Ohio State had one of the greatest starts to an NFL draft that any school has ever had in the 91-year history of the event, yet it felt like it could have been even better.
Going into Thursday night’s first round, Ohio State was projected to have four top-10 picks and five first-round picks. Instead, the Buckeyes had to settle for four top-11 picks – a feat that’s still only been achieved by two other schools (Michigan State in 1967, Notre Dame in 1946) – and four total first-rounders, leaving them one pick short of becoming the first school ever with 100 all-time draft selections.
Carnell Tate went higher than expected, tying the program record for highest-drafted wide receiver as the Tennessee Titans’ No. 4 overall pick, but Arvell Reese stayed on the board a few picks longer than expected before the New York Giants drafted him fifth overall. Sonny Styles went right about where he was expected to be drafted as the Washington Commanders’ No. 7 overall pick, but Caleb Downs had a surprising slide out of the top 10, though the Dallas Cowboys quickly stopped that slide by trading up to the 11th pick for the Jim Thorpe Award winner.
The most disappointing result of the night came for Kayden McDonald, who did not hear his name called among the top 32 picks despite being invited to the draft, forcing him to wait until Friday’s second round to find out where he’ll be starting his NFL career.
We may be spoiled to complain at all about a draft in which Ohio State had four top-11 picks and could have double-digit selections by the time the draft is over. But after a first round that contained plenty of surprises – surprises that admittedly did not align with my pre-draft projections for where the Buckeyes would land – I’ve got thoughts about how the first night of the draft played out for each of Ohio State’s top five prospects.
As such, I’ve borrowed a concept from our executive editor Chris Lauderback and put together my own Five Things column with my takes on where each of Ohio State’s four first-round picks landed and the top Buckeye still on the board.
Ohio State’s No. 2 receiver was the No. 4 pick
Carnell Tate is now tied for the highest-drafted wide receiver in Ohio State history – and he was never even the best receiver on his own college team.
That’s no shade toward Tate, who rightfully earned his place as the top wide receiver in this year’s draft with an excellent season for the Buckeyes. But it speaks to just how spectacular the Ohio State wide receiver room has been for the last three years and continues to be.
As a freshman, Tate was the No. 4 receiver in a room led by Marvin Harrison Jr. – the other Ohio State receiver who was the No. 4 overall pick in the draft – and another first-round pick in Emeka Egbuka. Harrison’s place as Ohio State’s No. 1 receiver was promptly taken by Jeremiah Smith, whose greatness overshadowed just how great Egbuka and Tate were for the past two years.
Fortunately for Tate, his elite talent wasn’t overlooked by the Tennessee Titans, who’ve drafted him to now be something he never was at Ohio State: Their No. 1 receiver.
Is Tate a better prospect than Garrett Wilson (the No. 10 overall pick in 2022), Chris Olave (No. 11 in 2022), Jaxon Smith-Njigba (No. 20 in 2023) and Egbuka (No. 19 in 2025)? That’s debatable, but his draft stock was undoubtedly boosted by the incredible track record Ohio State receivers have in the league over the past half-decade, giving the Titans good reason for confidence that Tate will be ready to make an immediate impact for their offense.
The biggest thought I have after Tate’s selection at No. 4, however, is just how high Smith would have been selected if he were draft-eligible. Considering the New York Jets used the No. 16 overall pick on a tight end (Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq) before trading back up to land Indiana wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. at No. 30, it’s very likely Smith would have been the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft instead of Texas Tech defensive end David Bailey.
Whether Smith will go that high next year could depend on how many quarterbacks establish themselves as top prospects and how many teams at the top of the draft need QBs. But if Ohio State’s second-best receiver last season was good enough to be the No. 4 overall pick, no pick should be considered too high for Smith a year from now.
Reese will be an inside linebacker after all
All the talk about Arvell Reese going into the draft was that the former Ohio State linebacker would primarily play edge rusher in the NFL. That belief was largely centered around the expectation that Reese would be selected by the Jets or the Arizona Cardinals with the second or third pick, as either team likely would have drafted him to play as a pass-rushing outside linebacker.
Reese seemingly believed that would be his future, too, as he told reporters at the NFL Scouting Combine that most teams had talked to him about playing on the edge and spoke Wednesday about the work he’s been putting in to improve as a pass-rusher. But after the New York Giants drafted Reese with the No. 5 overall pick on Thursday, Giants coach John Harbaugh said Reese will be playing a role that sounds much more similar to his role at Ohio State.
“Arvell is a versatile player, and we’re going to play him at inside backer, Will linebacker,” Harbaugh said. “Our defense is pretty flexible, position-less you might call it. We’ll have an opportunity to move those guys around. But he’ll line up next to Tremaine (Edmunds), and he’ll be in the A gap, the B gap, the C gap, the D gap, off the edge. He’ll be moving around with all of our guys, Abdul (Carter) and Brian (Burns) and Kayvon (Thibodeaux) and Tremaine.”
That New York Giant feeling >>>> pic.twitter.com/8R5OSdnnsO
— New York Giants (@Giants) April 24, 2026
It’s an intriguing role that should, theoretically, take advantage of Reese’s greatest strength: His versatility. While Reese has shown promising potential as a pass-rusher, he spent most of his time playing off-ball linebacker at Ohio State, where he’s already proven he can be an elite linebacker, earning consensus All-American honors in his final season as a Buckeye.
Based on his pre-draft comments, it might not be the exact role he envisioned, and it might not be the role that fully unlocks his potential to be a Micah Parsons-esque player in the NFL – especially when the Giants already have three highly paid edge rushers in Burns, Thibodeaux and Carter. But it is a much safer projection for Reese, whereas making him a full-time edge rusher, at least immediately out of college, would be more of a dice roll on his traits rather than a bet on his proven production.
Sonny Styles = Bobby Wagner 2.0?
Even if he won’t be a full-time edge rusher, there’s good reason to believe that the Giants have real plans to move Reese around to multiple spots in their defense – because if they were going to play him only at inside linebacker, they probably would have just drafted Sonny Styles with the No. 5 overall pick.
Instead, Ohio State’s other superstar linebacker from last season went two picks later to the Washington Commanders, which might be the most seamless fit for any of the Buckeyes’ four first-round picks.
The Commanders drafted Styles to replace unsigned 35-year-old middle linebacker Bobby Wagner, who finished fifth in the NFL last season with 162 tackles. Wagner was a centerpiece of Commanders coach Dan Quinn’s defense both in his tenure as the Seattle Seahawks’ defensive coordinator as well as his first two years as Washington’s head coach, and there wasn’t a better player he could have drafted to replace Wagner than Styles.
Styles and Wagner share many of the same traits, as both are known as highly intelligent players and natural-born leaders with the highest of character. Wagner was Pro Football Focus’ highest-graded tackler in the NFL last season, while Styles held the same distinction at the collegiate level. They ran identical 40-yard dash times during their pre-draft workouts (4.46 seconds), though Styles is five inches taller at 6-foot-5.
If Styles’ career proves to be anything like that of Wagner – a six-time first-team All-Pro and 10-time Pro Bowler who’s recorded 2,000 tackles over 14 seasons – he’ll make the Commanders very happy they drafted him at No. 7 overall.
Sonny Styles could be the new Bobby Wagner for the Washington Commanders. (Photo: Kirby Lee – Imagn Images)
Cowboys land coup of the draft with Downs
Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys have long been known for making splashy moves on draft day, and they couldn’t have made a better splash than they did by landing Caleb Downs with the No. 11 overall pick on Thursday.
As someone who covered Downs at Ohio State for the last two years, it’s frankly stunning that Downs wasn’t a top-10 draft pick. Sure, there were plenty of mock drafts that projected he would be the fourth Buckeye off the board, but pretty much everyone who watched Ohio State for the past two seasons agreed that Downs was one of Ohio State’s two best players (along with Smith). A two-time unanimous All-American, Downs was the biggest individual reason – even bigger than Matt Patricia – that Ohio State’s defense was the best in the country for the past two years.
Downs’ slide out of the top 10 seemed to boil down to two things: Positional value and physical attributes. Safeties don’t often go in the top 10 – the last one was nine years ago (Jamal Adams, No. 6 overall to the Jets in 2017) – and Downs, who didn’t do any measurable tests at the NFL Scouting Combine or Ohio State’s pro day, doesn’t stand out the same way Reese and Styles do in terms of size and explosiveness.
But one only needs to watch the tape from almost literally any Ohio State game of the past two years – or even from his freshman year at Alabama – to see just how well-rounded a player Downs is. He can do a little bit of everything, from covering the deep middle of the field and slot receivers to coming down into the box and blitzing or serving as an extra linebacker, and his elite football IQ will enable the Cowboys to immediately begin building their defense around him.
Downs has always been praised for not only his individual playmaking ability but how he makes everyone on the field around him better. That’s exactly what the doctor ordered for a Dallas defense that was the NFL’s worst last season, allowing a league-high 30.1 points per game.
It was surprising that the Giants passed on using the No. 10 overall pick to draft a player that Harbaugh himself has described as “a potential future Hall of Fame safety.” It was equally surprising that former Ohio State defensive coordinator and secondary coach Jeff Hafley passed up the chance to draft Downs in his first draft pick as a Miami Dolphin, instead allowing the Cowboys to move up one spot for only a pair of late fifth-round picks in return. But much like when Parsons fell into the Cowboys’ lap with the No. 12 overall pick five years ago, I suspect many of the teams that passed on Downs on Thursday night will find themselves regretting it.
"Caleb, you're a cowboy!" @calebdowns | @ATT pic.twitter.com/p5cECrFzf1
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) April 24, 2026
Teams will regret passing on Kayden McDonald, too
Downs isn’t the only Buckeye that I expect to be a steal in this year’s draft.
If I were an NFL general manager, Kayden McDonald would have been the second Ohio State player on my team’s draft board after Downs. As great as all of Tate, Reese and Styles were for the Buckeyes and have the potential to be in the NFL, McDonald was a dominant force for Ohio State last season at a position that’s increasingly becoming one of the league’s most highly valued (see the Bengals trading the 10th overall pick for Dexter Lawrence), and I see no reason why he shouldn’t continue to excel at the next level.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one surprised that McDonald wasn’t drafted in Round 1, or he wouldn’t have been one of the 17 players invited to attend the 2026 NFL draft, an honor that’s reserved for prospects who are expected to be selected in the first round (though McDonald will be in Pittsburgh to walk across the stage when he’s selected Friday night).
Ohio St. DT Kayden McDonald is staying in Pittsburgh for the NFL Draft, where he is expected to be picked early tonight. Commissioner Roger Goodell went to see McDonald after he was not selected in round one, and invited him to come back tonight so he could give him a hug on the pic.twitter.com/IAwSEXO6rP
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 24, 2026
Questions about McDonald’s value as a pass-rusher likely caused McDonald’s slide to Round 2, as he had only three sacks as a Buckeye, but he’s proven he can be an absolute game-wrecker against the run, recording 65 tackles – a jaw-dropping number for a nose tackle – at Ohio State in 2025. At 6-foot-2 and 326 pounds, his physical traits are very comparable to those of Tyleik Williams, who was selected with the 28th overall pick in what was broadly considered a deeper draft class last year.
Ultimately, what McDonald does with wherever he gets drafted matters more than when he comes off the board. He told me on Wednesday that his goal is to play in the NFL for at least 10 years, and that goal remains just as achievable as it was yesterday. He shouldn’t have to wait long to hear his name called Friday night. But if he ends up being the dominant run stopper in the NFL that he’s already shown he can be at Ohio State, there will be teams wondering why they let him fall as far as they did.
