Offensive linemen have all the time liked “pancakes” — no-doubt-about-it blocks that finish with them flexing over flattened defenders.
However Ikem Ekwonu, a possible top-10 choose on this yr’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 massive play.
In an October sport in opposition to Louisiana Tech, Ekwonu’s North Carolina State crew ran a typical handoff. His job was to wedge the defender reverse him towards the sideline and create house for working again Ricky Individual Jr. On the snap, Ekwonu, a 6-foot-4, 310-pound left deal with, 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 Individual 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 resulted in 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 yr’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 document 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 steadiness? That stuff is actually 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 through which 5 quarterbacks ran for a minimum of 300 yards. Final season featured 10 such quarterbacks. The place years in the past a deal with’s project was usually easy — maintain a pocket passer upright — that participant now might 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 massive, highly effective males making an attempt to overpower guys on the level of assault. Now it’s all about successful with angles, having these athletic linemen that may seal off go rushers and run defenders versus making an attempt to only 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 go rusher who paced the Los Angeles Rams’ Tremendous Bowl run final season.
“You could 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 school, Ekwonu didn’t appear like a future first-rounder. A youth soccer coach referred to as him Ickey, after the previous Cincinnati Bengals working again Ickey Woods, and the identify caught as he turned a three-star recruit. He landed at North Carolina State in 2019 at 288 kilos, missing the size to face out amongst linemen. (Prime prospects could be 6-6 and weigh nicely over 300 kilos getting into school.)
However Garrison and the remainder of the Wolfpack coaches noticed potential in Ekwonu’s gentle toes, unfastened hips and steadiness, attributes he had developed wrestling and, on a few events, used to anchor the 4×100 relay crew at Windfall Day College 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 had 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 carry defensive ends to a standstill; on vast 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 had 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 principal objectives: 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 talent place participant greater than 100 kilos lighter, a high quality which may as soon as have been a luxurious and is now nearly requisite.
“You need to be extra athletic and capable of stick with it 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, having 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 might contain fullbacks splitting out to vast receiver and wideouts taking handoffs, Williams generally strains up away from his regular left deal with place. When Williams shifts into the backfield, able to hurry to some shocking spot and knock over whomever he meets there, Ekwonu sees a blueprint for a way his future crew would possibly use him.
“I really feel just like the N.F.L. is actually good at taking part in to the personnel they’ve,” Ekwonu mentioned. “Actually taking part in to their strengths.” His subsequent crew can have just a few to select from.
