NFL combine 2026 — linebacker edition (but with more verticals than drama)
Lucas Oil Stadium turned into the linebacker funhouse on opening day of on-field drills. Guys who moonlight as glue-stick rockets and others who made scouts squint at their game tape congregated in Indy. Some improved draft stock with headline-worthy testing; others gave teams a convenient excuse to rewatch every snap with a magnifying glass and suspicious squinting.
Quick take on the testing vibe
Drills included sprints, jumps and agility tests — the usual buffet of physical theater. A few players posted eye-popping numbers that sent whispers (and tweets) into overload, while a couple of prospects politely declined the performance art portion and saved their energy for meetings and handshakes.
Top prospect highlights and grades
Here’s the short, messy, honest breakdown of the top linebackers who hit the turf and how their day went. Grades are based on how much they helped (or hurt) their case during drills, plus the general feeling of wow, huh, or meh.
Sonny Styles (Ohio State) — Grade: A+
Sonny wasn’t just good. He was suspension-of-disbelief good. He posted a ridiculous vertical and a massive broad jump that made people compare his explosiveness to players usually categorized as unicorns. The kind of testing day that forces analysts to rewrite their adjectives.
Anthony Hill Jr. (Texas) — Grade: B+
Hill showed the twitch and speed you want from a modern off-ball/edge-hybrid type. He ran a very respectable 40 for his size and posted a Relative Athletic Score that screams he had a very solid day. Not quite the vault-to-the-moon stuff of the elite, but he walked away with momentum.
Jake Golday (Cincinnati) — Grade: B
Golday measured up and displayed legit closing speed. His 40 wasn’t lightning off the line, but he closed hard and showed the second-phase quickness teams dream about. A good, useful workout that strengthened his tape rather than rewriting it.
Josiah Trotter (Missouri) — Grade: N/A
Trotter opted out of the on-field drills Thursday. No drama, no numbers, just a polite handshake and a “see you later” to the measurable theater. Scouts will lean more on his college tape and interviews.
CJ Allen (Georgia) — Grade: N/A
CJ also passed on on-field testing that day. Same deal as Trotter: film and conversations carry more weight now than a handful of drills.
Other standouts who made people look twice
Jacob Rodriguez (Texas Tech) — Grade: B
Rodriguez entered Indy with a résumé that reads like defensive hardware store: awards, honors, production. He moved smoothly in drills, showing good pop in the vertical, a solid broad jump and a respectable 40 time. Physically, nothing shattered expectations, but the combination of tape and athleticism kept his stock sturdily afloat.
Eric Gentry (USC) — Grade: A
Gentry is peak prototype-meets-weird-good. Towering height, insane wingspan — the kind of measurements that make coaches dream up mismatched defensive packages just to use him. He’s a rare physical frame that opens creative possibilities at the next level.
Final read — what this means for draft day
Combine results rarely make or break a player completely, but they certainly tilt opinions. A jaw-dropping athletic showing can accelerate a prospect up boards, while skipping drills hands evaluators more tape to chew through. For this linebacker group, one or two tape-confirming workouts nudged verdicts upward, a few solid performances strengthened existing narratives, and the opt-outs kept some mystery alive.
Bottom line: Sonny Styles turned heads the loudest; a handful of others reinforced what scouts already thought; and a couple of big, strange bodies gave coordinators fun mental puzzle pieces to work into defensive schemes. Indy served up entertainment, surprise and the usual mix of hype — exactly what the Combine was built to do.
