With the draft over and our profiles on all seven of the Pittsburgh Steelers draft picks complete, we’re dipping our toe into the undrafted territory. We profiled a couple of them before the draft but most of the 13, we didn’t. Today, we’re looking at Toledo OLB Olasunkanmi Adeniyi.
#9 Olasunkanmi Adeniyi/OLB Toledo – 6’1/1 248
The Good
– Big frame, not long and lanky and uses powerful lower half to create explosion off the snap
– Uses smaller height to his advantage and able to leverage tall tackles in the pass game, capable of getting skinny and cornering the edge at the junction point
– Shows football IQ and ability to read tackles pass set, counters inside with swim when linemen begin to cheat
– Not a great athlete in space but shows short area burst and ability to close, does so with violence
– Consistent source of pressure and even if sacks weren’t there, routinely forced QB to move off his launch spot, roll out, take half the field and options away
– Played both OLB spots, hand up/down, field/boundary, used to playing on his feet
– Shows strength to hold the POA against the run when playing with proper leverage, even at times when he isn’t square
– Runs fits were strong, not often out of position
– Shows good vision on the football in the run game and helps him get off blocks
– Developed hand use as a pass rush and isn’t often stuck on blocks, able to disengage
– Productive career and came on strong as a senior, showed toughness playing through injury
The Bad
– Stocky frame and lacks length for the position (31 3/4 inch arms)
– Despite playing on his feet, rarely asked to drop into coverage
– Below average athlete in space, worry about his ability to get depth as zone dropper, will struggle in man, and lack of athleticism is going to hurt him on coverage units
– Must do better job converting speed to power
– Will get too tall taking on base blocks and lose his leverage, hand use is underdeveloped too and struggles to recover if he can’t immediately get his hands inside
– Doesn’t run after the ball hard enough downfield/when it’s away from him, too many loafs (though wonder if coaching/injury had some effect)
– Tendency to drop eyes when trying his bull rush
– Often asked to one gap, faced lots of read option teams and he was often the “read end”
– Too many mental mistakes, penalties and encroachments
– Only one year of serious production
Bio
– Left school a year early, entered draft as a redshirt junior
– Career: 28 TFL, 12.