The Kansas City Chiefs built one of the NFL’s most powerful defensive end rooms over the past several years by signing Charles Omenihu and drafting George Karlaftis and Ashton Gillotte. However, the unit lacks an explosive, bendy rusher capable of producing quick pressures. Fortunately, several 2026 NFL draft prospects fit that description. Alabama Crimson Tide outside linebacker Qua Russaw saw his first meaningful college football action in 2024, playing roughly 400 defensive snaps. He primarily served in a rotational role until he started consistently receiving 35 or more snaps per game late in the year. Russaw is only a redshirt sophomore, so there’s a good chance he returns to school, but it’s impossible to ignore his upside as a breakout star. The 2026 NFL draft features a deep pool of explosive edge rushers, including Texas Tech’s David Bailey, Iowa’s Max Llewellyn, Northwestern’s Anto Saka, Oklahoma’s R Mason Thomas and Notre Dame’s Boubacar Traore. Russaw is less developed than many of those prospects, but he possesses unique power and upside in run defense they can’t match. Russaw is unofficially listed at 6’2″, 242 lbs. He’s a lean prospect who needs to stack on mass, but he channels excellent power through his hands to challenge pulling linemen on gap runs or set the edge. Russaw explodes into contact and uses his natural leverage advantage to stack larger blockers and set a hard edge. Russaw possesses the quickness and natural bend to dip around and evade would-be blockers, similar to the movement skills displayed by off-ball linebackers.
Russaw also separates himself within the 2026 edge class with his work in coverage. He frequently drops into shallow to intermediate zones. Russaw gains depth quickly in his zone drops and reads the quarterback’s eyes to range into throwing lanes. His fluidity and natural movement skills make him a smooth operator in space, even if he’ll never be a high-volume coverage defender. Russaw needs to improve as a pass rusher. His explosiveness qualifies as elite, and his bend helps him corner and flatten rush angles around the edge. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a pass rush plan beyond a long-arm, speed rush and converting speed to power. Russaw finds some success prying open the B-gap and pushing the pocket with power, but he needs to diversify his rush plan and add counters to generate pressure when his bull rush fails. Russaw lacks elite length. Combined with his light frame, this makes it possible for long-limbed linemen to engulf him and remove him from plays. This negatively impacts him as a rusher and run defender. Russaw must learn hand counters and develop better block deconstruction to avoid these losses.
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This article originally appeared on Chiefs Wire: 2026 NFL draft scouting report: Alabama Crimson Tide OLB Qua Russaw