Sonny Styles Bucs Draft Scouting Report

Styles is a true senior who has played 53 games in his collegiate career. He is a converted safety who spent his first two seasons in Ohio State’s defensive backfield. He appeared in five games as a freshman, recording nine tackles, including one for a loss. Styles then started 12 of 13 games as a sophomore, including two as a slot corner.

He converted to linebacker in 2024 as a junior, starting all 16 games in the Buckeyes’ national championship season and recording 100 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss and six sacks. This year as a senior, he continued his impressive run with 82 tackles and a sack over 14 games.

From sports-reference.com, his total college career.

He was a second-team all-Big Ten selection in 2024.

Scouting Report

I watched three of Sonny Styles’ games from the 2025 season (Indiana, Penn State and Miami), along with two games from 2023 (Maryland and Purdue).

Athleticism

As a former defensive back, Styles has the athleticism to operate as one of the most athletic linebackers in the NFL. This goes well beyond straight line speed. Styles can modulate his foot pacing to create burst near the line of scrimmage or elongate his stride to work top speeds working in a more spacious assignment.

His joint dexterity is what really sets him apart, flexing his body in multiple directions as needed to gain advantageous angles in both close quarters as well as changing directions in space. He can move laterally with ease, reading out wide zone plays without falling behind the flow of the line or overrunning the play entirely to give cutback lanes.

Run Fitting

Styles works well both vertically and laterally. It’s his blend of instincts with his athleticism that let him make plays others can’t. I don’t think I have ever scouted a linebacker prospect this good with these skills. He wins in all three ways you would want a linebacker to win.

He uses his excellent feel for plays and his strong legs to fire off and get to spots before blockers can beat him to spots, putting him in excellent position to make the tackle or blow up the clocking scheme for his teammates to clean up the play.

He will also absorb and initiate contact with reckless abandon. And his take-on skills are top-notch, keeping his eyes on the back and finding the right moment to either throw linemen off his frame or slip by them due to his loose hips. It’s amazing he is a former defensive back because he will not allow any offensive lineman to out-physical him.

His stack-and shed skills are fantastic. He has also shown the ability to make tackles while being actively being blocked. This is largely due to his long arms, which should measure over the 80th percentile for his position. They keep blockers off his frame and let him push-pull them completely off of him when the time is right.

Styles is also fantastic at making tackles off of his frame, as evidenced by his historically low missed tackle rate this past season, which stood at 0% up until Ohio State’s last game of the season.

Coverage

In man coverage, Styles’ safety background shows well, as he can hold his own against tight ends and when he gets into the flats one-on-one versus backs. This is where many linebackers struggle with the stop-start twitchiness running backs use to win in those situations, but Styles is comfortable closing with authority while using his impressive wingspan and strong arms to aid him in making a tackle when his frame gets out of position.

He can line up in the slot against a flexed out tight end, but if he matches up on a receiver, Styles can get into trouble (as any linebacker would) as he lacks the twitch to handle and shadow two-way go’s from that level of athlete.

In zone coverage, he has a strong understanding of route development behind him and can pass off and close windows quickly. His superior closing skills allow him to comfortably gain depth without worrying that a checkdown to a back underneath will pop for big yards. His angles aren’t always perfect, but more often than not Styles is on the right line to make the play after the catch.

His best trait in this area is his versatility, as I don’t think Styles would need to be hidden behind specific assignments. He can play flats, run the pole in cover 2 and also cover seams as a hook defender who can widen against the intermediate routes on flood concepts.

Pass Rush

This area of Styles’ game is where I see the most variance. There are fantastic reps where he descends on the pocket with fire and fury, destroying backs and even interior linemen on his way to the quarterback. But there are other times when Styles slows his feet and looks as if he is trying to figure out his path to the pocket mid-play. His physical traits say it’s an area the Ohio State star can improve upon, but he isn’t a fantastic pass rusher in his own right.

Where I think Styles can excel is as someone who contributes to a pass rush plan designed to help a teammate get an unblocked or 1v1 look. When he’s given a defined role of engaging a specific offensive player in the protection plan, he attacks that assignment with confidence and tenacity.

Best Traits

Eye Discipline. Almost every positive part of Styles’ skillset is amplified and elevated because he can read the offense in front of him so well. He rarely gets caught spilling to the wrong spot, finds the lane runners are trying to work to and often beats them to it. In zone coverage as a short hook player, he can bounce back and forth while passing off routes developing around and behind him while keeping eyes on the quarterback and closing would-be throwing windows. All of this ensures Styles is rarely out of position to make a play or prevent a pass.

Tackling. Styles isn’t a heavy hitter who will pack a lot of punch when he strikes ball carriers. But the ultimate goal is to make sure the guy goes down. And with Styles, that is what you are getting. He is a sure tackler with his long limbs. He does his job. Expect him to light up the stat sheet with 10 tackles and not a single one may make a highlight reel. But he’s going to limit yards after contact and yards after catch. That’s valuable.

How Does Sonny Styles Fit The Bucs’ System?

This is my biggest concern for Sonny Styles. His physical traits would lead me to believe he can do anything asked of any linebacker. But based on what he was asked to do at Ohio State, he profiles better as a Mike linebacker in a traditional four-down-and-go system where he can sit three yards behind the line of scrimmage and read out the play.

In a Todd Bowles defense – and we now know Bowles will be returning for the 2026 season – two of the most important asks of the linebacker position are to mug-and-drop and be a part of the pass rush plan, both through the A-gap as well as walked up on the edge as a part of a five-man front.

Styles wasn’t asked to do much of that in college. His safety background lends one to believe he can drop quickly from a mugged-up position. And there are a few reps of him doing this, but those weren’t his best reps. As a safety, he would drop in a backpedal. As a mugged-up dropper he has to drop from a half-turn with limited vision to half the field. It’s a legitimate question.

Styles pass rushed on 9% of his snaps between 2024 and 2025, generating pressure on 23.8% of those snaps. He did have six sacks in 2024. His best rushes were as a layered second wave runner from depth or off the edge on overloads where he showed flashes of legit bend.

While he isn’t without question marks, I would be excited to see him on the Bucs defense as a player who has the athleticism to accomplish some of the most difficult goals that are asked of linebackers. And in doing, so he would theoretically free up some of the Bucs’ current playmakers (Tykee Smith, Antoine Winfield Jr.) to play closer to the line of scrimmage and make more plays.

While his closing speed might make some idealize him as a run-and-shoot will linebacker, I believe his best role is as a mike, where his run-fitting skills would be most amplified. The Bucs have lacked athletic players at linebacker for two straight seasons, and that has had a cascading effect that has hurt multiple facets of the defense. Styles would immediately bring the movement skills necessary to make multiple parts of this defense click.

Styles is currently projected as a first-round pick by most media draft sites, and likely a Top 15 pick. Based purely on his tape, I would feel comfortable taking him in this range if I were in the Bucs’ war room. There is a legitimate conversation to be had about off-ball linebackers relative to the fifth-year option cost, but as the team needs good players at this position in such a crucial way, I would have no problem ignoring those value concerns to get a good ball player and figure out the second-contract mechanisms down the road.

Hear Sonny Styles Speak

NFL Draft evaluations are about more than the tape. Teams want to understand the person as much as the player. How do they think? How do they interpret the game? Who are they as someone who has to integrate into a locker room?

We can’t see nearly as much of this as teams do in their in-person interviews, but this year I want to help all of us hear more from the players we evaluate. With that in mind, here is a media day interview Sonny Styles did just before the 2024 season where he discussed at length his transition to linebacker.

My takeaway from this admittedly very brief interaction is that Styles understands the game well from a cerebral standpoint, as evidenced by his detailed accounting of how the run fits are different at linebacker versus safety and how the transition helped him understand the responsibilities of the defensive line better than he had before. Styles seemed personable and engaging and not closed off or guarded.