Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles has declared for the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
Styles made the widely expected announcement on social media Wednesday. He could be a top-10 pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you to [Coach Ryan Day] for leading me over the past four years and for believing in me throughout my journey at Ohio State,\u201d Styles wrote. \u201cI\u2019m also incredibly grateful to [defensive coordinator Matt Patricia] and [linebackers coach James Laurinaitis]. Both of you had a huge impact on my development and I wouldn\u2019t have the success I did at linebacker without you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Styles was Ohio State\u2019s leading tackler in 2025 with 82 stops and 6.5 tackles for loss over 14 games. He also had a sack, an interception and three passes defensed along with a forced fumble. A season ago, Styles had 100 tackles in 16 games as Ohio State won the national championship.<\/p>\n
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He\u2019s the third star Ohio State defensive player to declare for the 2026 draft along with fellow LB Arvell Reese and defensive back Caleb Downs. Ohio State\u2019s defense allowed 9.3 points per game and 4.0 yards per play in 2025. Miami\u2019s 24 points in the Hurricanes\u2019 Cotton Bowl win was the most anyone scored against Ohio State all season and Miami\u2019s total included a pick 6.<\/p>\n
Styles went to the Los Angeles Rams at No. 13 in Yahoo Sports\u2019 latest mock draft<\/a>, though he could feasibly go higher than that, especially since Oregon QB Dante Moore \u2014 widely considered a top-five pick \u2014 announced Wednesday that he was heading back to school for the 2026 season.<\/a><\/p>\n Here\u2019s what Yahoo Sports\u2019 Nate Tice and Charles McDonald had to say about Styles potentially going to the Rams at No. 13:<\/p>\n The Rams use their first of two first-round picks on Styles to solidify their linebacker room. Styles has an element of speed and range to his game that the Rams could really use, and he would give them a much sturdier front seven than the boom-or-bust one they have.<\/p>\n Styles was a five-star recruit in the class of 2022 and the No. 4 player in the country along with the No. 2 athlete in Rivals\u2019 rankings. The No. 1 athlete in Styles\u2019 class was Travis Hunter, the 2024 Heisman winner who played both wide receiver and defensive back at Colorado.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles has declared for the 2026 NFL Draft. Styles made the widely expected announcement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[613,6446,7,2258,58,216,6,15,1446,2239,128],"class_list":["post-677930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-draft","tag-caleb-downs","tag-dante-moore","tag-football","tag-james-laurinaitis","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-miami","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft","tag-ohio-state","tag-sonny-styles","tag-travis-hunter"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115896393679809481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677930","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=677930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}