Laiatu Latu Full Scouting Report

The Indianapolis Colts selected Laiatu Latu with the 15th pick in the draft. Latu was the first defensive player selected. Here is a full breakdown of Latu’s game:

Strengths

• Extremely productive player over the course of two seasons
• Shows the ability to play on the edge (5 or 7 tech) or inside as a stand up 3 tech. He wins from all spots.
• Very active, quick and violent hands; shows a good variety of hand fighting moves. The quickness of the movements can’t be understated. His rips, swats and counters are especially good.

• Quick first step and always the fastest of the line to get cross the line of scrimmage (see Latu below at the top of the screenshot)

• Great bend; makes him very tough to block when he has a step on the offensive tackle.

• Shows the ability to drop into coverage and take away short route passing lanes (slants, hooks).
• Shows good effort throughout his rep; doesn’t give up and doesn’t stay blocked throughout a rep.

Weaknesses

• There are medical concerns about his neck injury that he had while he played for Washington.
• He doesn’t have the strength to overpower his opponents so strong offensive tackles with good anchors will be a tough test for him.
• While he anticipates well against the run, he can sometimes get over excited and jump too hard or too quickly and get caught out of position

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Other Information

• Played at Washington from 2019 to 2021 before moving to UCLA from 2022 to 2023.
• He won the Ted Hendricks Award in 2023 as college football’s top defensive end.
• He also won the Lombardi trophy given to the player “who best embodies the values and spirt of Vince Lombardi”
• He was also a Unanimous All American in 2023 and a 2 time first team All Pac-12 (2022, 2023)
• A neck injury suffered in 2020 fall practices was so serious that he retired from football after Washington team doctors deemed the injury too dangerous to play through as he had not recovered properly. After switching to UCLA in 2022, their team doctors cleared him to play and he played two seasons without any issues known to the public. According to Chris Ballard, Colts team doctors did not have worries about the injury.

Stats

2019: 8 Games | 15 tackles, 1.5 for loss | 0.5 Sacks, 1 pass deflection

2020: Did not see game action

2021: Did not play due to injury (neck)

2022: 13 Games | 36 tackles, 12.5 for loss | 10.5 sacks | 1 pass deflection | 1 fumble recovery, 3 forced fumbles

2023: 12 Games | 49 tackles, 21.5 for loss | 13 sacks | 2 interceptions, 2 pass deflections | 2 forced fumbles

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Summary

There are prospects where you’re struggling to find strengths and then there are prospects where you’re struggling to find weaknesses; Latu is the latter. Outside of his neck issue from a couple of years ago, he is as close to a clean prospect as it gets. He plays almost every spot along the defensive line and wins from all of them. He plays mostly as a 5 tech, but has also won as a 3-tech, 4-tech, and 7-tech. His extremely quick hand moves hit the offensive lineman before the player even knows what’s going on. The issue with players with quick hands is that they aren’t powerful and the placement is usually weak; Latu does not have this issue. From there, he shows the ability to be quick off the snap and beat offensive tackles to the corner, showing great bend in the process. Having a tremendous bend and quick burst will make him very tough to stop, even against the quickest of offensive tackles. He has a great motor and shows great effort on every snap.

He’ll need to put on a bit more strength as I believe strong offensive tackles or stout offensive guards (when he lines up inside) will win most reps versus him. He’ll also have to learn how to be 100% disciplined on the edge to avoid being a liability against the run. If he’s hurting the team against the run, he’ll be limited to passing downs.

Fit with the Colts

The Colts already had a strong defensive line and adding Latu takes them (potentially) to the elite tier of the NFL. What’s good with Latu is the possibilities are endless. On obvious passing downs, the Colts can play Paye and Ebukam on the edge with Buckner and Latu inside. I’m confident he can also be productive as a 3-tech in a Bear front, if the Colts were to ever go to that look. Where he’ll mostly play is on the edge and the Colts won’t need him to play 100% of the snaps from day 1 as they already have very capable starters in Kwity Paye and Samson Ebukam as well as capable rotational guys in Dayo Odeyingbo and Tyquan Lewis. A strong rotational will be in place for most of 2024 before I expect Latu takes over the large majority of the reps on one side.

With the addition of Latu, it also frees things up for other players. The Colts can now use Odeyingbo or Lewis inside as a 3-tech. Chris Ballard loves versatile players for this exact reason. By bolstering the defensive line with a legitimate pass rusher with 10+ sacks potential as a rookie, you can expect the secondary to take a step forward as a strong pass rush helps any secondary.

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