The Cowboys have 11 games left to play on their regular-season schedule. If he were still in college, that would make it the very beginning of the season for defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa. As it is, though, the rookie is staring down that gauntlet with six full games already under his belt.
“Body’s holding up pretty good,” Odighizuwa said this week, “better than I felt at this point [last year]. We only played seven at UCLA [because of the COVID-shortened Pac-12 schedule]. So at this point in the season last year, I was feeling pretty beat up. I feel really good this year.”
The 23-year-old was drafted in the third round by Dallas in April, but the grind didn’t really kick in until training camp in July. And once it did, it never let up.
Odighizuwa has made an immediate impact for the Cowboys. Through six games, he’s been in on 11 tackles and recorded two sacks, logging over 60% of the team’s defensive snaps. Some of that was out of necessity; Trysten Hill suffered a long-term ACL injury last October. Then with an injury in the preseason to Neville Gallimore, the rookie was pressed into a starting role in Week 1, against the reigning world champs, no less.
But the former Oregon high school wrestling champ says even he’s surprised by how much he’s accomplished at this stage of his NFL career.
“A lot more than I thought I would,” he reflected. “Especially just in terms of playing time and having a lot more opportunity to play, just having started these past six games- which I didn’t even think I was going to be doing going into this season, until Nev went down. Definitely further along than I thought I’d be right now.”
But perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise. Odighizuwa was named first-team All-Pac-12 just last year. Despite being considered undersized for his position- he’s 6-foot-2 and listed on the Cowboys website at 280 pounds- he moves with a speed and athleticism that belies his smaller size. In terms of pure production at UCLA, he could have been a top-50 draft pick, some analysts believed. But he played in a program that saw constant turnover, leaving him underutilized.
Consider the fast start to his Cowboys career making up for lost time on the field. But he’s been preparing for this moment all along.
“I feel like athletically, I’ve always had the talent to be an NFL player. That’s something that I knew,” Odighizuwa said. “But the production that I wasn’t getting earlier on, I feel like that helped me, from just working on my technique more and just doing a lot more offseason work as I was developing in college to be able to get to this point. Just doing a lot more offseason work on my technique, a lot more self-scout with my oldest brother, who played in the NFL: just watching film after the season, just to be able to figure out what we need to work on, just moving forward so I have a plan of what to drill in the offseason and things like that. And then just knowing football, so that when I’m watching film, I’m not just watching film; I’m looking for certain things, formations, tendencies and things like that, which I gained from coaches over time, having three D-line coaches in college.”
Osa’s brother Owa played for the New York Giants in 2015 and 2016. He was also a third-round pick in his draft class- coincidentally, taken just one spot earlier in 2015 than Osa was six years later. And while his career never really took off, Owa has been a mentor to his younger brother in learning the ropes.
“He told me I’m doing good,” Osa said. “I send him clips and stuff like that. He comes to the games. He’s giving me tips still, in my ear about taking care of my body, staying healthy. That’s really the biggest thing right now.”
Staying healthy and game-ready has been of utmost importance, given the injuries to the Cowboys interior defensive line. Brent Urban was just placed on injured reserve this week, a move that appeared to thin the ranks in Dallas even further. But Hill has now been cleared to practice again, and while Gallimore still needs more time, Odighizuwa knows their return will only help the overall unit.
“Definitely excited,” he explained. “I know they’re going to be coming in hot because they’ve been missing this couple of weeks, and when you miss the game and get it back, you’ve got a little chip on your shoulder. So I know they’re coming back, coming in hot, planning to give it 100%. I’m just looking forward to having them back, just being able to compete with them and having more depth in our D-line room.”
That will come. For the time being, Odighizuwa was just pleased to have the break of the bye week, not only to give his body a bit of a rest, but to simply do some of the normal-life things that the youngster hasn’t had the opportunity to handle since taking the express-lane on-ramp to life in the NFL.
“There’s people that do it that are, like, super-organized about that stuff. But I kind of have a one-track mind, focused on ball, and then relaxing when I have the time afterward to relax but still going home, watching film, and all that stuff. So it was non-existent. It was. I did a lot of it after we got a break, when we came back from camp and after Tampa- you know, Thursday game, you get a little break. But after that, we’ve been rolling. I wasn’t focused on any of that stuff; I decided I was going to wait until the bye week when we had more time.”
Like any 23-year-old a few months into his first paying job, Odighizuwa bought furniture- “dressers and bed frames,” he says- as he finally gets around to setting up a residence.
But like relatively few 23-year-olds a few months into their first paying job, he bought something else, too, something a little more befitting the Dallas Cowboys’ impact-making starting defensive tackle.
“I got a Porsche.”
So yes, life now is quite a bit different from college for Osa Odighizuwa.
[listicle id=684357]
[listicle id=684335]
[listicle id=684174]
[lawrence-newsletter]