Simi Fehoko took a bit of an extended path just to get to the NFL. And while some first-year players like Micah Parsons fast-track their way to superstardom right out of the gate in their rookie season, the fifth-rounder is taking the same kind of slow and steady learning curve that made him a first-team All Pac-12 receiver at Stanford.
Fehoko was on the field for just under a third of the Cowboys’ special teams plays in 2021. He saw a grand total of seven offensive snaps. He logged no official stats.
But doing his job as a piece of a larger machine instead of being “the guy” is all part of the learning process for the 6-foot-3-inch Utah native.
“At Stanford, we had a fairly complex playbook. But coming here, it’s more concept-driven,” Fehoko said last week in a sit-down interview with 105.3 The Fan’s Nosebleed Seats Podcast. “Like, for me in college, they were going to call, ‘You’re going deep. This is your play.’ Here, it’s more like, ‘Okay, this is the whole concept and if you happen to get the read that we’re looking for, then that’s where we’re going.’ So it was more conceptual learning rather than specific player-oriented calls.”
Fehoko got an early wake-up call that life as an NFL receiver would require a different set of tools.
“First day or second day in camp, I lined up one-on-one against Tre[von] Diggs,” Fehoko explained. “Ran a fade. He just full-on, OBJ-one-hand-intercepted. And then I was like, ‘Wow. He’s the man. Welcome to the NFL.'”
But he also got a warm welcome from someone who’s been there. Four-time Pro Bowler Amari Cooper took it upon himself to show Fehoko the ropes of life catching balls at the pro level.
“Coop is my guy. He was the first one, sort of, as the top guy, to take me under his wing. Us being a little bigger- he’s 220, normally, and I came in at 225, 227- he was one of those guys that took me under his wing and helped me out with one-on-one routes, or any routes in general. He was like, ‘Okay, sink your hips here,’ or, ‘As a DB, I see this and you would do this.’ I was like, ‘Okay, whatever you say, you’re right. I got you. I’ll just follow you any way you tell me to do.’ Obviously, it was awesome for me to have him as a mentor, and obviously, I’ll continue, hopefully, to have him as a mentor.”
Fehoko, like the rest of Cowboys Nation, can’t be sure that Cooper will be in Dallas next season. His high-dollar contract makes him a potential cut or trade target as the team looks to balance the budget. And with fellow receivers Michael Gallup, Cedrick Wilson, Noah Brown, and Malik Turner also set to become free agents, Fehoko could theoretically be catapulted up the depth chart in very short order.
It’s something Fehoko hopes happens anyway, simply by virtue of having a full season under his belt. He’s already more mature than most returning rookies. Fehoko will turn 25 years old in just his second pro season, the result of him taking a two-year LDS mission trip to Korea before college.
“I’ll have a bigger role, I’d say, in the offense and in special teams. Talking with head coach McCarthy, he was saying, ‘Potentially, this year, you gain a little bit more weight and we can use you as more like a hybrid tight end-receiver-type body,’ which I have no problem doing. I played at a lot heavier weight in college. They made me lose weight here, so obviously gaining weight and playing at a higher weight isn’t a problem.”
An offseason in Texas could certainly help on that front. The self-professed steak fan has already paid visits to several well-known barbecue joints in the Metroplex. And while he admits to loving a good burger, the California college kid was too smart to get tricked into publicly declaring a favorite between cult rivals Whataburger and In-N-Out.
Packing on a few pounds before training camp may serve Fehoko well as he hopes to show off more of what many felt was his best trait coming out of Stanford: a knack for wrestling away balls in the air from more modestly-sized cornerbacks.
“That’s something that I’ve sort of loved, being a bigger frame, a bigger-body receiver, it sort of came a little more naturally,” he said. “DBs are not normally like Tre: a little taller, can jump out of the gym; they’re a little smaller, and obviously something that bigger bodies thrive on is contested catches.”
Fehoko and the Cowboys are hoping he’ll have more of a chance to thrive in 2022.
[listicle id=694177]
[listicle id=693274]
[lawrence-newsletter]