8 African-Born Players That Took the NFL by Storm - The Nation Newspaper thenationonlineng.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thenationonlineng.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Greetings, all. It's that time of year again! I'm excited to bring you all my yearly big board in anticipation of the NFL Draft. I have been watching a ton of film, digging into combine...
Hello, fan of an NFL team. MGoBlog excruciatingly scouts every Michigan play, and scores them to inform our coverage. Since mi atleta es su atleta now, here we share what we're sharing. Quickly: Explosive edge-bender, developing run defender. Draft Projection: Before the injury he was tracking to be the trendy high-upside edge that some team jumps at in the mid-1st round. Now he could be in the 2nd round or later. I doubt he'll last so long, but if teams worried about an Achilles tear are letting him drop to the 40s, as long as your team can afford to take a swing this is a very good pitch. NFL Comp: I came up with Ziggy Ansah—explosive foreign player who was mostly a situational rusher in college to draft and develop. NFL.com came up with Cliff Avril, which I'm grateful for because that's one (Purdue/Lions) we're fairly familiar with, though Ojabo is taller and faster with great length; Avril's was average, but people also underrated him as a run defender. What's his story? Ojabo was born in Nigeria but moved to Scotland when he was seven, and he grew up there until coming to the States for a year of high school. As you might imagine, he was SUPER DUPER raw, having only recently tried football after playing soccer and basketball (like HS teammate Odafe Oweh), and was an obvious redshirt in 2019. The pandemic hit when Ojabo was back in Scotland, and he got trapped there in a quarantine situation, unable to practice or develop much. He got back to Ann Arbor for fall camp but not in time to develop into a viable player. When 2021 started Ojabo was still considered a wild card, and they worked him into the lineup slowly, the third guy in a rotation of edge defenders opposite Hutchinson that varied by package. Ojabo's breakout came against Wisconsin, Michigan's fifth game, when Ojabo contributing 2.5 sacks (+15/-3 in our charting), including the knockout punch to Graham Mertz, by teleporting around the Badgers' tackles. He continued to feast against all comers as a pass-rusher, inspiring a weekly bit in UFR where I'd switch to a Scottish accent to discuss things he was doing to pass protections that were too uncouth for the Queen's English. Ojabo had to develop in real time in dropbacks, which kept him off the field when Michigan went to their 3-4 looks. Later opponents used this tendency, playing more TEs to keep Ojabo off the field; he saw just 17, 32, and 26 snaps against Indiana, Iowa, and Georgia. Unable to profit from NIL he declared when he was given a 1st round grade, then suffered an Achilles tear at Michigan's Pro Day. Positives: Ceiling here is massive if the injury heals. Has legit 4.5 speed and can accelerate to that very quickly. Ideal measurables. Surprisingly developed as a pass-rusher, with an assortment of tricks. Very focused player with zero off-field concerns. Could have drawn 30 holding calls. Extremely underrated run defender: saw a lot of action as opponents ran away from Hutchinson, but consistently controlled his edge and constricted space. Great at setting an edge or caving a kickout. Never makes the same mistake twice, and mistakes were survivable (just three –2 or worse plays in his career). Negatives: This was a long-term pick before the injury, which will need all of 2022 to heal, and might. Add that he came to college raw, lost a third of his development time to the pandemic, and left after just three years, and the team that drafts Ojabo probably has to carry him two contract years before they see the fruits of it. Still developing in real time, e.g. he struggled against zone reads in Game 4 but made no more mistakes all season, and who knows what Michigan was hiding him from. [After THE JUMP: What others say, scheme fit, grading, video, conclusion]
Several notable Black athletes have led the way throughout the history of BYU athletics, including most recently the first BYU men's basketball starting lineup to ever feature four Black players against Loyola Marymount on Feb. 10.