{"id":872499,"date":"2026-04-23T06:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T06:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/872499\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T06:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T06:12:16","slug":"2026-nfl-draft-a-linebacker-for-every-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/872499\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NFL draft: A linebacker for every round"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Arizona Cardinals<\/a> have a number of needs they will try to address in the 2026 NFL draft. They really could go with any position during the draft.<\/p>\n

Over the next few articles, we will go over players who could be targets in each round.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Let’s have a look at linebackers.<\/p>\n

Styles is fast. He is fierce. He looks like a star.<\/p>\n

Round 2: Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech<\/p>\n

He was the nation’s top linebacker in 2025, leading the dominant Texas Tech defense. He had 63 solo tackles, led the nation with seven forced fumbles, 11 tackles for loss and four interceptions. He is fast and athletic.<\/p>\n

Round 3: Kyle Louis, Pitt<\/p>\n

He is six feet tall and 220 pounds with speed. He had 85 total tackles and 8.5 tackles for loss.<\/p>\n

Round 4: Deontae Lawson, Alabama<\/p>\n

He was a three-year starter for Alabama and two-year captain. He is 6-3 and 226 pounds with twitchy athleticism.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Round 5: Keyshaun Elliott, Arizona State<\/p>\n

Elliott is 6-2 and 231 pounds and showed explosiveness with his jumps. He was productive with 98 tackles 14 tackles for loss and seven sacks.<\/p>\n

Round 6: Jack Kelly, BYU<\/p>\n

Kelly has pass-rushing juice and might be able to play some off the edge, as he had 10 sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss. He ran the 40 in 4.57 seconds at almost 6-2 and 240 pounds.<\/p>\n

He is very tall at almost 6-7, weighing 221 pounds. He had 76 tackles, three sacks and seven tackles for loss.<\/p>\n

Get more Cardinals<\/a> and NFL coverage from Cards<\/a> Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Apple podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: 2026 NFL draft: A linebacker for every round<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Arizona Cardinals have a number of needs they will try to address in the 2026 NFL draft.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[390,34746,7,40513,6,15,2239,2299],"class_list":{"0":"post-872499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-arizona-cardinals","9":"tag-eric-gentry","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jack-kelly","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-nfl-draft","14":"tag-sonny-styles","15":"tag-texas-tech"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116452546555069802","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872499","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=872499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}