Titus
Leo.
Titus
Leo.
Wagner· 6'3"· 245 lb· 4.69s 40
"A two-time captain who turned a linebacker's range into 40 career tackles for loss on the edge — the FCS bet where you draft the motor and the special-teams value, then hope a rush plan shows up."Pre-draft read
Leo was Wagner's designated problem: a stand-up end who spent two years as an off-ball linebacker before the staff walked him down to the edge. He rushes from a two-point stance with a long gathering first step, converts speed to power through a heavy inside arm, and finishes with real closing burst — the trait behind 40 career tackles for loss.
The secondary trait is versatility born of that linebacker past: he can drop, sit in throwing lanes, and chase screens sideline to sideline rather than living as a pure pin-your-ears rusher. Against the run he sets a firm but occasionally soft-shouldered edge, preferring to slip and shoot the gap. The signature is relentlessness — snap 60 looks like snap 6.
Multiple front that uses a stand-up SAM/rush linebacker on early downs and a designated sub-package speed rusher on third down
Year 1: core four-phase special-teams player who rotates 10-15 rush snaps behind two established edges. Ceiling: a fourth edge and top special-teams contributor who wins on effort and third-down speed.
A two-gap 3-4 front that asks a 245-pound end to hold the C-gap against 320-pound tackles on run downs — he gets displaced and the motor stops mattering.
The linebacker background is worth more than his rush counters: any staff willing to use him as a coverage-capable SAM gets more from him than one that lines him up as a pure hand-in-dirt end.
Titus Leo - Draft Prospect Highlights
Wagner edge reel: speed-to-power wins, backside chase and the tackle-for-loss volume that defined his 2021-22 tape.
NEC Game of the Week: Wagner downs LIU, 37-26 (10.21.22)
Full NEC broadcast from his senior year — useful for seeing his alignment and run-defense reps in live game context.
Titus Leo highlights - Patriots vs Bills, Week 18 2024
His NFL snaps: the December-January stretch in New England that produced the only four tackles of his pro career.
Titus Leo is a five-year Wagner starter with a converted-linebacker background, a two-time captain who moved from second-level defender to full-time edge and turned into the best defensive player in the Northeast Conference. At 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds he is a tweener by NFL body type: too light to hold up as a base end, athletic and rangy enough to project as a stand-up rush linebacker who plays special teams first and earns snaps later.
The production is real and it is loud. He totaled 234 tackles, 40 tackles for loss, 13 sacks and six forced fumbles across 38 games, peaking in 2021 with 71 stops, 18.5 tackles for loss and seven sacks — a season that made him NEC Defensive Player of the Year for a second straight time, a first-team FCS All-American and a Buck Buchanan Award finalist. The flags are the ones every FCS edge carries: the competition is a level down, the pass-rush plan is more effort than counter, and the anchor gets moved when a real tackle latches on.
The board treated him as exactly that projection. He was not invited to the Combine, tested well enough at his pro day, and most services graded him as late-round roster depth. Taking him at No. 211 is the right kind of bet — a two-time captain with special-teams value and a trait to develop.
- 01
Relentless motor
plays every snap at the same temperature, chasing screens and backside runs to the sideline and finishing plays that most edge rushers on his tape have already quit on.
- 02
Elite FCS production
40 career tackles for loss and 13 sacks, with an 18.5-TFL season in 2021 that ranked eighth nationally and made him a Buck Buchanan Award finalist.
- 03
Closing burst
the gap between beating a blocker and touching the quarterback closes fast, which is why so much of his disruption ends as a tackle for loss rather than a pressure.
- 04
Positional versatility
two seasons as an off-ball linebacker before the move to edge, so he can drop, spot-drop and cover ground in space instead of only rushing.
- 05
Leadership and durability
a two-time captain who started 33 of the 38 games he played and never missed time after his 2018 leg injury, with special-teams reps already on tape.
- 01
Level of competition
the disruption came against NEC offensive tackles, and the projection asks him to beat NFL starters with a plan he never had to build in college.
- 02
Play strength at the point
at 245 pounds he gets displaced when a heavy tackle gets hands inside, and he too often slips blocks rather than stacking and shedding.
- 03
Limited pass-rush toolbox
the win is speed-to-power or effort, with a soft counter library and little bend-and-corner ability when the first move is stalled.
- 04
Late developmental curve
he turned 24 during his rookie season, so the athletic and technical growth teams usually bank on with a project is already partly spent.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.69sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- 129inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Wagner | 3 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | Wagner | 11 | 68 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2020 | Wagner | 2 | 15 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2021 | Wagner | 11 | 71 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | Wagner | 11 | 65 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Career | — | 38 | 234 | 13 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
All five seasons verified line by line against Wagner's official season defensive statistics (wagnerathletics.com team stats, 2018/2019/2020/2021/2022). Wagner is FCS, so cfbstats.com does not archive the program; the NEC played its 2020 season in spring 2021 (two games), listed here under year 2020. Season sums match the career line exactly (38 games, 234 tackles, 40.0 TFL, 13.0 sacks, 6 FF), which also matches the totals in the Colts' draft release. Starts (33 of 38, per the Colts release) are not tracked in this shape; QB hurries (11) and blocked kicks (3) are recorded by Wagner but omitted here.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- First-team FCS All-American (2021, HERO Sports)
- Stats Perform FCS Third-team All-American (2021)
- NEC Defensive Player of the Year (2020 spring season, 2021)
- First-team All-NEC (2020, 2021, 2022)
- Buck Buchanan Award finalist (2021)
- Two-time Wagner team captain
Small-school edge with real college disruption who becomes a practice-squad and bottom-of-roster professional, bouncing between teams for years on effort and special teams.
The tweener edge/linebacker who survived on football IQ, versatility and special teams until a scheme finally fit — Leo's best available outcome, not his likely one.
Long, high-motor developmental end who never builds a rush plan, loses the roster spot to the next draft class and washes out before a fourth season.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Indianapolis drafted him as a defensive end and never got a regular-season snap: Leo went on injured reserve on August 29, 2023 and lost his entire rookie year. He survived the 2024 roster cut only to be waived and re-signed to the Colts practice squad, and New England finally gave him a jersey, signing him off that practice squad in November 2024. He played four games as a Patriot down the stretch and logged four tackles and a pass defensed — the whole of his NFL production so far. The years since have been the special-teams circuit: released by New England in April 2025, claimed and waived by Tennessee, signed and waived by Cleveland inside two weeks, then a stop-start run on the Philadelphia practice squad. San Francisco signed him in August 2026 and waived him injured seventeen days later; he reverted to their injured reserve for the season.
The pick itself was not the mistake. At No. 211 you are buying a captain with a trait and letting the special-teams coach decide whether he sticks, and Leo's tape justified that ticket. What the evaluation underrated was how much of his college disruption was effort and level rather than a rush plan, and how little margin a 245-pound edge has when the first move fails. The lost rookie year removed the one thing a developmental FCS project cannot spare, and he has been playing catch-up on someone else's roster bubble ever since.