Jesse
Luketa.
Jesse
Luketa.
Penn St.· 6'3"· 253 lb· 4.89s 40
"The last pick of the 2022 draft, a Canadian tweener with no clean position, who stuck for three seasons in Arizona and produced three sacks and a game-saving forced fumble in his one real year."Pre-draft read
A 6-2 7/8, 253-pound hybrid defender who played off-ball linebacker and rushed from a stand-up edge at Penn State, built like a defensive end. He is a thumper, taking on pulling guards with his hands inside and stacking rather than sidestepping.
His athletic testing tells the story of a heavy linebacker: a 4.89 forty is slow for the position, but a 37.5-inch vertical and a 4.27 shuttle show short-area explosion and change of direction that let him work in a phone booth. He is at his best moving downhill on run fits and on special teams, where his size and closing burst travel to every coverage unit. The question is whether he has a true position at all.
An aggressive front that uses him as a heavy SAM against 12 personnel and lets him rush from a stand-up edge on obvious run downs.
Year 1: four-phase special teamer and run-down SAM. Ceiling: a rotational base linebacker who never leaves the field on early downs.
A light, two-high nickel defense that plays its linebackers in space on 70 percent of snaps, where his lack of long speed is exposed every drive.
His three-sack burst in 2024 came from interior pressure, not edge rush, which points to where his value actually lives.
Highlights: Penn State defensive lineman Jesse Luketa
The senior tape that got him drafted.
Jesse Luketa Penn State highlights
Run defense and edge reps at Penn State.
Jesse Luketa 2024 highlights
The three-sack stretch and the forced fumble against San Francisco.
Luketa was born in Edmonton, Alberta and is of Congolese descent, an unusual path to the Big Ten. He attended St. Patrick's in Ottawa before finishing at Mercyhurst Preparatory in Erie, Pennsylvania, which put him on American recruiting boards, and he signed with Penn State in the 2018 class.
He played mostly special teams as a freshman, appearing in five games with seven tackles, then grew into a rotational role with 24 tackles across 12 games in 2019. The breakthrough came in the shortened 2020 season, when he started at linebacker and put up 59 tackles in nine games with 2.5 tackles for loss and three passes broken up, a 6.6-tackle-per-game rate that ranked among the most productive on the roster.
His senior season moved him closer to the line of scrimmage and produced his best all-around film: 61 tackles in 12 games, 8.5 tackles for loss, half a sack, five quarterback hurries and a 16-yard interception return for a touchdown, earning third-team All-Big Ten. He finished with 148 career tackles over 38 games. Because of his Canadian citizenship he was also selected 20th overall in the second round of the 2022 CFL draft, giving him a professional option on both sides of the border.
- 01
Run defense
8.5 tackles for loss as a senior, taking on blocks with his hands inside and resetting the line of scrimmage.
- 02
Positional versatility
genuine reps at off-ball linebacker, stand-up edge and hand-in-the-dirt end across four Penn State seasons.
- 03
Short-area explosion
a 37.5-inch vertical and 4.27 shuttle at 253 pounds, which is real burst inside a heavy frame.
- 04
Special teams value
the size, tackling and want-to that makes a seventh-round pick stick on four coverage units.
- 05
Playmaking flash
a 16-yard interception returned for a touchdown as a senior, the kind of instinct that shows up on tape.
- 01
Long speed
a 4.89 forty is below the linebacker threshold and shows when he has to chase plays to the sideline.
- 02
No defined position
too heavy to cover backs, not bendy enough to win the edge, which shrinks his scheme fit.
- 03
Pass rush production
half a sack in four college seasons despite regular reps rushing from a stand-up edge alignment.
- 04
Coverage instincts
late to read route concepts underneath, which is the skill that separates backups from starters.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.89sp50
- Vertical
- 37.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 114inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Penn State | 5 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Penn State | 12 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Penn State | 9 | 59 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2021 | Penn State | 12 | 61 | 0.5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 38 | 148 | 0.5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Season tackle totals sum exactly to the published career figure of 148 over 38 games. Tackles for loss and passes defended are shown only for 2020 and 2021, the seasons cfbstats publishes them for him; the 2018 and 2019 splits are not verified and are left blank rather than filled with zeros, so no career TFL total is listed.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A heavy run-down linebacker whose career runs through special teams and depth roles.
A late-round tweener who turned inside rush reps into a real rotational role.
A late-round hybrid who never found a defined position and bounced between rosters.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Arizona used the very last pick of the 2022 draft on Luketa, released him at final cuts on August 30, signed him back to the practice squad the next day, and promoted him to the 53-man roster on September 27. He played seven games as a rookie with two tackles, almost all of it on special teams, and 14 games in 2023 with ten tackles.
His 2024 season was his real football: he missed the first four games as an inactive, debuted at San Francisco on October 6 and immediately forced a fumble on Jordan Mason in the fourth quarter, a play Mack Wilson recovered to set up the game-winning field goal in a 24-23 win. He recorded a sack in three straight games against Chicago, the Jets and at Seattle, where he made his first NFL start. He finished with 19 tackles, three sacks and a forced fumble in ten games before a season-ending injury. Los Angeles signed him to the practice squad on November 18, 2025, where he spent the rest of the season and the postseason. New England signed him to a reserve/futures contract on March 5, 2026 and released him at final cuts on August 30, 2026. His line sits at 31 games, 31 tackles, three sacks and one forced fumble, which is honest value from pick 256.