Hello, fan of an NFL team. MGoBlog excruciatingly scouts every Michigan play, and scores them to inform our coverage. Since mi atleta es su atleta now, here we share what we're sharing.

Quickly: Explosive edge-bender, developing run defender.

Draft Projection: Before the injury he was tracking to be the trendy high-upside edge that some team jumps at in the mid-1st round. Now he could be in the 2nd round or later. I doubt he'll last so long, but if teams worried about an Achilles tear are letting him drop to the 40s, as long as your team can afford to take a swing this is a very good pitch.

NFL Comp: I came up with Ziggy Ansah—explosive foreign player who was mostly a situational rusher in college to draft and develop. NFL.com came up with Cliff Avril, which I'm grateful for because that's one (Purdue/Lions) we're fairly familiar with, though Ojabo is taller and faster with great length; Avril's was average, but people also underrated him as a run defender.

What's his story? Ojabo was born in Nigeria but moved to Scotland when he was seven, and he grew up there until coming to the States for a year of high school. As you might imagine, he was SUPER DUPER raw, having only recently tried football after playing soccer and basketball (like HS teammate Odafe Oweh), and was an obvious redshirt in 2019. The pandemic hit when Ojabo was back in Scotland, and he got trapped there in a quarantine situation, unable to practice or develop much. He got back to Ann Arbor for fall camp but not in time to develop into a viable player. When 2021 started Ojabo was still considered a wild card, and they worked him into the lineup slowly, the third guy in a rotation of edge defenders opposite Hutchinson that varied by package.

Ojabo's breakout came against Wisconsin, Michigan's fifth game, when Ojabo contributing 2.5 sacks (+15/-3 in our charting), including the knockout punch to Graham Mertz, by teleporting around the Badgers' tackles. He continued to feast against all comers as a pass-rusher, inspiring a weekly bit in UFR where I'd switch to a Scottish accent to discuss things he was doing to pass protections that were too uncouth for the Queen's English. Ojabo had to develop in real time in dropbacks, which kept him off the field when Michigan went to their 3-4 looks.

Later opponents used this tendency, playing more TEs to keep Ojabo off the field; he saw just 17, 32, and 26 snaps against Indiana, Iowa, and Georgia. Unable to profit from NIL he declared when he was given a 1st round grade, then suffered an Achilles tear at Michigan's Pro Day.

Positives: Ceiling here is massive if the injury heals. Has legit 4.5 speed and can accelerate to that very quickly. Ideal measurables. Surprisingly developed as a pass-rusher, with an assortment of tricks. Very focused player with zero off-field concerns. Could have drawn 30 holding calls. Extremely underrated run defender: saw a lot of action as opponents ran away from Hutchinson, but consistently controlled his edge and constricted space. Great at setting an edge or caving a kickout. Never makes the same mistake twice, and mistakes were survivable (just three –2 or worse plays in his career).

Negatives: This was a long-term pick before the injury, which will need all of 2022 to heal, and might. Add that he came to college raw, lost a third of his development time to the pandemic, and left after just three years, and the team that drafts Ojabo probably has to carry him two contract years before they see the fruits of it. Still developing in real time, e.g. he struggled against zone reads in Game 4 but made no more mistakes all season, and who knows what Michigan was hiding him from.

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What others say: Mel Kiper had Ojabo (16th) one spot ahead of Travon Walker (17th) in his early March mock draft, calling him a "pure pass-rusher." Kiper thinks Ojabo is best as a 3-4 OLB because the base is a bit small and he can get "overwhelmed" by OTs. Ojabo slipped to the 34th pick (Lions) in Kiper's last mock.

The Athletic named Ojabo a 2nd rounder, their 8th edge rusher, and also leaned into the stand-up edge rusher bit:

An athletic rusher with a long, nimble frame, Ojabo has the balanced feet and hip flexibility, which were developed from years of basketball and soccer training, to work tight spaces and grease the edge as a pass rusher. His defensive role shouldn’t be restricted to only rushing the passer, but he needs to improve his functional strength and body positioning to make plays in the run game … offers down-the-road Pro Bowl upside as a hybrid linebacker.

Ian Cummings loves the measurables and the moves:

Ojabo’s frame is made even more dangerous by the exceptional athleticism contained within it. He has top-tier explosiveness off the snap and also has great torso flexibility. Ojabo can accelerate quickly while reducing his surface area and pinching the corner. Furthermore, he has a devastating ghost move, with which he uses his burst and contortion to shade by tackles with minimal contact.

Ryan Fowler of The Draft Network says Ojabo "has no ceiling." Meanwhile the college production-oriented PFF has Ojabo their 4th-best edge prospect (including Karlaftis outside), and focus on his monster production on 3rd downs and in the red zone, but also put him 50th overall due to lack of counting points.

Our Scheme/Best Scheme: I'm going to differ from the NFL experts because I saw enough of Ojabo as a run defender to appreciate him as a 4-3 edge guy, and Michigan saw enough of him as a true OLB to take him off the field rather than continue using him as such. Whereas Josh Uche had hidden talent as a linebacker and not much size, Ojabo should be able to continue adding weight. He would thrive in a 4-3 Over system that prefers to keep its SDE outside the tight end. The Colts would be good (he and Kwity would be a hellacious pair in a few years) or the Saints with their 5-0 and 6-0 fronts, but the team I was eyeing for Ojabo was the Chiefs, who could groom Ojabo to replace Frank Clark (a $30M cap hit in 2023 and UFA in 2024).

2021 Grading

The following numbers are based on my 2021 charting in Upon Further Review. One point is roughly equivalent to an action that affected the play by 5 yards, i.e. zero points are awarded for simply filling an assignment. Certain scores require context, e.g. defensive linemen are expected to score 2 to 1 to the positive because of their greater opportunities to make plays, and rarely get negative individual grades when pass-rushing, since those are handed out through a team metric. Team defense charting.

BY PLAY TYPE:

Versus Play Type:	+	-	Total
Inside Zone	12	7	+5
Power	13	4	+9
Stretch	14	7	+7
Other Run	5	4	+1
Screens	4	2	+2
Pass Deep	57	7	+50
Pass Short	23	5	+18
PA Pass	3	1	+2

Ojabo effectively matched Hutchinson's long down pass-rushing efficiency last year, which is doubly impressive given he wasn't on the field nearly as often. He graded out 2-1 to the positive against the run, which means the guy is getting the job done there. What's more interesting there is the lack of numbers.

BY GAME:

Opponent	+	-	T	Snaps	Notes
Western Michigan	3	10	-7	35	See the athlete, expectations scaled way back.
Washington	2		+2	33	Passing downs only.
Northern Illinois	2	2	0	13	Louder. Not quite loud enough.
Rutgers	6	3	+3	20	On like six plays. Uche specialist and it showed.
Wisconsin	15	3	+12.5	35	That's a bonny, bonny day.
Nebraska	14.5	1	+13.5	55	Feasting on the Ts so hard he got the Hutchinson treatment.
Northwestern	10	4.5	+5.5	42	Not a great coverage DE, led B10 in PBUs this week.
Michigan State	18	2	+16	41	Edge terror, full-timer, GO AWAY NFL
Indiana	10	1	+9	17	Uche role: Few snaps, much destruction.
Penn State	14.5	4	+10.5	60	Blatant holding every play means you've arrived, son.
Maryland	14	5.5	+8.5	56	A lot of his positives were "Got held, refs-2" Must fix for OSU.
Ohio State	21.5	4	+17.5	66	Hutchinson'd the edge when they ran away from Hutchinson.
Iowa	8	3	+5	32	This too.
Georgia	1	0	+1	26	5-2 response to all the TEs took him off the field.

Alas, the NFL did not go away.

I came away from the season believing it was a tactical mistake by Michigan to use a 3-4 (really a 5-2) against multi-TE sets because that took Ojabo and hybrid LB/S Michael Barrett off the field for an extra DT and OLB who weren't as effective. But their reasoning might not have been a steadfast commitment to the Ravens 3-4 system; it might as well have been things they were seeing about Ojabo in practice when he took on doubles.

Video of All Varieties: (Collection)

People don't talk enough about how he's an ELITE edge defender against the run:

Maybe don't leave him in coverage:

…against Jaxson Smith-Njigba:

But he can handle tight ends.

Got moves:

(Yes, that's the controversial overturn and yes, still mad).

Sometimes over-rushed, but this got cleaned up over the season:

Elite length, feet and EXPLOSION:

DIE QUARTERBACKS DIE

David Ojabo’s ability is next level 〽️@UMichFootball pic.twitter.com/huCskQhOY9

— PFF Draft (@PFF_College) January 6, 2022

Summary and Projection: Ojabo is a pretty simple scout except I think the draft experts are so focused on him as a pass-rusher they've missed how much he developed as a run defender. That rapidity of his development given how little time he's devoted to football should be part of his story. This guy has zero bad habits, and picked up good ones quickly, which suggests he's more likely than not to achieve his upside.

And that upside: WHOOOOOO!!!!! Elite edge rusher who can play all downs and probably has the athleticism to become a functional OLB down the road as well. That probably means he gets taken by a 3-4 team, but I still hold Ojabo is perfect for a 4-3 Over team that needs him to set an edge and rush the quarterback while letting the linebackers play the inside gaps. A lot of NFL teams have moved away from that because it's easier to come by faster/smaller linebackers than elite DEs, so they use bigger ends to control the B and C gaps, and their linebackers' speed to cover anything outside of that.

Ojabo is one of those rare DEs who could allow you to play with a more traditional linebacker, which brings back all those great ILB blitzes you don't see as much today. Yes, because of his injury and the need to invest in some development he's not going to help anyone right away. But that should be offset by a cheaper cap hit down the road; if he works out you're getting elite production at what's probably a 2nd round price, and saving elsewhere by staying out of the superninja 4-3 MLB market. There's a reason these guys got so expensive in the first place.