David Ojabo's Career is "Just Getting Started" and Could Begin with Eagles

The Michigan edge rusher, born in Nigeria then moved to Scotland, didn't begin playing football until his junior year of high school and has been linked to the Eagles

INDIANAPOLIS – Born in Nigeria before moving to Scotland when he was 7, David Ojabo played basketball and soccer.

When he was 15, he arrived in the United States to attend Blair Academy in New Jersey, not far outside of Philadelphia.

No longer was basketball going to be an option.

“I ain’t seen a 7-footer in my life,” he said when asked on Friday at the NFL Scouting Combine why basketball didn’t work out. “I came over from Scotland, and I’d seen a couple of 7-footers…Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t work out.”

Basketball’s loss is football’s gain.

Ojabo burst onto the scene at Michigan last year, collecting 12 sacks and displaying eye-popping athleticism at 6-5, 250 pounds, with versatility that was revealed in the way he was used which was sometimes as a straight pass rusher, sometimes as quarterback spy, and sometimes lined up at various launch points on either side of the line of scrimmage.

He has put himself in a position to be a first-round draft pick on April 28 when the 2022 NFL Draft commences, and he could very well be the Eagles’ selection when they hit the clock at pick 15.

“I’m a Scottish guy, born in Nigeria, and trying to learn this new sport and be the best that I can possibly be,” he said.

The Eagles took Brandon Graham, a Michigan pass rusher in 2010 in the first round, and that turned out quite well after some early concerns.

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Ojabo still has plenty to learn about the game, after not taking up the sport until he was a junior at Blair. It was at Blair where he played with and befriended fellow Nigerian Odafe Oweh, who was a first-round draft pick of the Ravens out of Penn State last year.

“I’m just getting started,” he said. “I’ve only played one year of true college football, so I’m still learning…The toughest thing was definitely the contact aspect. Coming from basketball, if you bump someone too hard, that’s a foul. Soccer, if you bump someone too hard, it’s a foul. Football, if you’re not bumping somebody, you’re not playing.”

David Ojabo / USA Today

Not playing very long could be viewed as a red flag for some.

Not the Eagles and they are not alone.

They are one of the teams that like to take a player based on his projection, a player that doesn’t have to hit a grand slam in his first year, but who can grow.

Take Josh Sweat. Now, he was a fourth-round pick from 2018 who is still growing after posting a career-high 7.5 sacks last year.

Ojabo would need to develop more quickly if the Eagles took him in round one, but the potential seems to be there for that to happen.

“Every game you watch David play, from Week 1 to the last game, every week he progresses so much,” said Michigan teammate Aidan Hutchinson, who is expected to be a top five pick, on Friday. 

“And it’s honestly so impressive. Just watching, we’ll be in meetings, and he’ll ask a question about football. And I’ll look at him like, ‘how do you not know that?’ It’s pretty funny. I laugh about it.

“But that just goes to show me how much potential he has. That he’s producing at that level, and what he produced, and he’s still learning so much about the game.”

Ojabo, who is represented by former Eagles WR Bryce Treggs, was asked why he didn’t return to Michigan for more seasoning.

“At the end of the day, I was ready,” he said. “I was just waiting on my opportunity. You prepare for something … When the time comes, it says the bright lights only show your work in the dark. So, when they came on, I was doing well. 

"I wasn’t surprised because I put in the work the whole time. But to the outsiders, it was like, ‘Who is this kid?’ Let them find out. I was confident in my work.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.