2026 All-Buckeye NFL Team: Ohio State’s 53-Man Roster Includes Seven No. 1 Wide Receivers, Star-Studded Defense

After another 11 players from Ohio State were selected in the 2026 NFL draft, Ohio State now has 80 players in the league who are either on NFL rosters or free agents who played in the league last season. Most of them are either starters or regular contributors for their NFL teams, which means a team composed of all of them would be loaded, especially at wide receiver and along the defensive line.

As has been an annual exercise in the week following the NFL draft here at Eleven Warriors, I’ve put together what I think the 53-man roster and depth chart would look like if all of Ohio State’s NFL players were on the same team – as a way of looking at how just how much talent Ohio State has put in the NFL, and as a thought exercise for how that team might fare (probably quite well!) if it was a real NFL team.

Before we get into the roster and our analysis of how each position group would stack up in comparison to the average NFL roster, here are a few notes on how I put the roster together:

• Because NFL regular-season rosters are limited to 53 players, the All-Buckeye Team roster is, too. That’s why some active NFL players from Ohio State aren’t on the team, though we’ve also put together a practice squad with 16 of the top NFL Buckeyes that didn’t make the 53-man roster.
• To be eligible for the All-Buckeye Team, a player must either currently be on an active NFL roster or be an unretired free agent who played in at least one regular-season game in 2025.
• The depth chart and roster were built as if I were an NFL GM trying to build the best possible team to win a Super Bowl in 2026; it’s not a career achievement award, so players on the back ends of their careers were not guaranteed starting jobs or roster spots based on past accomplishments.
• There is no salary cap for the All-Buckeye Team.
• Players are eligible for the practice squad regardless of how many years of NFL service they have.
• Only players who finished their college careers at Ohio State are eligible for the All-Buckeye team, so you won’t find former Buckeyes who transferred elsewhere like Joe Burrow or Jameson Williams.
• The All-Buckeye team will utilize the same base defensive structure as Ohio State: a 4-2-5 with two defensive ends, two defensive tackles, two linebackers, two cornerbacks and three safeties.

The full depth chart for the 2026 All-Buckeye NFL Team:

Now, a full breakdown of how the All-Buckeye Team stacks up at every position:

QB: C.J. Stroud, Justin Fields, Will Howard

Stroud enters his fourth NFL season with a lot to prove after an inconsistent third year that included throwing four interceptions in the Houston Texans’ playoff loss to the New England Patriots, but he’s still one of the NFL’s best pure passers when he’s on his game. He’s already the second-leading passer from Ohio State (behind only Mike Tomczak) just three years into his NFL career, leading an All-Buckeye Team depth chart that includes three quarterbacks who could start games in 2026.

Fields’ chances of being a permanent starter in the NFL are likely over after he was benched by the New York Jets last season, but his dual-threat skill set still makes him a dynamic No. 2 quarterback, and he could begin 2026 as the Kansas City Chiefs’ starter as Patrick Mahomes recovers from a torn ACL. Will Howard saw no game action as a rookie after breaking a bone in his hand during the preseason, but he is a candidate to be the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting quarterback in 2026 if Aaron Rodgers retires.

Altogether, this is a quarterback depth chart that most NFL teams would be happy to have – which isn’t something that could be said about a trio of active NFL quarterbacks from Ohio State until recently.

RB: J.K. Dobbins, TreVeyon Henderson, Quinshon Judkins

Led by an excellent-when-healthy veteran in Dobbins and two of the NFL’s top rookie running backs last season in Henderson and Judkins, the All-Buckeye Team features outstanding running back depth with three starting-caliber players at the position.

Dobbins leads the way after averaging 77.2 rushing yards per game in 2025 – the sixth-best mark in the NFL – before suffering a season-ending foot injury. Henderson, who had four touchdown runs of 50-plus yards as a rookie, gives the All-Buckeye squad a major home-run threat in the backfield. Judkins proved a strong between-the-tackles runner in his first season as a Cleveland Brown, rushing for 827 yards and seven touchdowns before a season-ending ankle injury.

Health is the only concern for this unit, as Dobbins has never played a full 17-game season while Judkins is coming off the first major injury of his football career. Otherwise, this is the strongest running back unit the All-Buckeye Team has had in years, and would arguably be the best in the NFL.

WR: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Chris Olave, Terry McLaurin, Garrett Wilson, Emeka Egbuka, Marvin Harrison Jr., Carnell Tate

Carnell Tate was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft, yet he’ll have to fight just to earn a spot on the two-deep for the All-Buckeye Team. That speaks to just how loaded Ohio State’s contingent of NFL wide receivers is.

Smith-Njigba was the best receiver in the entire NFL last season, earning NFL Offensive Player of the Year honors as he caught 119 passes for 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns and led the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship. Olave was a second-team All-Pro last season after catching 100 passes for 1,163 yards and nine touchdowns. McLaurin and Wilson also rank among the NFL’s elite receivers, while Egbuka was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ top receiver as a rookie. Harrison’s had an up-and-down start to his NFL career, but the 2023 Biletnikoff Award winner still has superstar talent.

The All-Buckeye Team could have seven No. 1 receivers on actual NFL teams – that’s almost a quarter of the entire league – in 2026. Trying to stop this receiving corps would be absolute nightmare fuel for opposing secondaries, and it would make the All-Buckeye offense the NFL’s most dangerous.

Emeka Egbuka and Marvin Harrison Jr. are two of seven star receivers on the All-Buckeye NFL team. (Photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck – Imagn Images)

TE: Jeremy Ruckert, Luke Farrell, Max Klare, Will Kacmarek

Ohio State doesn’t have any star tight ends in the NFL, but the All-Buckeye team has more depth at tight end than it’s had in a long time – enough depth that 2024 fourth-round pick Cade Stover, the Texans’ No. 2 tight end last season, was displaced from the All-Buckeye roster this year.

Ruckert was the Jets’ starting tight end in 2025, catching 23 passes for 179 yards and a touchdown, though he’ll likely be a backup in 2026 after their first-round draft selection of Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq. Luke Farrell is entering his sixth year in the NFL as a reliable blocking specialist.

Klare, who caught 94 passes for 1,133 yards and six touchdowns in his final two college seasons at Purdue and Ohio State, gives the All-Buckeye team a coveted boost of playmaking ability at the tight end position, while fellow rookie Kacmarek adds another blocking specialist to pair with Farrell in heavy personnel packages.

This unit won’t scare opposing defenses the way the wide receivers and running backs will, but it’s a solid unit that can get the job done for an offense that will mostly need blocking from its tight ends with how stacked it is at wideout.

OT: Paris Johnson Jr., Josh Simmons, Taylor Decker, Dawand Jones

The All-Buckeye Team has the luxury of four offensive tackles who began last season as starting left tackles for their NFL teams.

Johnson has established himself as one of the NFL’s best young left tackles over the last two seasons. Simmons played in only eight games as a rookie due to a leave of absence from the team and a wrist injury, but excelled as a pass blocker when he was on the field.

Decker looks to be in the twilight of his NFL career, as he remains an unsigned free agent after openly contemplating retirement at the end of last season, but he was a Pro Bowler just two years ago amid a 10-year run as the Detroit Lions’ left tackle. Jones probably isn’t going to be a starter in 2026 after the Browns drafted Spencer Fano to replace him as their left tackle, but he was Cleveland’s top LT to begin 2025 before he suffered a season-ending knee injury.

All in all, the All-Buckeye team has an offensive tackle two-deep that would be the envy of many NFL teams.

G: Jonah Jackson, Donovan Jackson, Michael Jordan

Jackson and Jackson give the All-Buckeye team a quality pair of starting guards. Jonah Jackson had a strong bounceback season with the Chicago Bears in 2025, starting all 19 of their regular-season and postseason games at right guard after a rough one-year stint with the Los Angeles Rams in 2024, while Donovan Jackson had a good rookie year as the Minnesota Vikings’ left guard.

Jordan is an NFL journeyman who’s played for three different teams over the last three years, but he’s still played well enough to earn 20 starts over the last two seasons. The door will be open for Luke Montgomery and/or Austin Siereveld to take his spot on the All-Buckeye team in 2027, but Jordan gives the All-Buckeye squad a solid, experienced backup guard for 2026.

C: Josh Myers, Luke Wypler

Myers performed well enough in his first year as the New York Jets’ center last season to earn a two-year contract extension from the team, solidifying his standing as an NFL starter. Wypler ended last season as the Browns’ starting center, though he’ll drop back to being a backup in 2026 after the Browns signed Elgton Jenkins, who previously replaced Myers as the Packers’ starting center in 2025.

Overall, the All-Buckeye team’s interior offensive line projects as a league-average unit, but isn’t quite as deep as most of its other position groups.

DE: Nick Bosa, Chase Young, Jonathon Cooper, Dre’Mont Jones, Joey Bosa

Assuming he returns to his pre-injury form after tearing his ACL last season, Nick Bosa is one of the NFL’s elite defensive ends. Fellow No. 2 overall draft pick Chase Young is coming off the best year of his NFL career, proving he can be the disruptive force off the edge that he was expected to be coming out of Ohio State.

Cooper has recorded three straight seasons with eight sacks or more and is a leader for one of the NFL’s best defenses with the Denver Broncos. Jones, who’s made the transition from Ohio State defensive tackle to NFL edge rusher, is also coming off a career year that earned him a three-year, $36.5 million contract from the New England Patriots this offseason. Joey Bosa remains unsigned nearly two months into free agency, but he proved last year that he can still be an impact player, leading the entire NFL with five forced fumbles.

This defensive end rotation would be the deepest in the NFL – and it doesn’t even include Jack Sawyer, JT Tuimoloau, Zach Harrison, Tyquan Lewis, Caden Curry, as Ohio State has enough defensive ends in the NFL to fill two rosters at the position.

DT: Cameron Heyward, Tommy Togiai, DaVon Hamilton, Kayden McDonald, Tyleik Williams, Mike Hall Jr.

The only remaining member of the All-Buckeye team who played for Jim Tressel (though long snapper Jake McQuaide also played in the NFL last season), Heyward remains one of the NFL’s best defensive tackles at 36 years old (soon to be 37), earning second-team All-Pro honors last season. He’s joined in the starting lineup by Togiai, who didn’t even make the All-Buckeye team a year ago but is coming off an outstanding season in which he recorded 59 tackles for a Texans defense that led the NFL in points and yards allowed per game.

Togiai’s joined in the nose tackle rotation by Hamilton, who remains a steady starter for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and McDonald, who also joins Togiai in the real-life Texans defensive tackle unit after they selected him with the 36th overall pick in this year’s draft. Heyward is backed up by a pair of young, highly drafted 3-techniques in Williams and Hall, who have plenty of ability to be disruptive off the bench.

Cumulatively, the All-Buckeye defensive ends and defensive tackles would form the NFL’s best defensive line, led by a pair of superstars in Heyward and Nick Bosa.

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LB: Arvell Reese, Sonny Styles, Pete Werner, Cody Simon, Baron Browning

Linebacker goes from one of the All-Buckeye team’s weaker positions to a position of strength with the addition of two top-seven overall picks in Reese and Styles. Both 2025 All-Americans become immediate starters in an All-Buckeye linebacker corps that had lacked star power in recent years.

That said, the scarlet and gray all-star squad has excellent linebacker depth with Werner, who’s had four straight 80-tackle seasons as a starter for the New Orleans Saints, and Simon, who quickly established himself as a starting-caliber NFL linebacker with 76 tackles as a rookie last season.

Browning plays primarily as an edge rusher in the NFL, but moves back to linebacker – the position he played at Ohio State – due to the All-Buckeye team’s depth at defensive end, giving the All-Buckeye linebacker unit a pair of hybrid linebackers/edge rushers in Reese and Browning who can be chess pieces for the defense.

CB: Denzel Ward, Denzel Burke, Davison Igbinosun, Marshon Lattimore

Ward remains one of the NFL’s elite cornerbacks, earning his third straight Pro Bowl berth last season. Burke forms an All-Denzel starting cornerback tandem after an excellent rookie season for the Arizona Cardinals in which he led all first-year CBs with three interceptions and 11 passes defensed.

Igbinosun projects as the All-Buckeye team’s No. 3 outside cornerback after the Buffalo Bills picked him in the second round of this year’s draft. Lattimore’s days as an NFL starter could be over, as he’s currently unsigned after playing in only 38 games over the last four seasons, but the four-time Pro Bowler brings veteran depth to a position group where Ohio State doesn’t have as many firmly established players in the league right now as it does at most other positions.

S: Caleb Downs, Ronnie Hickman, Malik Hooker, Lathan Ransom, Jordan Hancock

Like Styles and Reese, Downs steps in as an immediate starter for the All-Buckeye team after an All-American career at Ohio State. The most NFL-ready player in the 2026 draft class, Downs projects to be the No. 1 safety for the All-Buckeye team right away, just as he will be for the Dallas Cowboys after they drafted him No. 11 overall.

He joins a pair of already-established starting safeties in Hickman, who had his best NFL season to date with 103 tackles in 2025, and Hooker, who Downs also joins in the Cowboys’ secondary. Ransom and Hancock both contributed to their teams’ defenses as rookies and offer quality depth for the All-Buckeye secondary, with Hancock offering the flexibility to play nickel cornerback in three-cornerback lineups.

Relatively speaking, the All-Buckeye secondary isn’t quite as strong across the board as the defensive front is, but it could still be among the NFL’s best if Downs becomes the star he’s expected to be.

K: None

Jayden Fielding went undrafted and to this point unsigned, so Ohio State doesn’t have a kicker in the NFL. That’s unlikely to change until at least 2029, as Connor Hawkins has three more years of collegiate eligibility, so the All-Buckeye team will have to get used to scoring lots of touchdowns and two-point conversions to make up for it.

P: Cameron Johnston

Johnston is set for his ninth season as an NFL punter after signing a one-year deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers this offseason. Johnston was among the NFL’s better punters for the first six years of his career. He’s been plagued by injuries for the past two seasons, however, appearing in just five total games, leaving special teams as the All-Buckeye team’s biggest area of concern.

LS: Liam McCullough

McCullough beats out Jake McQuaide and John Ferlmann for the All-Buckeye long snapping job as McQuaide nears the end of his NFL career and Ferlmann competes for a roster spot in Browns rookie minicamp while McCullough enters his fifth year as the Atlanta Falcons’ starting long snapper.

Practice Squad: DE Jack Sawyer, DE JT Tuimoloau, DE Zach Harrison, LB Malik Harrison, LB Jerome Baker, OT Josh Fryar, TE Cade Stover, WR Noah Brown, WR Curtis Samuel, LB Tommy Eichenberg, S Lorenzo Styles Jr., DE Tyquan Lewis, OT Thayer Munford, DT Ty Hamilton, DE Caden Curry, CB Jeff Okudah

All of these players have a good shot at being on NFL rosters this season – though Baker, Brown, Lewis, Munford, Okudah and Samuel are currently unsigned – but they’re relegated to the practice squad for the All-Buckeye team due to the depth of talent they had to compete against for only 53 spots on the Ohio State alumni team. Sawyer and Tuimoloau were particularly tough cuts, but it was hard to find a path to playing time for them in a defensive end unit that includes five established high-level NFL players in the Bosa brothers, Chase Young, Jonathon Cooper and Dre’Mont Jones.

Other eligible players for the All-Buckeye team who were left without roster spots include running backs Trey Sermon and CJ Donaldson, wide receiver Parris Campbell, tight end Nick Vannett, offensive lineman Ethan Onianwa, defensive linemen Jalyn Holmes and Tywone Malone Jr., cornerbacks Eli Apple, Damon Arnette and Kendall Sheffield and safety Jordan Fuller.