Summary

Emmanuel McNeil-Warren (22 years old) is a safety who has played his entire college career at Toledo with no transfers. In 2025, McNeil-Warren started throughout the season and recorded 79 total tackles, three interceptions, 10 pass breakups, and two forced fumbles, earning him First-Team All-MAC honors and All-America consideration at the Group of Five level. McNeil-Warren has maintained solid academic standing and is widely viewed as a disciplined, detail-oriented defender whose communication skills and film preparation habits consistently draw praise from coaches, with no publicly reported significant off-field incidents. Teammates frequently highlight his leadership presence and willingness to contribute on special teams as indicators of his team-first approach. From an injury standpoint, McNeil-Warren missed the final 5 games of his 2024 campaign due to a shoulder injury, but other than that, his only other major injury occurred in 2021 as a high school senior missing three games with concussion and elbow issues.

Strengths

• Wild Range: Covers significant ground from middle-field alignments and can overlap verticals outside the numbers when reading route distribution correctly. Has experience rotating late, disguising coverage, and functioning as both deep-half and middle-field defender.

• Ball Hawk: Reads the quarterback with confidence and trusts his trigger, leading to high-impact turnover opportunities. Understands route layering and squeezes intermediate windows between hashes.

• Fleet of Foot: Efficient footwork out of his backpedal allows him to close downhill without wasted motion.

• Mind the Gaps: Fills alleys with urgency but typically under control, arriving square rather than reckless. Doesn’t shy from contact and shows willingness to tackle in traffic, not just in space.

Weaknesses

• Early Reader: When he trusts his read too early, double moves and layered route concepts can stress him vertically behind his initial break. If he misreads leverage initially, he doesn’t always have rare top-end makeup speed to fully erase it.

• Twitch Streaming: More comfortable playing with vision than mirroring sudden, twitchy, two-way release slot receivers.

• Geometry: Will occasionally overrun ball carriers when taking aggressive pursuit paths downhill. Physical play style and frequent alley involvement could invite wear over time if mass isn’t maximized.

• All or Nothing: His confidence and attack mentality produce splash plays but can also lead to occasional explosive concessions.

Outlook

McNeil-Warren projects as a rangy, physical safety with elite instincts in zone coverage, explosive downhill burst in run support, and a natural nose for turnovers, giving him true three-level utility in NFL secondaries. He fits best in multiple-look defenses that mix quarters, split safety rotations, and pattern-match concepts, allowing him to patrol deep, rotate downhill, and take angles on the ball rather than being locked into a single sideline assignment. Consensus big-board sentiment has McNeil-Warren projected as a late first/early second-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft depending on team needs and where safeties are valued on draft day.

Pro Comparison: Kam Chancellor

Team Fits: DAL, SEA, CHI, BUF, LAR