Jaylon
Carlies.
Jaylon
Carlies.
Missouri· 6'3"· 227 lb· 4.50s 40
"Too big for the slot and too rangy for the box, Carlies was drafted for the position he had not played yet: a safety with the frame to be a linebacker."Pre-draft read
Carlies was Missouri's big nickel-safety hybrid, a 6-3, 227-pound defender who spent most of his snaps in the box and closed the alley like a linebacker. He triggered downhill fast, took clean angles to the ball carrier and finished with pop, and the length showed up in traffic — he could reach through a block and still make the tackle at the second level.
Coverage was the other half. A converted receiver, he tracked the football naturally and posted nine career interceptions playing zone drops, seam matches and man reps on tight ends. He was not a deep-third free safety and did not have the change of direction to mirror slot receivers, but the size-speed profile at 4.50 gave him a matchup role no ordinary linebacker could fill.
Sub-package-heavy zone defense that plays nickel as its base and wants a third-level defender who can cover a tight end, drop into a hook zone and still be a run fitter.
Year 1: core special teamer and dime linebacker who plays 20-30 defensive snaps a week in coverage-first packages. Ceiling: full-time WILL in a two-high defense where his range and ball skills are the point.
A downhill 3-4 that asks its inside linebackers to take on pulling guards every snap — his take-on strength gets swallowed and the coverage value goes unused.
The 4.50 speed only matters in a scheme willing to define a hybrid role for him; in a rigid safety depth chart he is a special teamer.
NFL Draft Film Ep 769: Jaylon Carlies / S / Missouri / Full Highlights
Full cutup of his box-safety work and downhill run fits at Missouri.
Jaylon Carlies (Missouri Safety) vs South Carolina 2023
Single-game tape from his final season showing coverage drops and tackling in the alley.
2024 NFL DRAFT: Jaylon Carlies | Indianapolis Colts
Draft-day reel framing the projection from safety to weakside linebacker.
Carlies arrived at Missouri as a receiver and left it as one of the most physically distinctive defenders in the SEC. Six-three and 227 with a linebacker's trigger and a safety's ball skills, he was a hybrid the modern game keeps asking for: too big to be a slot corner, too rangy to be a base linebacker, and best used as the defender who covers a tight end and fills the alley on the same drive.
The production backed the frame. He was a three-year starter who put up 68 tackles with four interceptions in 2021, then a career-best 81 tackles and three picks in 2022, and finished with 64 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and two sacks in 2023 as Missouri won 11 games. Nine career interceptions from a box defender is not a normal number, and the tape showed why: he read the quarterback and closed on the throw.
The board treated him as a projection more than a plug-and-play safety. Evaluators liked the size, the run fits and the special-teams value, and flagged tight hips, a stiff pedal and coverage limits that would show against NFL separators. Indianapolis took him at 151 with a specific plan: move him to weakside linebacker and let the athleticism do the covering that the position now demands.
- 01
Size-speed profile
Six-three, 227 pounds with a 4.50 forty, a frame that lets him cover tight ends and still fill the alley against SEC running backs.
- 02
Ball production
Nine career interceptions from a box defender, including a four-pick 2021, driven by reading the quarterback rather than the receiver.
- 03
Downhill trigger
Diagnoses run action quickly and attacks the line of scrimmage with clean angles instead of drifting laterally.
- 04
Length in traffic
Extends through blocks and reaches ball carriers other second-level defenders let slip past the tackle box.
- 05
Positional versatility
Logged snaps at deep safety, big nickel, box safety and matched on tight ends across three years of starting.
- 01
Hip tightness
Stiff transitions out of the pedal mean quick slot receivers can win on the double move before he flips and recovers.
- 02
Man coverage limits
Struggles to mirror sudden route runners in space; his coverage value comes from zone reads, not sticky technique.
- 03
Take-on strength
Not yet strong enough to stack and shed guards at the point of attack if he plays true linebacker snaps.
- 04
Position projection
Neither a natural free safety nor a proven off-ball linebacker, so his value depends entirely on the scheme drawing a role for him.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.50sp50
- Vertical
- 32.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 125inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 20repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Missouri | 10 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Missouri | 13 | 68 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | Missouri | 13 | 81 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| 2023 | Missouri | 12 | 64 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 |
| Career | — | 48 | 221 | 3 | 9 | 9 | 3 |
Per cfbstats.com season pages (Missouri 2020-2023); season totals sum exactly to the career line shown. Interception return yardage: 51 in 2021, 14 in 2022. Fumble recoveries only verified for 2023, so the other seasons and the career figure 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.
Traits-first hybrid who plays real snaps in sub packages without ever locking down a single position.
Ceiling as an oversized hybrid who becomes a full-time starter by owning the box-safety and dime-linebacker roles.
Athletic tweener who lives on special teams and never carves out a defensive role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Indianapolis converted him immediately and the transition took. He was on the field by September of his rookie year, playing the third linebacker role in the Colts' 4-3 base, and finished 2024 with 36 tackles, a sack and a pass defensed across 10 games with six starts, holding the receivers he covered to 6.0 yards per catch — the exact reason the team drafted a safety to play the position. A lower-leg injury sent him to injured reserve in late October and cost him five games before he returned for the stretch run. Then 2025 disappeared. He hurt his ankle in early August, spent the season on IR, was activated in Week 14 and played only three games with one tackle. By the 2026 offseason Indianapolis had rebuilt the inside linebacker room and he was fighting for a roster spot rather than a role.
In hindsight the projection was right and the availability was not. The Colts identified the conversion correctly and got real rookie snaps out of a fifth-rounder, which is the whole point of that range. Two injury-shortened years later, he is a special-teams-and-depth linebacker whose value still depends on staying healthy long enough to show the coverage traits the pick was built on.
Data note: Per cfbstats.com season pages (Missouri 2020-2023); season totals sum exactly to the career line shown. Interception return yardage: 51 in 2021, 14 in 2022. Fumble recoveries only verified for 2023, so the other seasons and the career figure are left null rather than zero-filled.