We are now just over a week away from the 2026 East-West Shrine Bowl and two weeks away from the 2026 Panini Senior Bowl. Draft season is fully upon us even if the NFL playoffs are still headed to their pinnacle. With the Bucs needing to address their linebacker room, I am trying to go deep on scouting both potential free agents as well as draft eligible inside linebackers.

A quick rundown of evals already completed:

NFL: Devin Bush

Draft: Sonny Styles, Owen Heinecke, Kyle Louis

As I watched Styles, it was impossible not to see his running mate, Arvell Reese, making plays. And so, I went back to Ohio State to take a look at the true Junior.

Arvell Reese Background

Arvell Reese was a four-star recruit (202^nd overall – #18 linebacker) from Glenville, HS in Ohio in the 2023 recruiting cycle. Reese had offers from Penn State and Alabama. He was instrumental in leading his high school team to the state title in 2022.

College Career

Reese appeared in six games as a freshman in 2023, but a concussion kept him from contributing more. As a true sophomore he stepped into a larger role, starting five of 16 games and averaging 19 defensive snaps per game. As a junior he became a full-time starter, recording 69 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, and 6.5 sacks.

Reese was an All-American in 2025.

Scouting Report

Games watched: Illinois 2025, Penn State 2025, Indiana 2025

Arvell Reese is an extremely strong, athletic, powerful, physical and tenacious player who can take on any assignment asked of a modern-day linebacker. He is at his best working downhill, wreaking havoc and creating car crashes.

Athletic Profile

Height – 6-4

Weight – 243

Reese has explosive speed to track down ball carriers in space. He closes with authority. Long arms help keep blockers off his frame and his eyes on the ball. His balance when working through contact downhill is impressive.

Run Fitting

He has the strength and leverage to dominate tight ends physically when walked up on the end of the line. He sets a strong edge to re-route runners back inside and loves to assert his physicality by throwing blockers to the ground every chance he can get.

Reese isn’t afraid to drop his shoulder and take on pulling linemen without giving up any ground. His long arms help him keep blockers off his frame and disengage to make tackles away from his frame.

Ohio State ILB Arvell Reese – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Adam Cairns

He can take poor angles on occasion leading to gains that should be less, but his ability to get to spots to make plays far away from where he’s lined up does evoke the adage sideline-to-sideline speed. But he doesn’t stack-and-shed and disengage from blocks as often as I would expect given his physical gifts.

Coverage

Arvell Reese uses his hands to strike and re-route as receivers get near him early in routes. He works quickly to blow up perimeter screens. He displays good instincts around the line of scrimmage to quickly transition from fitting the run to pass coverage off play action. Reese can stay attached to tight ends releasing on benders due to loose hips.

He has quick hips to transition from one direction to the next as he reacts to route developments and throwing windows. He isn’t timid to pass off routes and get to the right crosser on mesh concepts.

Reese sticks well on short in-breakers when matched up with tight ends in man coverage. He also sifts and sorts through traffic to find backs on late releases out of the backfield. He has a natural feel for where to sit in zones. It’s not as high as Sonny Styles, but it is still plus.

He has plenty of speed and smooth transitions to run the middle in Tampa-2 and carry the seam on weak hooks. He almost never gets shaken by backs trying to beat him with two-way breaks out of the backfield.

Pass Rush

He has rare strength and power for an off-ball linebacker which is why some will think he could profile better as an edge. I don’t agree with this as I think he lacks the natural bend and independent hand usage to thrive in that role, but he could be one of the better pass-rushing off-ball linebackers at the next level. But for an off-ball linebacker, he has a good dip.

From depth he comes fast and strong and can blow up running backs, fighting through them on his way to the quarterback. Off the edge, he uses speed to power to overwhelm unsuspecting tackles, working to a long arm to finish strong.

His long arms help him pull down the quarterback even when he hasn’t won clean off a block.

Ohio State LB Arvell Reese is up to 6.5 sacks on the season.

Here are all of his sacks: pic.twitter.com/bZEUgEy0bb

— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) November 11, 2025

Best Traits

• Strength – his strength is rare for his position to take on anything an offense can throw at him and destroy whatever is in his way.
• Scheme versatility – He can execute in any system.
• Pass Rush – his ability to dent the pocket, win 1v1 and get the quarterback on the ground allows defensive coordinators to open up their playbook.

Another week, another Arvell Reese cutup. The 6-4, 245-pound freak is wreaking havoc every week and rising into a tier of one of the very best players in the draft class.

Lots of ball left, but he’s been one of the best defenders in the nation. pic.twitter.com/WVhc8DjPP8

— Cory (@fakecorykinnan) September 29, 2025

How Does He Fit The Bucs’ System And What Is His Best Role?

Arvell Reese looks to be the prototypical linebacker for a modern multiple-style defense. He is at home walked up on the line as a fifth rusher in the vein of a traditional Sam backer and can win one-on-one with power against both tight ends and tackles. He can also operate from a mugged-up positioning putting pressure on centers and guards up the middle or creating clean lanes for loopers or dropping into coverage with smooth and efficient movements.

Off the line, he can get downhill quickly to help support in run fits, absorbing pullers and finding the ball carrier.

Ohio State ILB Arvell Reese – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Adam Cairns

He would be an ideal fit for Todd Bowles’ hybrid Bucs defense, adept at morphing his role on a game-to-game basis. I see him ideally as a will, or weakside linebacker, where he can add on to the line from the edge to morph the defense into a five-man front in nickel packages.

Hear Arvell Speak

NFL Draft evaluations are as much about the person as the player. 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 must 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 that we evaluate.

With that in mind, here is Arvell Reese talking prior to 2025 about stepping into a starting role, how he learned how to prepare from teammate Sonny Styles, and how he describes his game.

What I appreciated most from this exchange was Reese’s intentionality about being around the ball and how he looked to other players to learn how to prepare himself to be the best he could be.

I have a second-round grade on Reese and believe he will be one of the 32 best players in the draft. For questions about how I can have those two things in the same sentence, here is a more detailed breakdown of my grading process.