Liam Ezekiel

[Superhero]

http://www.nfl.com/draft/profiles/2005/ezekiel_liam (http://www.nfl.com/draft/profiles/2005/ezekiel_liam)


This guy is very strong & I hear that he plays quicker than he times. I think he will make a good backup to Fletcher.
Then the Bills can move Crowell to the outside.


He could eventually become a starter

[ShadowHawk7]

Sweet. :up:

[venis2k1]

http://www.nfl.com/draft/profiles/2005/ezekiel_liam (http://www.nfl.com/draft/profiles/2005/ezekiel_liam)


This guy is very strong & I hear that he plays quicker than he times. I think he will make a good backup to Fletcher.
Then the Bills can move Crowell to the outside.


He could eventually become a starter

i saw a couple of northeastern games this year. i think this kid is a player, but what do i know.

[Tatonka]

liam is a cool name.. so i hope he makes it.

[Bills 4 life]

I WILL ASK A FRIEND OF MINE WHO PLAYED FOOTBALL UP THERE 2 YEARS AGO

[Tom D]

My dark horse to make the squad from the UDFA is that kid from Wisconsin, Leonhard. if he can play like Wire on ST, Wire might get cut.

[venis2k1]

anyone else miss Brandon Spoon???

SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONN!!!!

[ShadowHawk7]

My dark horse to make the squad from the UDFA is that kid from Wisconsin, Leonhard. if he can play like Wire on ST, Wire might get cut.

LOL. Great avatar and sig! :posrep:

I think either Leonhard (sweet name) or Marvel Ward will make the squad as a backup safety or corner. Good UDFA pickups.

[Superhero]

Ezekiel aims to overcome odds at NFL draft

By Mark Pratt, Associated Press Writer | April 20, 2005

BOSTON -- Liam Ezekiel's hard-nosed approach and outstanding tackling abilities have earned the Northeastern linebacker comparisons to some of football's all-time greats.


"I'm old enough to remember guys like Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke, and he's a little bit of a throwback to that type of linebacker," said Rocky Hager, the coach at Northeastern during Ezekiel's senior year.

It is probably the highest compliment anyone can pay Ezekiel, a four-time All-Atlantic 10 Conference player and two-time first-team Division I-AA All-American.

The 6-foot-1, 245-pound linebacker has a chance to become the first Northeastern player drafted since the Cincinnati Bengals took tight end Dan Ross in the second round in 1979. Some project Ezekiel to go as high as the fourth round in this weekend's draft.

"Obviously, it would be exciting to be drafted, but I am not banking on it," he said. "I'm one of those guys who would play for free if they let me. I just want to get into a camp and show what I can do."

Anyone who played or coached against him in the Atlantic 10 already knows what he can do. Ezekiel has been terrorizing the league's offenses for four years and finished as Northeastern's career leader in tackles with 489.

Now he has to prove a I-AA player can compete against far tougher competition.

"The competition level isn't the same at I-AA," Ezekiel said. "The exposure isn't the same."

For the past few months, he has been trying to get that exposure in other ways.

He played in the East-West Shrine game in San Francisco in January, where he had six tackles against mostly Division I-A players. He then attended the Competitive Edge Sports camp in Atlanta from late-January to late-February to work on speed, conditioning and strength -- again with many I-A players who expect to get drafted.

"Pretty much all you do there is work out, eat and sleep," he said.

He went to the NFL Combine in late February with dozens of others who expect to get a shot at the pros. They don't just test physical skills at the combine, but administer psychological and IQ tests.

"Nowadays, you can't just be a physical specimen to play in the NFL," Ezekiel said. "You have to have a brain to learn the complex defenses."

He also attended a Pro Day at Boston College, where NFL scouts evaluated prospects from New England colleges.

All those experiences taught him the same thing: He belongs on the field with the best college football players in the nation, even if he did play at a I-AA school.

"I always knew I could compete with them, but I guess after doing all these things it has reassured me a bit," said Ezekiel, who has a 36-inch vertical leap, runs the 40-yard dash in 4.62 seconds and has a maximum bench press of 475 pounds.

He is also aware that some of the top players in the NFL played at I-AA schools, including Terrell Owens, Rodney Harrison and two-time league MVP Kurt Warner.

Ezekiel was actually recruited by a number of I-A colleges out of high school, and committed to play at West Virginia. But he missed the Bay State and his family, and came home after just a day, before participating in a single Mountaineers practice.

Don Brown, the former Northeastern coach now at Massachusetts, recruited Ezekiel out of high school and gladly gave him the school's final scholarship four years ago.

Hager was the beneficiary of Ezekiel's final year of college eligibility, when he was selected a finalist for the Buck Buchanan Award, which goes to the top defensive player in I-AA.

"When I got the job at Northeastern, I talked to a couple of guys on the Temple staff who had coached in the Atlantic 10 and they told me Liam is the kind of guy you build your defense around," Hager said.

"He plays the game with a consistent intensity. In the coaching world, we say he has a great motor. He does all the things you like to see from a linebacker. He doesn't run around his blockers, he holds through them. He has a nasty streak on the field, and that helps make him the prototypical inside or middle linebacker in a 4-3 concept."

But Hager suspended Ezekiel indefinitely last season because of an "incident" at practice. No other details were given and Ezekiel missed only one game, against Hofstra.

"I just hope somebody likes the kind of player I am," Ezekiel said, adding he'll play Arena Football or in the Canadian Football League if he has to. "Hopefully there's a coach or a GM out there who wants an old-school type of player."

[jamze132]

liam is a cool name.. so i hope he makes it.
Thats his "Ron Mexico" name.