The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect those of the team.<\/p>\n
The Washington Commanders’ “Drive to the Draft” podcast has spent the last month ranking each position in the 2026 NFL Draft. Linebacker is a possibility for the Commanders throughout the draft, and co-hosts Logan Paulsen and Jason Johnson broke down their best players at the position.<\/p>\n
6. Josiah Trotter, Missouri<\/p>\n
Analysis: “Very fast and physical. Great at everything. You kind of want to check linebacker stuff like hand use, block destruction, and anticipation. He’s a little bit limited in coverage. They took him off the field on third down, so I’m a little bit unsure. But on first and second down, when they did play-action stuff, he knows where to go. He knows the concepts; he knows how they’re trying to beat him. And so, no, he didn’t run a 40 at the combine. I’m a little bit worried about his overall athletic profile, but I do think that he is a linebacker. If this was five years ago, he’d probably be going in the top 35. But here it’s like, what are you actually?”<\/p>\n
Analysis: “I had a hard time with him. He’s kind of standing in concrete and laterally playing the football aggressively. He’s reactive downhill, taking on blocks, so that was really hard for me. I didn’t really know what to do with him, and for a while he was off my list. But then I watched the good stuff, and he can flat-out run to the football. It’s not the cleanest in terms of diagnosis, and it’s not the cleanest in terms of the technical stuff. But the dude is physical, and he’s fast. He has starting-level athleticism and physicality.”<\/p>\n
4. Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech<\/p>\n
Analysis: “He’s 6-foot-1, 230, with a 4.53 40 time. This season, he had seven forced fumbles and four interceptions, which is 11 turnovers that he’s responsible for. He’s got great body control. He understands coverage at a high level. He’s a former quarterback, and you can see the intellectual, cerebral side to his game. He’s a tough one to crack, ultimately, because I don’t know if I’m overvaluing that mental quality.”<\/p>\n
3. Jake Golday, Cincinnati<\/p>\n
Analysis: “He’s a ‘star’ position player that teams handle in one of two ways: like an off-ball linebacker or a safety. Cincinnati chose to put Jake Golday out there, who’s 6-foot-4 and 241 pounds. The thing that I loved about him is he has a linebacker’s body but plays a lot of coverage stuff out there, where he’s matching receivers, rerouting guys, getting depth, and playing a little bit of man. He’s a good blitzer and can rush as a kind of stand-up three- to four-technique outside linebacker. I love the player, man. I think he’s extremely physical.”<\/p>\n
2. Anthony Hill Jr., Texas<\/p>\n
Analysis: “He’s 6-foot-4 and a half and 240 pounds. He’s a big dude, man, and you can tell he’s got big hands. He’s physical. You see a guy with a body type that looks like a defensive end dropping in coverage. He’s got some good suddenness. He’s a little bit raw when it comes to hand placement and taking on blocks, but he’s so big. He ran a 4.47 at his body size, and I like the athletic profile.”<\/p>\n
1. Sonny Styles (Ohio State)<\/p>\n
Analysis: “He’s 6-foot-5, 240 pounds, and ran a 4.46. That’s crazy. He jumped out of the gym. He’s explosive and fast, and that pops. He has an ability to weave and slip through traffic. That’s a superpower. He is a mutant. If the X-Men were real, he’d be an X-Man.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect those of the team. The Washington Commanders’ “Drive to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2069],"tags":[427,7,1806,6,1805,855,111,2480],"class_list":{"0":"post-833256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-commanders","8":"tag-commanders","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-football-news","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-subsection-news","13":"tag-washington","14":"tag-washington-commanders","15":"tag-washingtoncommanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116290935993957124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833256","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=833256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}