• York has already excelled as an underclassman: His past two seasons of starting experience show a player who is ready to build on his game in 2025 and become a top draft prospect.

• What we want to see in 2025: We’re looking for more of the same when it comes to a high run-defense floor, but he could work on getting his hands on the ball in pass defense more often.

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Summertime provides some football fans respite before the college and NFL seasons kick off. Not at PFF. Instead, we’re diving into one of my early “my guys” for the 2026 NFL Draft: Texas A&M linebacker Taurean York.

As I work my way through my summer scouting for the 2026 NFL Draft, I can already get a good feel — even off just the first few games of film — for which players I will gravitate toward and push a little higher on my big board than where they might be on consensus rankings.

It’s still very early in that scouting process, but I was aware of York before organizing his official scouting profile. He has been the Aggies’ starting middle linebacker for the past two seasons as an underclassman, and because he was not draft-eligible, I never put his film under the microscope to view it through an NFL lens. Now that I have, I can see why Texas A&M was in a rush to get York on the field as soon as possible.

York wasn’t always destined to be an early NFL draft pick. According to 247 Sports, he was a three-star recruit in the 2023 class. His grandparents graduated from Texas A&M and he grew up in Temple, Texas, so he was always aware of the Aggies and their football program. York initially committed to Baylor but received an offer from Texas A&M late in the process. As the season got underway, he quickly found himself in the starting lineup.

He was named to PFF’s All-Freshman team after a 2023 season in which he earned an 81.5 PFF run-defense grade while playing more than 500 snaps. He was also voted to be a team captain the following year as just a true sophomore. In his 2024 campaign, York’s PFF overall grade dipped slightly, but he brought his missed tackle percentage down from an already impressive 10.3% in 2023 to just 8.2%, one of the best marks in the country, especially for a player with more than 600 defensive snaps logged.

We know from York’s background that he has the experience and the respect of his teammates and coaches with just two years under his belt. Digging into more of his scouting report, his drawbacks — and why he would be a “my guy” instead of perhaps a consensus top linebacker — stem from his measurables. His listed measurements of 6 feet and 235 pounds would rank in just the 6th and 29th percentiles, respectively, for the position compared to his NFL peers. But outside of some size concerns, the rest of his game contains a lot to love.

Part of what makes you nervous about a linebacker prospect with shorter measurables is their ability to tackle and wrap up. The shorter the arms, the smaller the margin for error when bringing down ball carriers. But we already talked about York’s reliability as a tackler, so that doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue. A lack of arm length also can show up in the form of forced incompletions, of which York doesn’t have many in his career, but he hasn’t really been asked to retreat in deep coverage. He’s been more of the true Mike linebacker whose eyes are in the backfield first and foremost.

York’s football IQ, anticipation for where the ball is going and communication are very impressive for an underclassman. You can tell he spends a lot of time in the film room. I also love how light on his feet and always on his toes he is. The best linebackers are the ones whose presence can sometimes cover multiple gaps.

There were a handful of plays during the three games I watched of York where it was some sort of stretch or zone-blocking concept to the outside. On those plays, York was so quick and light on his feet that he would first occupy the initial cut-back lane but then had the quickness to sift through the chaos and meet the ball carrier at the outside aiming point. That is incredibly impressive stuff. He reminds me of Nick Bolton in that regard (size, skillset and quickness combination). 

What we’re looking to see from York in 2025, potentially his last year before making the jump to the NFL, is more of the same when it comes to a high run-defense floor, but also getting his hands on the ball in pass defense. That doesn’t have to just be with interceptions — close coverage and forced incompletions are great, as well. His top-tier awareness should put him in a position to do more of that this season. If so, I like his chances to be a top-50 prospect — and even a first-rounder.