Top NFL Draft pick Sonny Styles fits Washington's ambitions perfectly

Washington Commanders GM Adam Peters and head coach Dan Quinn certainly have a type when it comes to linebackers.

Washington selected Sonny Styles, a linebacker out of Ohio State University, with the seventh overall pick in the first round of Thursday's NFL Draft.

Anyone familiar with Ohio State lore knows that the "0" jersey is a special number. The player on defense who wears the "Block O" exemplifies "toughness, accountability, and the highest of character."

Styles wore 0 and the green dot for the Buckeye defense, meaning the defensive coordinator was in contact with Styles, who then communicated the plays to the rest of the defense. He got the defense lined up in the right formation every play he was on the field.

Peters said the whole package played into the team's decision to draft him at 7.

"Our scouts have been watching him for a couple of years," Peters said. "And then they go in and get all the information on what type of person he is, the leader he is, the communicator he is as quarterback of that defense, and getting the guys lined up up front. His football intelligence, his football character... You put a score on that, and he passed all of those things with flying colors."

While all of those are great qualities, they are not what I mean when I say Peters and Quinn have a type, especially when it comes to linebackers.

The Washington Commanders draft the most athletic player available

Sonny Styles started climbing up NFL draft boards after his stellar showing at the draft combine in February.

His measurables are out of this world. At 6'5", 244 lbs, he is bigger than DK Metcalf, but his 4.46 40-yard dash time is also faster than CeeDee Lamb's. Add a 43.5-inch vertical to his athletic tape from the combine, and you can easily see why the Commanders fell in love with him.

Relative Athletic Score is a 0-10 rating system that has measured NFL prospects' athleticism since 1987. The score aggregates combine results into a single metric, with 10 being the best-tested athlete at that position.

Sonny Styles has an RAS of 9.99.

His composite size, speed and explosion metrics all grade out to "elite" while his agility grade is just "good" due to a lackluster showing in the 3-cone drill.

You know who else has an RAS score of 9.99? Leo Chenal, the free agent linebacker the Commanders just signed to a 3-year deal this offseason. Chenal was the 3rd-highest athletically rated linebacker prospect among the 2,406 evaluated by RAS from 1987 to 2022.

Chenal's athleticism pops on the field (and off of it), and now the Commanders have two of the highest graded linebacker athletes ever playing side by side. Add in Frankie Luvu, who is also an athletic freak, and you have what could easily become one of the fastest, most versatile linebacking corps in the league.

After a year where the defense was pretty awful, this was a much-needed upgrade for the team. Peters and Quinn were able to fill a giant hole in their defense with exactly the type of player that they like: freakishly athletic.

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This story was originally published April 24, 2026 at 9:08 AM.