2025 draft preview: Linebackers … The 2024 draft was not a particularly good year for the defence and it a particularly not good year for the linebackers. Indeed, no LBs were selected in last April’s opening round and just one – Edgerrin Cooper of Texas A&M who was taken in the middle of the second round – was selected within the first two rounds. And it appears that trend might continue at the upcoming draft, although Barrett Carter of Clemson could conceivably get some late first-round consideration, while Danny Stutsman of Oklahoma and Georgia’s Smael Mondon both appear to have solid second-day credentials. It is probably also worth mentioning that in many ways the wild card at the position is Jamon Dumas-Johnson of Kentucky; he was considered a possible elite talent early in his career when he played at Georgia, but kind of dropped off the radar after some struggles both on and off the field, but the potential is still there.
However, while there may not be a ton of upfront potential at the position, it also appears there is plenty of depth among the 2025 LB class such that teams should have a chance to add a quality prospect at the position later in the second day or even early on the third. Players to keep an eye on in that context include veteran performers such as Jack Kiser of Notre Dame, Oregon’s Jestin Jacobs, Ben Bywater of BYU and Ohio State’s Cody Simon, along with rising candidates including Mo Toure of Rutgers, Penn State’s Kobe King and Karene Reid of Utah. The 2025 LB class also includes the leading tacklers in college football last year in Jay Higgins of Iowa and Old Dominion’s Jason Henderson. Higgins, for example, had 171 tackles in 2023 to lead the country, while Henderson, who is on pace to finish his ODU career with well over 600 career stops, was #1 in FBS with over 15 tackles per game. Higgins, in fact, has some of the same potential as the guys in the para above, while Henderson, who isn’t all that big at just 6-1, 225 and isn’t all that fast, appears a little farther on down the positional ranking, but there is just no denying the productivity. Meanwhile, the top returning LB at the FCS level is 6-2, 240-pound Micah Davey of McNeese State who had 150 tackles in just 10 games last fall. Here is our preliminary ranking for this year’s LB class. We should also note is that the LB position is complicated by the fact that some OLBs who are primarily edge rushers, such as Harold Perkins of LSU, bleed over into the DE/ER group.
