Leo
Chenal.
Leo
Chenal.
Wisconsin· 6'3"· 250 lb· 4.53s 40
Chenal is a 260-pound downhill thumper who plays the run like a collision sport. He fills gaps with his shoulder pads square, takes on pulling guards head-on instead of sliding off them, and finishes tackles with a violence that shows up on every rep of Wisconsin tape. For a body that size he triggers downhill with unusual suddenness and rarely misses in the box.
The second skill is the blitz. Wisconsin sent him from depth and from the edge and he converted 18.5 tackles for loss and eight sacks as a junior by simply running through the blocker in his path. In space he is stiff and plays behind the route in man coverage, so the projection is an early-down and short-yardage weapon, not a three-down chess piece.
A gap-sound base defense that keeps a heavy linebacker on the field for early downs and uses him as a downhill pressure player in short yardage.
Year 1: a base-down linebacker for 250 to 300 snaps plus heavy special-teams work. Ceiling: a near-full-time starter who anchors the run defense and posts 100 tackles with a handful of sacks, coming off the field only in obvious passing situations.
A defense that plays nickel and dime as its base and asks its linebackers to match tight ends and backs in man coverage on 70 percent of snaps, which would leave him on the bench for most of a game.
The value depends entirely on a coordinator who is comfortable substituting. Teams that need one linebacker to play every snap should not draft him.
Highlights: Wisconsin Linebacker Leo Chenal | Big Ten Football in the 2022 NFL Draft
Big Ten Network's draft reel of the junior season that won him the Butkus-Fitzgerald award.
Leo Chenal Wisconsin Highlights | The Most Violent LB In The NFL Draft
A cut focused on the collisions in the box that defined his evaluation.
Leo Chenal Blitzing Ability || Kansas City Chiefs LB || 2022 NFL Draft
His pressure package: the interior blitzes that produced 18.5 tackles for loss.
Chenal was a Wisconsin kid who arrived as an early enrollee and became the modern version of the Badgers linebacker archetype: enormous, physical, and built to eat blocks in the Big Ten. He played 11 games as a freshman in 2019 with 20 tackles, then broke out in the seven-game COVID season of 2020 with 46 tackles, six tackles for loss, three sacks, a forced fumble and an interception, earning honorable mention All-Big Ten.
The junior year was one of the best linebacker seasons in the country. In 11 games he piled up 115 tackles, 18.5 tackles for loss and eight sacks, winning the Butkus–Fitzgerald Linebacker of the Year award and first-team All-Big Ten honors. The signature tape is a body of work against Big Ten run games where he consistently met guards in the hole and won, which is a rarer trait than any coverage rep he could have produced.
He declared for the draft in January rather than return for a senior year, and then tested better than his frame suggested: 4.53 in the forty at 250 pounds with a 40.5-inch vertical. Boards were split between the early-down thumper label and the two-down concern, which is precisely how a player with that production slides to the third round. Kansas City, needing size and special-teams force next to Nick Bolton, took him at 103.
- 01
Run-game force
Takes on and defeats pulling guards at the point of attack, a genuinely rare skill that makes him an immediate answer against gap-scheme run games.
- 02
Tackling
Finishes with violence and consistency in the box; ball-carriers stop when he arrives, and he almost never lets a runner fall forward.
- 03
Blitz production
18.5 tackles for loss and eight sacks as a junior, most of them generated by running through the blocking back rather than around him.
- 04
Athleticism for the size
4.53 forty and a 40.5-inch vertical at 250 pounds, which is why the downhill trigger looks faster than the frame implies.
- 05
Special-teams value
A 260-pound linebacker who moves that well is an instant core four contributor and a credible field-goal block interior rusher.
- 01
Coverage in space
Stiff in transition and late to drive on routes, which makes him a liability if a team asks him to cover a back one-on-one.
- 02
Change of direction
Long strider whose hips limit redirection; mobile quarterbacks and outside zone teams can get him running the wrong way.
- 03
Two-down projection
The profile points to a base-defense player who comes off the field in nickel, a real cost for a premium roster spot.
- 04
Pursuit angles
Occasionally overcommits downhill on play-action and misdirection, opening cutback lanes behind his aggressive first step.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.53sp50
- Vertical
- 40.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 128inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Wisconsin | 11 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Wisconsin | 7 | 46 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | Wisconsin | 11 | 115 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Career | — | 29 | 181 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
2020 and 2021 read directly from cfbstats (Wisconsin team 796, player 1106589): 7 games, 46 tackles, 6.0 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks, 1 interception, 1 pass breakup, 1 forced fumble; and 11 games, 115 tackles, 18.5 tackles for loss, 8.0 sacks, 2 forced fumbles. 2019 comes from the official Wisconsin season record (11 games, 20 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, 1 sack); cfbstats does not index the 2019 Wisconsin roster page. The three seasons sum to the career line carried here. Pass breakups and fumble recoveries for 2019 are not published and are left null rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A physical base-defense starter who plays a heavy but not complete snap share and holds a job for a decade on toughness and reliability.
The ceiling is a productive full-time starter whose tackle volume and run defense make him a defensive cornerstone despite coverage limitations.
A two-down thumper who gets squeezed off the field as offenses spread out, leaving him a special-teams contributor with a short shelf life.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Kansas City found the exact role. Chenal played 17 games with eight starts as a rookie in 2022, then 17 with 10 starts in 2023 and 17 with 14 in 2024, growing from a sub-package thumper into a near-full-time defender while remaining a core special-teamer with 280 to 300 special-teams snaps a year. He won Super Bowls LVII and LVIII with the Chiefs, and his signature NFL play may be knocking the ball out of Christian McCaffrey on the opening drive of Super Bowl LVIII. In 2025 he started 12 of 14 games, intercepted Lamar Jackson one-handed, and finished on injured reserve in December.
Washington paid for it. He signed a three-year, $24.75 million deal in March 2026, which is starter money for a player drafted at 103. Through five seasons he has 66 games, 44 starts, 221 combined tackles, seven sacks, three forced fumbles and two rings. The coverage limitations were real and never fully disappeared, but Kansas City used him where he wins and let the special-teams value carry the rest of the snaps. That is a clear hit, and a model for how to draft a two-down linebacker.