Big Blue View
It was regarded as a surprise when Ohio State defender Arvell Reese fell to the New York Giants at No. 5 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Reese was widely projected to be drafted somewhere in the range of picks 2 to 4. And even then, Reese was not widely considered an option for the Giants because he was almost universally evaluated as an edge prospect in the mold of Micah Parsons and Abdul Carter.
And given that the Giants already boast Brian Burns, Carter, and Kayvon Thibodeaux at edge defender, the idea of them drafting another pass rusher was widely dismissed.
Right up until the Giants drafted Reese. John Harbaugh and Joe Schoen told the New York media up front that while Reese would rush the passer as a blitzer, he would be playing (weak side) linebacker. Rather than treat him as a convert and a project, the Giants are going to play Reese in the same way he was used at Ohio State.
In that light, it now seems like something of a blind spot that Reese is still being evaluated as an edge defender and not a linebacker — a blind spot that’s enabling poor analysis of the Giants’ defense elsewhere.
So in an effort to fix that blind spot, I dove back into Reese’s tape to evaluate him purely as a linebacker. That’s a different grading sheet with different traits from my original scouting report in April.
In a change from my usual scouting reports, I’ll be peeling back the curtain a bit in this one and sharing some of my process. As part of that, I’ll share the 11 traits on which Reese was graded, the grades for each of those, and the final grade.
Ed has repeatedly asked me to add grades to my scouting reports, but I’ve consistently refused. I generally believe they’ll detract from a more nuanced conversation. However, in this case, I think they might be constructive.
These traits that every football player should have are the same for every single prospect scouted. Obviously, different positions are held to different standards, and a guard who runs a 4.9-second 40-yard dash with a 30-inch vertical would be considered to be much more athletic than a receiver with the same numbers. That said, tape is king, and a player who moves well with quickness and fluidity, or visibly keeps up with a player we know to be an excellent athlete, can score well, too.
Likewise, we’re looking for the other traits on tape. That means things like quickly recognizing and reacting to opponents’ plays, giving high effort in pursuit, limited hesitation or indecision, or winning physical one-on-one matchups.
Athleticism: 9
Mental Processing: 8
Competitive Toughness: 9
Play Speed: 8
Play Strength: 9
We only have Reese’s 40 time (4.46 seconds at 6-foot-4, 241 pounds), but we don’t need a stopwatch and tape measure to tell us that he’s an excellent athlete for the linebacker position. Reese is obviously fast in...
