Eyabi Okie, EDGE, Charlotte (Senior)
Rayane M
Back for the 2024 NFL Draft edition, The Trick Play team is once again offering to immerse you in the heart of the event through the scouting reports of Rayane and Valentin. Who will become the next gem of the pro world and who, on the contrary, risks a spectacular flop?
The 2024 NFL Draft starts right now on TTP!
Strengths :
- Great athlete
- Powerful takeoff
- Very active on the field
- Powerful hands
- Good wingspan
- Powerful
Weaknesses :
- A huge dumbass
- Age
- Too aggressive on his takeoff
- Tackling Technique
- insufficient bend
- Lower the head too much
- Plays too high
EDGE Eyabi Okie
— Rayane M (@RayaneScout) April 2, 2024
A great raw talent who has lost an enormous amount of time in his development, there's still a lot to work on for a player whose age is likely to put many off despite his very present qualities.
End of 3rd day value 🏗 pic.twitter.com/95kClxrBOR
TTProfil
To start, we need to talk about his athletic abilities because since always, if Eyabi has managed to interest coaches, it's primarily thanks to his athletic abilities, which are really good for someone of his size. Eyabi is a good athlete, particularly possessing a very explosive first step on his takeoff. He accelerates strongly and moves quickly right from the start. As I mentioned just before, Eyabi has a good size for the position, with this kind of athletic potential at 6'5 and 244 pounds, it's easy to see why Eyabi can make coaches excited.
Another interesting point about Okie is that he's a very active player when he's on the field. He knows how to make the most of his number of reps to be productive, and that's perfect for the role that could be his if a franchise decides to give him a chance. But we'll come back to that in the conclusion.
Eyabi's powerful hands are another point to highlight. He has a really strong punch, and he can quickly make life difficult for opposing tackles thanks to his massive arms. I actually find that he tends to not use his arms enough to create separation, as he could sometimes make his life easier in his pass rush plan by doing so.
Eyabi is a player who, in addition to having interesting athletic abilities, is more than capable of being powerful. If he gets low, he's particularly capable of moving offensive linemen much heavier than him. However, the issue is that he doesn't always get low enough.
A real black mark for Eyabi is his attitude problem, or at least it has been for a long time. We'll come back to this in detail in the conclusion, but Eyabi has wasted so much time in his development that it's becoming criminal. When we see the opportunities he's missed and especially the reasons behind it, it's clear that it's his number one weakness, and it's likely to worry a lot of franchises.
Despite having a very good takeoff, he unfortunately tends to be too aggressive in his approach to the game. He constantly tries to jump the snap of the opposing team (jumping the snap refers to a player trying to anticipate the quarterback's count to almost start at the same time as the ball, sometimes even cheating a little by starting slightly before the ball) which can sometimes put him in a bad situation when he needs to quickly readjust and the play starts, causing him to lose all his momentum, or when he hasn't had time to readjust and therefore gets flagged for offside. This is something that happens a lot to Eyabi because he tries to do it too often.
I'm really not a fan of his tackling technique, which in my opinion is quite average. Unfortunately, he tends to focus too much on delivering big hits at the expense of proper technique, which naturally leads to quite a few missed tackles.
To stick to his ability to rush the opposing QB, while he starts with a satisfactory foundation thanks to the tools we've seen in the strengths section, he lacks, in my opinion, qualities and especially variety in his technical repertoire. Once again, the problem is that Eyabi has settled into a comfort zone. By doing what he knows and without pushing himself, he manages to produce stats. So, why bother trying to do more?
To conclude quickly on Eyabi Okie-Anoma, his entire college career is a huge waste. Just as huge as his potential was coming out of high school, but unfortunately, Eyabi chose to throw away all his chances.
For sure, Eyabi had plenty of chances, starting with Alabama where he committed after high school as the 4th best player in the country in the 2018 class. The former 5-star recruit even made ALL SEC-Freshman for his first year there before being kicked out without any real explanation. Although Saban never publicly buried his player, Eyabi apparently had a history of absenteeism and fighting, which would later be confirmed. After that, Eyabi transferred to Houston, where he had to sit out one year due to transfer rules. He was once again dismissed from the team. Apparently, Eyabi was not attending classes, getting into fights on campus and with teammates. He then transferred to Tennessee Martin in FCS where he also had to sit out one year due to the transfer, but after that season, he finally started making stats, seemed to be reborn, and most importantly, did not get dismissed. To everyone's surprise, two and a half weeks before the start of last season, he chose to transfer to Michigan, even though it's a school known for taking players with no academic issues. I logically thought the player had finally matured given where he had decided to settle. He didn't encounter any problems during his time with the Wolverines, but he ended up seeing very little playing time in a team filled with talent.
Following his lack of playing time, Eyabi decided to transfer for the last time at the beginning of the season and this time settled in the modest program of Charlotte, where he had a more than decent season. However, considering the setbacks he has faced, the work needed on the player, and his advanced age, it's highly likely that Eyabi will end up as an undrafted free agent, unless a team sees real potential in him and wants to try something with him, deciding to take the risk.
Even if a team is willing to take the gamble, and I think it's entirely possible given that we're talking about a player who was in the top 5 of his class coming out of high school, I wouldn't take the risk before the very end of the 3rd day, so the 7th round.
English 
Français