Tag: Yasir Abdullah

5 things to know about new Jaguars OLB Yasir Abdullah

Who is Jaguars fifth-round pick Yasir Abdullah?

The Jacksonville Jaguars didn’t pick a pass rusher in the first two days of the 2023 NFL draft, but added an intriguing one on Saturday when they took Louisville’s Yasir Abdullah with the first pick of the fifth round.

Abdullah was a highly productive player for the Cardinals, but landed in Day 3 due mostly to his lack of height and length.

At 6’1, 237 pounds, Abdullah will have to follow in the footsteps of rare exceptions like Haason Reddick, who have managed to rack up sacks despite not being very tall.

So who is the Jaguars’ new pass rusher who plans to defy the odds? Here are five things to know about Abdullah:

Introducing the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 2023 NFL Draft class

Get to know the 13 players drafted by the Jaguars this year.

The 2023 NFL draft is in the books and the Jacksonville Jaguars added their biggest class ever.

With 13 players — 10 of which came on Day 3 — the Jaguars have a ton of rookies competing for spots on a mostly intact roster that won the AFC South in 2022.

While experts largely predicted that the Jaguars would target defensive backs and pass rushers early, the team instead spent its first three picks on offensive players.

Here’s the baker’s dozen of draftees and links to learn more about each of them:

Jaguars’ Yasir Abdullah is ready to follow in Elvis Dumervil’s footsteps

Yasir Abdullah is sick of hearing concerns about his height.

Yassir Abdullah was a wildly productive player for the Louisville Cardinals, racking up 31 tackles for loss and 19.5 sacks in his last two collegiate seasons.

Yet he had to wait until the fifth round of the 2023 NFL draft for his name to be called.

The linebacker is plenty athletic with 4.47 speed and a 36.5-inch vertical, but it’s likely his 6’1 height that caused teams to be hesitant about his chances at being an effective NFL pass rusher.

“It matters what you do on the field, no matter what size you are,” Abdullah told reporters in a conference call Saturday. “There’s a lot of guys in this league that have been productive and they’re shorter than me. Like Haason Reddick … who else? There’s a lot of guys. Elvis Dumervil, James Harrison. Legends.

“When people talk about my height, it just gives me extra fuel and stuff to show them I can be this small, I can be this big, and I’ll still dominate.”

Reddick, who measured in at 6’1, 237 pounds at the 2017 combine, earned Pro Bowl honors with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022 after finishing second in the league in sacks with 16.

Dumervil and Harrison — who are 5’11 and 6’0, respectively — combined for 190 career sacks during their NFL careers and are both top 100 on the league’s all-time sack leaderboard.

Abdullah said that he was roommates with Dumervil’s nephew at Louisville and met the five-time Pro Bowler a few times.

“He’s shown me some things when I was in college,” Abdullah said of Dumervil. “He taught me a lot of things and I would compare my game to his game as well.”

Dumervil is a fellow Louisville alumni who won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy after recording a school record 20 sacks in his senior season. Still, he had to wait until the tail-end of the fourth round of the 2006 NFL draft to be picked.

Both Abdullah and Jaguars are hoping that history is repeating itself.

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One play from each draftee that shows what they bring to the Jaguars

What do the newest members of the Jaguars bring to the table? These plays offer a glimpse:

It obviously takes a lot more than one play to evaluate a football player. But sometimes one highlight is all it takes to see the size, speed, strength, athleticism, and skills that someone brings to the field.

In the 2023 NFL draft, the Jacksonville Jaguars added 13 new players to their roster. While some — like former Auburn running back Tank Bigsby and Florida linebacker Ventrell Miller — might be familiar to Jaguars fans, others are new names and faces.

So what do the new members of the Jaguars bring to the table? Here’s one highlight from each draftee that shows what Jacksonville hopes it’s going to get:

Jaguars draft Louisville LB Yasir Abdullah with No. 136 pick

The Jaguars added Louisville’s productive pass rusher Yasir Abdullah in the fifth round.

The Jacksonville Jaguars selected Louisville linebacker Yasir Abdullah at the top of the fifth round of the 2023 NFL draft with the No. 136 overall pick.

Abdullah is the second linebacker drafted by the Jaguars on Saturday after they picked Florida’s Ventrell Miller in the fourth round. However, they’re likely to play in different spots in the Jacksonville defense.

While some think of Abdullah as an off-the-ball linebacker, it seems likelier that the Louisville alum will be an edge rusher in the Jaguars’ 3-4 system. Either way, his versatility in both roles probably made him more valuable in the eyes of Jacksonville general manager Trent Baalke.

At 6’1, 237 pounds, Abdullah is a lighter linebacker, but he makes up for it with 4.47 speed and explosiveness with a 36.5-inch vertical jump.

In his last two seasons at Louisville, Abdullah twice earned All-ACC honors and racked up 19.5 sacks, 32 tackles for a loss, and two interceptions.

While the Jaguars have a pair of starters at outside linebacker with Travon Walker and Josh Allen, there’s little depth behind that duo and Abdullah could earn plenty of playing time as a rotational rusher during his rookie season.

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Secret Superstars of the 2023 NFL draft: The best underrated prospects

Who are the best underrated prospects in the 2023 NFL draft? Doug Farrar runs down the sleepers who could make surprising differences in the NFL.

Several NFL executives have already made it clear that they’re struggling to find as many as 20 prospects in the 2023 NFL draft class deserving of a first-round grade.

That may look like a pull quote, but it’s not entirely uncommon. Drafts like the 2023 one, which starts Thursday at 8:00 p.m. EST, are wider than they are tall, which means that while there aren’t a ton of obvious first-round guys, there are second- and third-day players who can make a difference on an NFL roster right away.

And that’s why it’s so important to have your scouting go all the way through all seven rounds and beyond. Ask the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, who got their eventual starting running back (Rutgers’ Isiah Pacheco) in the seventh round. Or the Seattle Seahawks, who bagged starting cornerback Tariq Woolen out of UTSA in the fifth. And of course, there were few more interesting rookie stories in 2022 than the tale of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, the most relevant “Mr. Irrelevant” in pro football history.

Looking ahead to the most talented sleepers in the 2023 draft class, there are prospects who have been pushed down in loaded position groups, those who need a bit of finishing work to fully unlock their NFL potential, and those who don’t have a total skill set, but who do a few things very well. They are all more than worthy of NFL consideration, and just because they’ll probably hear their names called in the late second or early third day of the draft, don’t automatically discount their NFL potential.

That’s a mistake the smartest NFL teams never make. Here are my most gifted sleepers — the “Secret Superstars” of the 2023 NFL draft.