K'Lavon
Chaisson.
K'Lavon
Chaisson.
LSU· 6'3"· 254 lb
"One of the fastest first steps in the entire class attached to a single healthy season and almost no pass-rush plan, a bet that burst would outrun missing technique."Pre-draft read
Stand-up edge rusher in LSU's front who won with get-off before he won with hands. He fired out of a two-point stance with an explosive first step, bent the corner with real ankle flexion, and forced tackles to open early. Speed-to-power was his counter of choice, converting that burst into a bull rush that walked slower tackles into the pocket.
Against the run he was a chase-and-effort player rather than a point-of-attack setter, quick to the ball on backside pursuit but light when asked to hold an edge against a down block. The signature was the burst off the ball: one of the fastest edges in the class getting from stance to quarterback in a straight line.
Attacking one-gap front that lets him rush from a wide alignment on obvious passing downs rather than asking him to set a hard edge every snap.
Year 1: designated third-down rusher and sub-package piece. Ceiling: high-volume situational edge who lives at 7-9 sacks a season.
Two-gap 3-4 that asks him to hold the point against down blocks and play base defense on early downs, where his lack of anchor is exposed every drive.
The Patriots got the best out of him by narrowing his job description rather than widening it.
LSU LB K'Lavon Chaisson 2019 Highlights
The full healthy season that produced the first-round grade.
2019 Peach Bowl Defensive MVP: K'Lavon Chaisson, LSU
Playoff semifinal against Oklahoma, the single loudest performance of his college career.
K'Lavon Chaisson Ultimate Highlights
Career cut-up showing the get-off, the bend and the speed-to-power conversion.
Chaisson came out as a one-year producer with two years of injury and a first step scouts fell in love with. He played 26 games across three seasons at LSU, lost 2018 to a torn ACL after a single appearance, and then had the only full healthy season of his college career in 2019, on a national championship defense.
That season carried the whole file: 60 tackles, 14 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks, plus Defensive MVP honors in the Peach Bowl playoff semifinal against Oklahoma. The tape showed an explosive, bendy rusher with a legitimate speed-to-power conversion and almost no developed pass-rush plan beyond it. His hands were slow to arrive, he rarely countered inside, and he spent long stretches of games invisible against tackles who could match his initial burst. Run defense was effort-based, not anchor-based.
The board treated him as a top-20 athlete and a late-first-round grade, a traits-over-production swing with obvious medical and technique risk. Jacksonville took him 20th overall to pair with Josh Allen, betting that a first step this rare would eventually find a plan around it.
- 01
Elite get-off
Fires out of a two-point stance with a first step that forces tackles to open their hips early and concede the edge before contact.
- 02
Corner bend
Flexes his ankles and drops his inside shoulder through the arc, keeping his path tight to the quarterback instead of running past the pocket.
- 03
Speed-to-power
Converts the burst into a bull rush that walks average tackles backward, his most reliable finishing move against sets that overcommit.
- 04
Coverage flexibility
Comfortable dropping from a stand-up alignment, which let LSU disguise pressure and gives a defensive coordinator real menu options.
- 05
Peach Bowl proof
Defensive MVP of the 2019 playoff semifinal against Oklahoma, the biggest stage of his career and the tape that sold the first round.
- 01
No rush plan
Wins with athleticism rather than sequencing, with slow hands and few counters once a tackle survives the initial burst.
- 02
Edge setting
Gets displaced by down blocks and tight ends, playing the run on effort and pursuit instead of holding the point with leverage.
- 03
Thin production
One full college season and 9.5 career sacks in 26 games, a sample too small to know what he actually is.
- 04
Medical file
Lost 2018 to a torn ACL after one game, leaving an injury question attached to a player whose value is entirely explosive movement.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | LSU | 12 | 27 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2018 | LSU | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | LSU | 13 | 60 | 6.5 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Career | — | 26 | 92 | 9.5 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
Parsed from Sports-Reference CFB career page via Firecrawl.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Top-of-the-draft LSU edge athlete who settles into a long rotational and special teams career instead of a starting job.
The ceiling if the hands develop: an explosive edge who grows into a double-digit sack season inside the right front.
First-round rusher who never finds a plan, bounces between teams and washes out of the rotation entirely.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jacksonville drafted him to be the other half of an edge duo and never got a starter. He played 16 games as a rookie with three starts and one sack, then eight starts and one sack in 2021, fell out of the rotation in 2022, and finished his Jaguars run in 2023 with two sacks across 17 games and no starts. The fifth-year option was never a conversation. Las Vegas signed him for 2024 and got the first real return on the traits: five sacks in 15 games. New England was next, and 2025 was his best professional season by a wide margin, 16 games with 10 starts, 7.5 sacks, two forced fumbles and a fumble return touchdown. Washington signed him for 2026 and he opened the year as a starter, with a sack in Week 2 against Dallas. Through seven seasons he has 90 games, 27 starts and 18.5 sacks.
The retrospective is a lesson about buying a first step without a plan attached. Everything the pre-draft file flagged came true in Jacksonville: no counters, no anchor, invisible stretches, and a team that needed production immediately rather than a three-year technique build. He eventually became a useful rotational rusher, which is a real NFL career and a poor return on pick 20 in a draft where the next several edges outproduced him. The player found his level, just not on the timeline or the roster that paid for him.
Data note: from LA Rams