Laiatu Latu Full Scouting Report

The Indianapolis Colts selected Laiatu Latu with the 15th pick in the draft. Latu was the first defensive player selected. Here is a full breakdown of Latu’s game:

Strengths

Extremely productive player over the course of two seasons
Shows the ability to play on the edge (5 or 7 tech) or inside as a stand up 3 tech. He wins from all spots.
Very active, quick and violent hands; shows a good variety of hand fighting moves. The quickness of the movements can’t be understated. His rips, swats and counters are especially good.
Quick first step and always the fastest of the line to get cross the line of scrimmage (see Latu below at the top of the screenshot)
Great bend; makes him very tough to block when he has a step on the offensive tackle.
Shows the ability to drop into coverage and take away short route passing lanes (slants, hooks).
Shows good effort throughout his rep; doesn’t give up and doesn’t stay blocked throughout a rep.

Weaknesses

There are medical concerns about his neck injury that he had while he played for Washington.
He doesn’t have the strength to overpower his opponents so strong offensive tackles with good anchors will be a tough test for him.
While he anticipates well against the run, he can sometimes get over excited and jump too hard or too quickly and get caught out of position

Other Information

Played at Washington from 2019 to 2021 before moving to UCLA from 2022 to 2023.
He won the Ted Hendricks Award in 2023 as college football’s top defensive end.
He also won the Lombardi trophy given to the player “who best embodies the values and spirt of Vince Lombardi”
He was also a Unanimous All American in 2023 and a 2 time first team All Pac-12 (2022, 2023)
A neck injury suffered in 2020 fall practices was so serious that he retired from football after Washington team doctors deemed the injury too dangerous to play through as he had not recovered properly. After switching to UCLA in 2022, their team doctors cleared him to play and he played two seasons without any issues known to the public. According to Chris Ballard, Colts team doctors did not have worries about the injury.

Stats

2019: 8 Games | 15 tackles, 1.5 for loss | 0.5 Sacks, 1 pass deflection

2020: Did not see game action

2021: Did not play due to injury (neck)

2022: 13 Games | 36 tackles, 12.5 for loss | 10.5 sacks | 1 pass deflection | 1 fumble recovery, 3 forced fumbles

2023: 12 Games | 49 tackles, 21.5 for loss | 13 sacks | 2 interceptions, 2 pass deflections | 2 forced fumbles

Summary

There are prospects where you’re struggling to find strengths and then there are prospects where you’re struggling to find weaknesses; Latu is the latter. Outside...