Sonny Styles And The End Of The Linebacker Drought: 2026's Best Off-Ball Class In A Decade

For the better part of a decade, the smartest move at off-ball linebacker was to wait. The analytics-driven NFL decided that the position — a tackler who patrols the middle in a league that throws on early downs — produced its best value in the second round, and the draft board reflected it. No off-ball linebacker had been taken anywhere near the top of the first round since Devin White went No. 5 to Tampa Bay in 2019. Then on April 23 in Pittsburgh, the Washington Commanders took Ohio State's Sonny Styles at No. 7 overall, the highest an off-ball linebacker has been drafted in seven years, and the position's long winter cracked open.

Styles is the centerpiece, and the profile explains the price. He arrived at Ohio State as a hybrid safety, played two seasons in the secondary, then moved to linebacker during the 2024 spring as the Buckeyes reshaped their defense. The conversion took. Over four seasons and 53 games he piled up 244 tackles, 22.5 tackles for loss, and 9.0 sacks, and in 2025 he led the team with 82 tackles on his way to first-team All-American honors. He tested as one of the best athletes at the position in Indianapolis, and Washington is handing him the middle of its defense to replace the departing Bobby Wagner. A safety-sized linebacker who can cover is exactly the archetype the modern game stopped punishing.

The class did not stop with Styles. Two picks earlier, the New York Giants took Ohio State's Arvell Reese at No. 5 — a player the Giants and NFL.com officially classify as an edge defender, but whom general manager Joe Schoen confirmed New York will start at off-ball linebacker. Reese won the Big Ten's Butkus-Fitzgerald Linebacker of the Year award and produced 69 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, and 6.5 sacks in 2025. Counting him as a linebacker is a judgment call, not a fact — he split his snaps almost evenly between the line and off-ball — but if he plays where his GM says he will, the top 10 held two linebackers for the first time in a long time.

That Ohio State pairing produced a genuine record. Reese at No. 5 and Styles at No. 7 marked the first time two linebackers from the same school went in the top 10 of an NFL draft, and the first time two Ohio State linebackers went in the first round since A.J. Hawk and Bobby Carpenter in 2006. With wide receiver Carnell Tate off the board at No. 4, the Buckeyes put three players in the top seven picks — a single-program haul at the very top of the draft that underlines why the Ohio State pipeline keeps producing first-rounders.

The depth behind the top is what earns the class its label. The Indianapolis Colts took Georgia's CJ Allen at No. 53 — a two-year defensive captain with 205 career tackles, 13.5 tackles for loss, and 4.5 sacks. The Tennessee Titans grabbed Texas's Anthony Hill Jr. at No. 60, a 6-foot-3, 238-pound former five-star recruit and the first Longhorn taken in the 2026 class. Both were early Day-2 selections, the historical sweet spot for the position, and both project as high-floor early contributors rather than developmental fliers. A class with a top-10 anchor and two captains in the early second round is a different animal than the recent years that sent their best linebackers tumbling.

The contrast with the recent past is stark. Jack Campbell went in the first round to Detroit in 2023 and was cited at the time as proof of devaluation — a linebacker who graded as a late-first-round pick at best by the new math. The top off-ball linebackers of 2024 and 2025 — Payton Wilson, Edgerrin Cooper, Junior Colson, Jihaad Campbell — largely fell to Day 2. In the decade before 2026, only a handful of off-ball linebackers cracked the top 10, and only Devin White cracked the top five. Styles at No. 7 does not by itself reverse a league-wide trend, but it is the clearest signal in years that teams are willing to spend premium capital on the position again.

The verdict from the analysts who cover the position was direct. One scouting outlet headlined its class breakdown by calling 2026 the best linebacker class in more than a decade, and Yahoo Sports framed the group as significantly stronger than the previous two seasons, with Styles described as redefining the template for what a star linebacker looks like. Whether the league sustains the renewed investment depends on how Styles and Reese play. But for one weekend in Pittsburgh, the position that the modern draft taught teams to wait on was worth reaching for again — and the data behind the slide finally bent the other way.