Why Teams Love Players Like Odighizuwa, Graham With Wrestling Backgrounds

Any NFL scout will testify that prospects with wrestling backgrounds are built differently. That’s the case for a pair of defensive tackles, the Cowboys’ Osa Odighizuwa and potential Jaguars’ first-round selection Mason Graham.

When kids in other sports were playing video games during free time, wrestlers were running extra miles on empty stomachs, strategically spitting to make weight for upcoming matches. That was Odighizuwa as a prep, when he went a combined 91-0 over his last two seasons at Douglas High School in Portland, Ore. His secret weapon was his head, using it to control the leverage of his heavyweight opponents.

“Head position is definitely one of those things that you need to be cognizant of in wrestling,” Odighizuwa said Wednesday on the Pat McAfee Show after signing a four-year, $80 million contract extension with Dallas. “Wrest control, just where your head’s at.”

Where Odighizuwa's head is now is somewhere Graham wants to be on April 24: Having reached a major career milestone. Graham shouldn’t have to wait long on the first night of the NFL Draft. Most mocks have him going No. 5 overall to Jacksonville.

Like Odighizuwa, Graham won multiple state championships in that other sport, as a menace on the mat. Graham’s high-school wrestling coach at Servite High School, Alan Clinton, said wrestling complements football extremely well.

“There’s nobody to rely on,” Clinton told the Michigan Daily in 2022. “You don’t have any offensive or defensive linemen there that you can share the blame with. It’s you against the world. Your mental toughness is exceptionally strong, which then makes it easy going into the football situation.”

Going into their NFL football situations, an entire generation of linemen are using that mental toughness to gain an edge in the trenches. Those players include Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum and Buccaneers offensive tackle Tristian Wirfs. Graham said he always knew football was his future, but used wrestling to brighten those prospects.

"It was more of just a hobby to me out of season," Graham said at last week’s scouting combine. "One of my high-school coaches actually recommended to me to do it. It wasn't something that I was like dying to do, but I feel like it was good for me in the long run.

“I feel like it helps a lot. Going into it, I was skeptical of doing wrestling because just all the stuff that goes with it. But I feel like it's helped a lot with my leverage, just feeling out O-linemen; you're wrestling another guy. Guys are getting tangled up, and that's kind of how the O-line and D-line works.”

How scouting works for a smaller-sized defensive tackle like Graham is that if he has a wrestling background, his football film shows it. Draft expert Daniel Jeremiah said last month that while Graham may not pass the eye test in pregame warmups, his wrestling background jumps off the tape. The 6-3, 320-pound defender is never on the ground.

“He gets underneath guys, Jeremiah said. “I just wrote down when I was looking at my notes, I had ‘block destruction’ written down so many different times. He's just a real aggressive player who has got instincts and can dominate the game against the run, and I think has more to offer as a pass rusher.”

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