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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