2024 Linebacker Prospect Rankings
The Gridiron Review’s 2024 NFL Draft Linebacker Rankings.
*Click on the player names to see our full prospect profiles of each player.
Updated on 3/9/24- Post Combine Ranking
Marshall, Bertrand, Ford, Colson all fell due to not participating/limited participation at Combine. Their profiles will be updated and their rank is subject to move post Pro Day.
Updated on 4/19/24- Post Pro Days Ranking
Grades do not correlate with positional rank. Grades are based on where we think they are now, while rank is based on how good they will be.
For Example: Prospects like Eichenberg and Ford are guys who are more equipped to start earlier, but guys like Williams are equipped to be better starters with development to their skillset.
| Rank | Rank Movement | Player | School | Height | Weight | Grade | Comp | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  3 | Payton Wilson |  |  | 6'4" | 233 | 63% with upside | Lower end Drew Sanders | Payton Wilson is probably the most experienced linebacker in this year's class, and you can tell he’s a high IQ player. He’s been at NC State for 6 years. He’s versatile, despite the amount of off the ball he plays, he’s a true OLB who just happens to play off the ball well. He sets a strong edge in the run game. He’s not necessarily “raw”, but you can tell there is upside there. Wilson though does need to be more consistently aggressive against blockers and needs to be more aware while engaged. |
| 2 |  1 | Ty'Ron Hopper |  |  | 6'2" | 231 | 68% | Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah | Ty’Ron Hopper is a gem in this year’s draft class. According to Mock Draft Database, Hopper is being projected a 5th rounder, and if he actually falls that far it could be the steal of the draft. We truly believe that Hopper is first round worthy(although the LB position is HIGHLY devalued these days).One of the reasons why we love the JOK comp is because JOK was projected a first round by many, and fell to the late 2nd round, and now looks like an absolute steal… we envision a similar draft path for Hopper. |
| 3 |  Stayed | Cedric Gray |  |  | 6'1.5" | 234 | 67% | Shades of Fred Warner | Cedric Gray needs to become the poster child for going back to school for your senior year. Gray was a wildly underwhelming prospect when we watched his Jr tape in the summer. Talk about growth and development, Gray for us is now a fringe first rounder. It just looks like he has a better feel for the game now. His IQ, play demeanor, patience, etc are all night and day different. This kid made himself money in April simply by playing one more year of CFB. |
| 4 | NR | James Williams |  |  | 6'4" | 231 | 56% with upside | Shaq (Thompson with some of O’Neil’s Height) | Updated 4/18/24: Our original scout of Williams is right in that we mentioned a move to LB. After watching William’s Senior Bowl film at linebacker we are super comfortable moving him from Nickel to Linebacker rankings. While watching the Senior Bowl tape, I had to text Zach immediately because I was astonished by William’s first LB tape. The ability to make his reads and his patience with backfield/play development is ridiculously impressive. When someone changes positions you expect a bit of uneasiness and jumping the gun too quickly, but Williams looked like at least a semi-seasoned pro. He finally looked like he was playing to his size, using his length to keep blockers off his body. Unfortunately due to the lack of experience he’s still a spot dropper, and doesn’t truly understand LB drops yet. His eyes are also glued to the QBs eyes which causes him to drift a bit in zone coverage. As for man coverage he is pretty underwhelming with pattern recognition being the biggest of the issues. We think with some time to develop the sky's the limit. |
| 5 | 3 | Edgerrin Cooper |  |  | 6'2" | 230 | 59% with upside | Henry To'oto'o | Update 3/2/24: Upon a rescout, Cooper is a better prospect than we found him to be in our original scout. That being said he still has his issues that it feels like some people are ignoring. He is very assignment driven and a big key reader, which is great, but it also gets him in trouble and can lead him away from the play. Movements/motions and misdirection make him think and slow down his reaction to the play. In zone coverage he has a tendency to stare at the QB way too much at times leading him to not squeeze and recognize what’s going on around him. Biggest takeaway is that his effort wasn’t as much in question this time around. |
| 6 | 4 | Jeremiah Trotter Jr |  |  | 6' | 228 | 66% | Ceiling: Dre Greenlaw, Floor: SirVocea Dennis | Updated 3/7/24: Okay, so we’ll admit our original scout of Trotter was pretty far off. A lot of the issues we had with Trotter we saw with a different perspective this time around. In particular when we saw him going “too quick down the line” it’s not(for the most part) overflowing; it’s because he’s too quick to recognize what’s going on in front of him, and he’s beating them to the spot. We still see the issues we had with him originally to some capacity. We also still believe he COULD be scheme dependent based on his strengths, but have slightly less worry about that now after our re-evaluation. |
| 7 | 6 | Junior Colson |  |  | 6'2" | 238 | 65% | Blake Cashman | Updated 4/11/24: After a rescout of Colson, we definitely like him more than after the original scout. It feels like we were too tough on him especially with him trying to play with a club. Truth be told, it’s hard to evaluate a player’s true tackling and block shedding ability when they are playing with one hand. That being said, we gave Colson the benefit of the doubt in his grade because he flashed a lot with the club, which to us means he could play even better without it. The one thing we noticed this time around was that his reads are big time from the QB’s eyes and trying to read the backfield. His coaches at the next level are going to need to work on his block scheme rec and key reading. We still think he will probably start as a special teamer and in some sort of a rotation, but could start earlier than we originally thought. |
| 8 | 1 | Steele Chambers |  |  | 6'1" | 226 | 56% with upside | Terrel Bernard | Steele Chambers is raw, there’s no way around it. We will say though, we can tell by his film that he’s going to be a prospect teams fall in love with in Indy. The way he can move and his play speed are going to shine in the combine drills, and he will jump up draft boards. Buyer beware though, you have work to do. Chambers should be able to contribute as a 3rd down backer early, but needs time to develop his ability to play the box. We like the upside though. |
| 9 | Stayed | Edefuan Olufoshio |  |  | 6'0.5" | 236 | 60% with upside | Shades of Quay Walker | Edefuan Ulofoshio is an interesting prospect from his size to his style of play. When you watch the Oregon game(which we believe was his best game we scouted) he looks like his listed size with solid athleticism. When you get to the USC game though, he looks bigger than his listed size with slightly less athleticism. We had to go to a third game to see if we could break the tie, and the first impression we got was more USC, but he flashed some of the Oregon athleticism as well. His combine is going to be important for us to get a better understanding of the prospect he truly is. |
| 10 | 5 | Tommy Eichenberg |  | | 6'2" | 233 | 64% | Ceiling: Jack Campbell Lite, Floor: Blake Martinez | Updated 3/9/24: Almost everything we noted in Eichenberg’s original summary pretty much stands true. He looks much quicker and more agile than 2022. Upon rescout, his box play overall is still very strong. We originally called it “more inconsistent”, but we noticed that the inconsistency is in his ability to shed blocks. He’s usually in the right spot, but just needs to work on getting off blocks. His 2023 film is definitely stronger than we originally thought, and a big reason for that is his coverage skills looked better upon the rescout. We believe he could POSSIBLY be this year’s Jack Campbell (Lite). |
| 11 | 5 | Trezmen Marshall |  |  | 6'0.5" | 225 | 65% | Robert Spillane | Updated 4/11/24: Despite him dropping in our rankings Trezmen Marshall is still a good LB. We may have overhyped him off the bat, but we don’t want to change his grade because we still think he could be a higher end starter. That being said the lack of Combine invite and underwhelming Pro Day from an athletic testing standpoint is killing his stock a tad. At no point did we think he’d be a crazy tester but definitely better than what he put on, although we’ve seen athletic freaks fail in the league and non-athletic freaks flourish, so there’s that. Marshall, despite us being what feels like the only people who believe he can be a solid starter, feels like he is in line to take the Robert Spillane route where he starts as a special teamer and as defensive snaps increase in a rotation he’ll prove his worth as a starter in the league |
| 12 | 1 | Jaylan Ford |  |  | 6'2" | 240 | 64% | Frankie Luvu | Jaylan Ford is a good not great prospect. We think the teams that draft him are going to use him in a variety of ways. Ford is a really good coverage backer, especially in zone. Playing in space is definitely a strength of his game. However, his run reads aren’t that great. So we envision a hybrid role where he probably plays as a true OLB type on early downs and off ball on 3rd down/passing downs. |
| 13 | 3 | JD Bertrand |  |  | 6'1" | 235 | 63% | Slightly more athletic Josey Jewell | JD Bertrand is a pretty highly underrated linebacker in this year's class. We will admit, Bertrand is lacking a bit of speed, but we also believe that Bertrand has some of the highest IQ and instincts in the class. There are linebackers who lack athleticism who you can tell fall behind because they are slow to process. Bertrand is, for the most part, always at least near the ball carrier because he is quick to diagnose and plays with a high motor. We see him as a Day 2 rather than 3 because with his ability to diagnose we feel you can hide the lack of speed a little bit. It’s similar to Jack Campbell last year where he may not have been the fastest but he was the first LB taken due to his ability to play the position. |
| 14 | 2 | Nathaniel Watson |  |  | 6'2" | 233 | 53% | Ceiling: Ernest Jones; Floor: Baylon Spector | Updated 4/10/24: Nathaniel Watson is still a really interesting prospect. We saw somewhere that someone called him an old school type of linebacker, who’s physicality and box play shines. That was exactly the case when we gave Watson a second look. We have to be honest we don’t really know what happened in our original scout. Our guess is that we saw Watson’s small-ish frame and figured he’d be a modern style LB. Knowing now that he fits more under the category of “old school” backer, the fact that he came into the Combine 12 lbs lighter gives us mixed emotions. On one hand, his rep from the Pro Day we saw was probably improved due to the weight loss, but on the other hand it’s probably going to affect how he plays in the box(similar to a note we made about Ohio State’s Tommy Eichenberg). As we stated above though, we have concerns about his ability actually translating at the next level. Assuming he keeps his weight down he has development to do in the mold of a modern linebacker. Assuming he puts his weight back on or even keeps his weight down(for the sake of the argument) his strength level is questionable. At times he looks like he can hang with linemen, but other times he looks overpowered(but not getting driven off the ball). It’s hard to see how and in what role he’ll fit in at the next level. |
| 15 | 1 | Kalen DeLoach |  |  | 5'11.5" | 210 | 46% with upside | Ceiling: Ivan Pace Jr.; Floor: Kamu Grugier-Hill Lite | Kalen DeLoach is a Day 3 linebacker prospect we really like. The big issue for us is that he was in a three man rotation at the LB spot for the Noles. For that reason alone it would be very hard to put him any higher than that. That being said of the tape he does have, he lacks consistency. However, the flashes he shows are strong. We think he has the ability to find work on special teams as a rookie and may even be able to find work as a rotational player before his rookie year is over. DeLoach is one we believe could compete for a starter role in a year or two. |