Coming into the draft season in 2018, Leighton Vander Esch wasn’t getting a lot of attention. The Boise State linebacker was coming off a career season in which he totaled 141 tackles and was a force on the team’s defense. However, because he played at Boise State, he flew under the radar a bit but as more teams saw his tape, the more liked what they saw.
Over the course of the past few months, Vander Esch has worked his way up from being a Day 2 pick to being a likely first round lock. With each passing day, he continues to rise up draft boards, and it’s looking more and more possible that he will be a top-25 pick.