, or a starter in a scheme that gets a lot of use from big, thumpy outside linebackers.

Jaishawn Barham, Edge/LB, Michigan

Barham played off-ball linebacker early in his Michigan career. He was playing mostly on the edge by the middle of the 2025 season.

Barham looks like a sculpted, long-armed edge rusher. His pass-rushing moves, however, are limited to either hoping he’s unblocked or just using pure athleticism to beat the tackle to the outside. Barham recorded just four sacks last year, and two were in a feeding frenzy of a blowout of Central Michigan.

Also, there’s this:

And this, which is much more forgivable:

I don’t think much of Barham’s film: too many of his splash highlights boil down to being unblocked on the backside of a play and using his speed and length to swat a ballcarrier or scrambler from behind. He should be a more polished something after four years at Ann Arbor.

Barham could end up getting drafted on traits and pedigree and end up running around on special teams. He appears relatively high on some media draft boards, so I felt compelled to include him here.

Specialists!

Brett Thorson, Punter, Georgia

Thorson is a 26-year old former dairy farmer from Australia. He attended a kicking academy, then spent four years at Georgia. He punted for the 2022 national champions. His 23 punts inside the 20 ranked second in the nation in 2025.

Thorson has a huge leg and a nasty flop shot that he uses to pin opponents. Some punts which ended as touchbacks bounced high into the air at around the five-yard line; Thorson’s teammates just could not quite down them.

Thorson did not hold for field goals, nor did he kick off. But four years of consistent big-game punting should make him NFL ready, and age isn’t much of an issue with specialists. A cap-strapped rebuilding team could do worse than to draft Thorson some time on Day Three.

Drew Stevens, Kicker, Iowa

Stevens kicked for the Hawkeyes for four years. He went 8-of-12 from 50-plus yards in 2024 and 2025. His long kicks have a high trajectory; many look like they would be good from 65 yards. His technique looks sound enough to my untrained eyes, and he kicks off.

Stevens has endured a few mini-slumps. He ended the 2023 season with some bad misses. Stevens sought help from a sports psychologist and worked on regulating what coaches at the time called “false confidence.” He underwent a short slump early in the 2025 season but finished with clutch kicks against Michigan State and Vanderbilt.

Stevens looks like a reasonable sixth-seventh round investment.

Trey Smack, Kicker, Florida

Smack is the best kicking prospect whose name is a slang term for a street drug since Tad Weed, an Ohio State player from the 1950s who kicked briefly for the Steelers.

Smack’s accuracy improved in each of his three seasons at Florida. Three of his four misses last year came in the August opener against Long Island University; by the time Florida faced SEC competition, Smack was drilling fourth-quarter 50-yarders to help beat Mississippi State. By the time Florida faced top-notch SEC competition, they were getting their asses beat, and there wasn’t much Smack could do about it.

Jack Stonehouse, Punter, Syracuse

Stonehouse’s cousin is Ryan Stonehouse, who enjoyed two Pro Bowl seasons with the Titans, signed with the Dolphins last offseason, lost a punting battle in camp and then just disappeared. Seriously, there’s no reporting on Ryan Stonehouse since some midseason workouts in October. Did he set fire to a bamboo forest, killing the last panda bears? Is he in the trunk of Brandon Aiyuk’s car? I can’t find an injury, accusation or anything else. I hope he’s OK.

Anyway, Jake Stonehouse is an experienced punter and field goal holder. I’m sure he’s fine; I don’t feel like watching old Syracuse games in search of scouting points for a position I know nothing about. But since this is the last draft capsule I am writing for 2026, I wanted to leave you with Stonehouse’s moustache.