Jonah
Laulu.
Jonah
Laulu.
Oklahoma
"He is not the anchor in the middle of your defense; he is the long, explosive body you turn loose in a gap and let run, and the pro day proved the traits were never the question."Pre-draft read
Laulu is a 6-foot-5, 292-pound interior lineman who lived at 4i and 5-technique in Oklahoma's even fronts and kicked down to three-technique in obvious passing situations. The get-off is the trait: long first stride, hands out of the holster to the outside pec, and enough hip flexibility for a man that tall to flatten a corner most 290-pounders never find. He plays with a stab-and-shed base and wins early or not at all.
Against the run he is a length-and-leverage defender rather than a squatter, extending to keep his frame clean and spilling plays down the line. The pass rush is long-arm and push-pull more than counter-heavy. The testing is the signature: a 36-inch vertical and 9-10 broad at 292 pounds sit near the top of the class.
Even-front, one-gap penetrating defense (4-3 base / nickel) that lets interior linemen fire upfield rather than read and react
Year 1: fifth or sixth defensive lineman rotating between 4i on early downs and 3-technique on passing downs, plus field-goal block units. Ceiling: full-time rotational starter who plays 450-550 snaps and gives a defense 3-5 sacks and a dozen pressures as an inside-out mover.
A two-gap 3-4 that asks him to hold the point as a 0/1-technique nose and read blocks off contact — his pad level and lower-half anchor make him a candidate to get displaced on double teams instead of shedding them.
Best used next to a true space-eater so his gap is protected and he can attack a single edge of the blocker.
Jonah Laulu | Defensive Line | Oklahoma Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
Oklahoma draft-year cutup: get-off, long-arm reps and the 4i alignment work that defined his Sooners tape.
Film Study: DT Jonah Laulu Is A MASSIVE STEAL For The Raiders
Post-draft breakdown of how his first-step quickness projects to Las Vegas's even front.
Raiders Rookie Jonah Laulu Continues To Impress | Film Review
Rookie-season review of his rotational snaps, pass-rush wins and remaining anchor issues.
A five-year college defender who arrived at Hawaii as a raw, wiry big man and left Oklahoma with a pro-ready frame, Laulu is the rare Day 3 interior player whose tape and testing tell the same story. He is a penetrator, not an anchor: a long, upfield 4i who is at his best knifing through a B-gap seam and at his worst when a double team catches him with his pads high.
The production curve complicates the projection. His best season came in 2021 at Hawaii, where he posted 34 tackles, 8.0 tackles for loss and 4.0 sacks in 12 games. The move to Oklahoma flattened him out: 20 tackles and 5.5 TFL in 2022, then just 11 tackles, 3.0 TFL and a sack in 2023 in a rotation-heavy Big 12 front. Evaluators saw a player who flashed but rarely stacked reps, and who needed a defined role to look like himself.
Without a combine invite, the Oklahoma pro day became his audition, and he passed it loudly — 4.96 in the 40, 7.57 three-cone, 4.59 shuttle, 36-inch vertical, 24 bench reps. That workout dragged him back onto boards as a late-round developmental rusher. Taking him at 234 was a bet that the traits, the two-position versatility and the room to add functional strength were worth more than a soft senior stat line.
- 01
Explosive first step
Fires off the ball with a long, low initial stride that consistently beats interior blockers to the play side.
- 02
Rare movement testing
A 36-inch vertical, 9-10 broad jump and 7.57 three-cone at 292 pounds are elite interior athletic markers.
- 03
Length and extension
Uses 33 1/2-inch arms to stack, keep his chest clean and locate the ball before disengaging.
- 04
Alignment versatility
Logged real snaps at 4i, five-technique and three-technique, so he fits both odd and even fronts.
- 05
Positional durability
Appeared in 66 career games across two programs without a season lost to injury or suspension.
- 01
Pad level
Plays tall out of his stance too often, which lets guards and centers get under him on down blocks.
- 02
Anchor versus doubles
Lacks the sand in his lower half to hold a two-gap point and gets moved off the spot on power.
- 03
Limited counters
Rush plan leans on long-arm and push-pull; when the initial move is stalled he has little to fall back on.
- 04
Flat production curve
5.5 and 3.0 TFL in his two Oklahoma seasons after 8.0 at Hawaii, with too few disruptive reps.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Hawaii | 9 | 26 | 1.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | Hawaii | 12 | 34 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | Oklahoma | 13 | 20 | 1.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2023 | Oklahoma | 13 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 66 | 102 | 10.5 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
Season lines 2020-2023 verified against cfbstats.com. Career totals are the official team-released figures covering 2018-2023 at Hawaii and Oklahoma (66 G, 24 GS); the 2018 and 2019 Hawaii seasons (19 G, 11 tackles, 6.0 TFL, 2.5 sacks in aggregate) are included in the career line but not broken out because cfbstats player coverage for him begins in 2020.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A long, useful rotational interior body who plays every game, chips in a handful of sacks and holds a defensive line room together without ever starting all 17.
Same upfield, single-gap identity with the movement skill to win as a pass rusher from three-technique; that is the outcome if the strength ever catches up to the athleticism.
Traits-first Day 3 big man who bounces between the back of the roster and the practice squad because the run defense never gets consistent enough.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Indianapolis waived him at the end of his first camp and Las Vegas claimed him the next day, which turned out to be the defining moment of his career. He played all 17 games as a rookie in 2024 with seven starts, finishing with 34 tackles, one sack and three passes defensed while working as a rotational 4i in the Raiders' even front. Year two was better: 17 more games in 2025, 48 tackles, four sacks and five passes defensed, with an expanded role as an interior rusher on sub-package downs. He entered 2026 on the Raiders' roster on his rookie deal with a $1.075 million cap number, still on the inside of the defensive line rotation.
In hindsight this is exactly what teams hope a seventh-round pick becomes. The pro day was not a mirage; the athleticism translated once he had a stable role and a strength program to build on. He never became the disruptive interior force his 2021 Hawaii tape teased, and the anchor questions still show up against gap-scheme run games, but a defender who has played all 34 games of his first two NFL seasons with a growing snap share at 234 overall is a clear return on the pick. Indianapolis's waiver decision looks like the miss; Las Vegas got a rotational starter for nothing.
Data note: Season lines 2020-2023 verified against cfbstats.com. Career totals are the official team-released figures covering 2018-2023 at Hawaii and Oklahoma (66 G, 24 GS); the 2018 and 2019 Hawaii seasons (19 G, 11 tackles, 6.0 TFL, 2.5 sacks in aggregate) are included in the career line but not broken out because cfbstats player coverage for him begins in 2020.