Offensive linemen have all the time cherished “pancakes” — no-doubt-about-it blocks that finish with them flexing over flattened defenders.
However Ikem Ekwonu, a probable top-10 decide on this 12 months’s N.F.L. draft, which begins Thursday, is a rarity: He’s agile and dynamic sufficient so as to add a bonus pancake after one other huge play.
In an October recreation towards Louisiana Tech, Ekwonu’s North Carolina State crew ran a normal handoff. His job was to wedge the defender reverse him towards the sideline and create area for operating again Ricky Particular person Jr. On the snap, Ekwonu, a 6-foot-4, 310-pound left sort out, shot out of his stance so shortly that he had time to swivel round and wall off his matchup together with his again turned, waving Particular person by the alley he had opened.
“Then he runs one other 20 yards downfield and pancakes one other man,” John Garrison, the Wolfpack offensive line coach, mentioned. The play led to a 24-yard landing.
Highlights like that one have cemented Ekwonu’s standing on the vanguard of a wave of offensive line prospects, together with Evan Neal of the College of Alabama and Charles Cross of Mississippi State, anticipated to be chosen early within the draft. Their pace and mobility are in excessive demand at what have historically been soccer’s burliest positions. At this 12 months’s draft scouting mix, Cross was one among 12 offensive linemen to run the 40-yard sprint in lower than 5 seconds — Ekwonu clocked in at 4.93 seconds — twice as many because the earlier file of six, set in 2013.
“After they consider offensive linemen, individuals get caught on the numbers, peak and weight,” Ekwonu, 21, mentioned in an interview this month. “However the intangible stuff: Are you versatile? Are you able to bend? Are you able to dash round a nook, get sq., maintain your stability? That stuff is absolutely necessary, and it’s all tied to mobility.”
In 2013, the final time a lineman was drafted first total, the N.F.L. had simply completed a season wherein 5 quarterbacks ran for a minimum of 300 yards. Final season featured 10 such quarterbacks. The place years in the past a sort out’s task was typically simple — maintain a pocket passer upright — that participant now could must chaperone a trick-play finish round on one snap and run interference for a scrambling signal-caller the following.
“Again when it was Tom Brady versus Peyton Manning, it was extra old-school soccer,” Jordan Reid, an ESPN draft analyst mentioned. “You had these huge, highly effective males making an attempt to overpower guys on the level of assault. Now it’s all about profitable with angles, having these athletic linemen that may seal off cross rushers and run defenders versus making an attempt to simply plow by them.”
It’s additionally a matter of maintaining with the athletes reverse them. Groups a decade in the past didn’t have to dam Aaron Donald, the undersized however blink-quick cross rusher who paced the Los Angeles Rams’ Tremendous Bowl run final season.
“You will have these defensive linemen now who’re freak athletes,” Geoff Schwartz, an offensive lineman who performed six N.F.L. seasons, mentioned. “That’s why it’s so necessary that these offensive linemen are matching that athleticism.”
Getting into faculty, Ekwonu didn’t appear to be a future first-rounder. A youth soccer coach known as him Ickey, after the previous Cincinnati Bengals operating again Ickey Woods, and the title caught as he grew to become a three-star recruit. He landed at North Carolina State in 2019 at 288 kilos, missing the scale to face out amongst linemen. (High prospects might be 6-6 and weigh effectively over 300 kilos getting into faculty.)
However Garrison and the remainder of the Wolfpack coaches noticed potential in Ekwonu’s mild toes, free hips and stability, attributes he had developed wrestling and, on a few events, used to anchor the 4×100 relay team at Providence Day School in Charlotte, N.C.
“The primary time I noticed him, he was strolling in a handstand throughout the room,” Garrison mentioned. “Simply his athleticism and quick-twitch pace have been very spectacular.”
Ekwonu’s weight surpassed 300 kilos as a freshman, and he thrived in a system that requested him to be greater than a “jug butt,” as Garrison describes all-muscle-no-hustle maulers. Ekwonu’s routes from snap to snap had practically as a lot selection as these of a large receiver.
On up-the-middle runs, he would deliver defensive ends to a standstill; on extensive pitches, he would pace out towards the sideline and wallop a linebacker. In all, he notched 67 pancakes in his final season at North Carolina State.
“Groups knew what we have been going to run,” Ekwonu mentioned. “That simply made me wish to beat them much more. Anytime you possibly can run the ball on somebody who is aware of what’s coming, it simply feels good.”
Main as much as the mix, Ekwonu labored with trainers from the biomechanics firm Sports activities Academy. He had two essential targets: to lock in a dependable 40 time — he hadn’t run one in additional than 5 years — and to prep for the even larger calls for for N.F.L. linemen. His trainers likened Ekwonu’s burst to that of a ability place participant greater than 100 kilos lighter, a high quality that may as soon as have been a luxurious and is now nearly requisite.
“You need to be extra athletic and capable of keep it up a play for an extended length,” Taylor Ramsey, a Sports activities Academy coach, mentioned. “It’s not three to 6 seconds anymore, it’s 5 to eight, with the ability to make one play on the line after which one other one downfield.”
Ekwonu’s N.F.L. idol is Trent Williams, a 2021 All-Professional for the 49ers who ran a 4.81 40-yard sprint on the mix in 2010. As a part of San Francisco’s intricate schemes, which may contain fullbacks splitting out to extensive receiver and wideouts taking handoffs, Williams generally traces up away from his regular left sort out place. When Williams shifts into the backfield, able to hurry to some stunning spot and knock over whomever he meets there, Ekwonu sees a blueprint for a way his future crew may use him.
“I really feel just like the N.F.L. is absolutely good at enjoying to the personnel they’ve,” Ekwonu mentioned. “Actually enjoying to their strengths.” His subsequent crew can have just a few to select from.
