Lorenzo Styles Sr. was watching his toddler throw a fit sometime around 2007 and decided the kid reminded him of a character from his favorite movie. The temperament was unmistakable. The reference was obvious. And so Alex Styles became Sonny, not because of any paperwork, not because of any formal ceremony, but because a former NFL linebacker thought his son had the same energy as Santino Corleone.
Nearly two decades later, everyone in college football knew Sonny Styles, but almost nobody knows Alex. The nickname follows the 2026 draft‘s most versatile defensive prospect everywhere. Onto the field at Ohio Stadium, into draft rooms across the league, and into the top five of virtually every scout’s board. The origin story is simpler than the player himself: a father who loved The Godfather, a son who proved the comparison right before he could tie his own shoes.
The Man Who Gave Sonny Styles His Nickname
Lorenzo Styles Sr. played linebacker at Ohio State in the early 1990s, then carried that career into the NFL. The Atlanta Falcons selected him 77th overall in the third round of the 1995 draft. He played six seasons, split between Atlanta and St. Louis, and he was on the Rams roster for the one that mattered most.
Super Bowl XXXIV. The Greatest Show on Turf. Kurt Warner to Isaac Bruce on a 73-yard touchdown with under two minutes left. Lorenzo Styles Sr. was there.
He also met his wife, Laverna, at Ohio State. She built her own career in Columbus, eventually becoming Director of HR Operations at the Ohio Department of Administrative Services. The family stayed close to the university that shaped both of them. When it came time for their sons to choose a school, the answer was not complicated.
The story behind the nickname surfaced publicly at the 2026 NFL Combine, when Laverna told NFL Network’s Stacey Dales that young Alex had such a hot temper, going from zero to ten when he argued with his older brother, that Lorenzo Sr. reached for the most obvious comparison he knew. Santino Corleone, the oldest Corleone son, is not exactly a subtle reference for a toddler: volatile, physical, and deeply protective of the people he loves. The name stuck because the comparison held, and it has held for two decades.
Stylers’ Ohio State Legacy
Sonny Styles enrolled at Ohio State. His brother Lorenzo Jr. did the same, transferring in from Notre Dame ahead of the 2023 season. In the 2024 season, both played on the Buckeyes’ national championship team, a convergence of timing and talent that produced one of the more genuine family moments in recent college football history.
Sonny started his Ohio State career at safety before the program shifted him to linebacker in 2024, a move that sparked a new conversation about who he actually is as a prospect. His ability to cover tight ends, stack the box, and blitz from multiple alignments is real. It is also what makes him difficult to assign a traditional position label.
At 6-foot-5 and 244 pounds, his physical profile is the opening argument. His instincts are what scouts stay for, and the combination produced a player who, in a normal draft, goes top five without discussion.
Giants Could Be a Landing Spot for Styles
The Giants own the fifth- and 10th-overall picks and have spent the pre-draft period telegraphing their direction. Adam Schefter said on his podcast that, based on his reading between the lines, the Giants are going to take an Ohio State defensive player, whether that is Sonny Styles or Caleb Downs.
Schefter added that many people around the league expect their selection to come from Columbus. Both prospects fill genuine defensive needs for a franchise building through the draft.
Downs is a safety with range and ball skills, while Styles is a linebacker-safety hybrid who complicates formations in different ways. The choice between them is a schematic question as much as a talent question, and both answers are defensible. What it is not is a close call in terms of caliber. Whichever Ohio State defender the Giants select will be a starter from day one on a team that needs one.
Whether any team ahead of the Giants has a different idea for using the fifth pick is information that only becomes public tonight.
Lorenzo Styles Sr. gave his son a name on a whim, based on a movie character and a toddler’s temper, and that name traveled from Columbus to every scouting report in the NFL. The Godfather reference became the first thing anyone asks about when Sonny Styles comes up in conversation. It will be the first thing the broadcast team mentions when a team walks to the podium in Pittsburgh.
His brother Lorenzo Jr. played on the same championship roster. His mother shaped her career in the same city where his father played college ball. The family is woven through Ohio State in a way that makes Sonny’s decision to play there feel less like a choice and more like an inevitability.
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Tonight, one of the 32 teams picking in Pittsburgh will call a name into a microphone, and the name they call will be Sonny, but the man who answers will be Alex. The father watching in the crowd will have spent roughly twenty years watching a name he invented on impulse become the one everybody uses.
Santino Corleone would have had something to say about that.
