Jacob Rodriguez is the most decorated defender in the 2026 Draft class with his dominant season this past year at Texas Tech. His signature playmaking abilities on defense aren\u2019t going away, as he can make splash plays with his Peanut punch, his coverage instincts, and ball skills. Colts fans will be reminded of Darius Shaquille Leonard with the way Rodriguez attacks the ball, which has led to many iconic moments in both players careers.<\/p>\n
But unlike Leonard, Rodriguez lacks the length that Chris Ballard has coveted in his linebackers in drafts\u2019 past. While both playmaking LBs had their issues in block shedding due to being undersized, Rodriguez\u2019s lack of length further exacerbates the issue and causes more problems in tackling and pass contesting. He will need a strong combine performance in both speed and explosiveness testing to help lessen some of these concerns, but there might be clear limits to what he can do in his pro career based on his measurables.<\/p>\n
Some schemes will value him a lot more, and the Colts seemingly have adjusted their Linebacker specifications as of late with Lou Anarumo at Defensive Coordinator to not value length as much in his first year. The fit with the Colts is interesting, as his range, coverage ability, and playmaking are sorely needed at WILL Linebacker. But if he doesn\u2019t have adequate Defensive Tackles in front of him to free him up from blockers, there can be some issues against the run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Rodriguez is the most decorated defender in the 2026 Draft class with his dominant season this past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,8017,7,2004,392,3563,7663,2381,6,15,95713],"class_list":{"0":"post-666637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-draft-prospects","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapolis-colts-draft","14":"tag-indianapolis-colts-draft-central","15":"tag-indianapoliscolts","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-nfl-draft","18":"tag-road-to-the-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115871955566530318","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}