The Minnesota Vikings have added an athletic edge rusher every year, this time opting for Northwestern’s Ifeadi Odenigbo with the 220th pick of the 2017 NFL Draft.
Odenigbo was highly-recruited coming out of high school and turned down offers from Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame to attend Northwestern. It took him some time to come into his own, with 10.0 of his career 23.5 sacks coming in his final year. Four of those came in a single game (a school record for single-game sack production) against Iowa.
The son of Nigerian immigrants, Odenigbo demonstrates initial quickness and can convert speed to power. His ability to showcase both speed and power moves as a pass-rusher makes him a potential instant impact as a rotational rusher on third downs, if he makes the team.
He has issues keeping anchor against the run, and he may need to add weight before he can be a consistent feature of the defense. Not only that, he tested with less agility than previous Vikings defensive ends and may be the first one they’ve drafted in some time (excepting hybrid defensive end/defensive tackle B.J. Dubose) who wasn’t a “force player”—the kind of player whose athletic testing has a strong relationship with NFL production.
He will be an interesting project for defensive line coach Andre Patterson.
