About midway through his career at Eastern Kentucky, Josiah Ezirim’s coaches came to him with a proposition.
What if you moved to offensive tackle?
This had been something Ezirim had avoided for a while — according to the Athletic, he turned down a scholarship offer from the University of Cincinnati because they saw his best fit on the offensive line. He played strictly on the defensive line as an Ohio high schooler, and that is where he spent his first two seasons at Eastern Kentucky.
But, after two seasons, 12 tackles and zero starts on the EKU defensive line, Ezirim was ready to listen when his head coach told him, “I feel like your best chance at making it to the league is playing offensive line.”
A couple years later, years that included some all-conference and FCS All-American honors and an invitation to the East-West Shrine Game, the New Orleans Saints selected Ezirim in the seventh round of the 2024 NFL Draft.
“I don’t even know what to say,” said Ezirim, who was emotionally overwhelmed by the moment. “It’s so exciting. It’s been a long process meeting with so many different teams, not knowing where you’re going to go. I’m sitting there basically watching the whole entire draft, and I’m super-excited right now.”
Ezirim’s selection follows the Saints’ Day 3 guidelines. He will arrive to the team this year as a player who is still early on in the process of figuring out how to play the position, but the physical traits and makeup are tantalizing.
Start with the size: Ezirim casts an impressive figure at 6-foot-6 and 329 pounds, instantly making him one of the biggest players on the Saints roster.
He has the secondary measurements to match his height and weight, boasting an 85⅛-inch wingspan, 35¾-inch arms and 10¾-inch hands, all roughly equivalent to No. 7 overall pick J.C. Latham.
“I definitely use my length to my advantage,” Ezirim said. “I’m still new to offensive line; I’m still trying to perfect my craft. I’m definitely going to just keep grinding away, keep trying to be the best player I possibly can be.”
Ezirim is also a natural athlete. In addition to football, he played soccer and basketball growing up and also lettered in track at Hilliard Davidson High School, where he competed in the 100-meter dash.
The athleticism showed up at his pro day, but it is also evident when you watch him play, according to Eric Galko, the director of football operations at the Shrine Bowl.
Ezirim showed up on Galko’s radar last summer. The more he saw, the more he liked — and the more he became convinced that Ezirim has an NFL future, and not just as a bottom-of-the-roster player.
“It’s easy to say a guy has upside because he’s big and tall and athletic, but he’s shown significant strides every year,” Galko said. “That’s what optimism for upside really is, right? He’s got the tools to get better, but he’s also shown that he’s capable of getting better as a player.
“I think his ceiling is a starting player in the NFL. He’s got to earn that potential and reach that potential, but he’s got that type of movement skills, hand-eye coordination, timing, hand strike — all that stuff, he has the tools within him to do that.”
The Saints got a good look at Ezirim at the Shrine Bowl, with assistant offensive line coach Jahri Evans serving on the coaching staff there.
If New Orleans had a similar experience to Galko once it got to interact with Ezirim, it saw a player who not only showed the athletic profile to play both tackle positions, but one with the mental makeup to help him succeed.
“He’s a very thoughtful person,” Galko said. “He’s one of the players, among all the Shrine Bowl guys, he was in the upper echelon of asking really good questions before the event, early on in the process, what does this all mean? I think his intelligence is going to really allow him to, when he has success, it’s going to take him much further.”
Two things can be true regarding Ezirim and the Saints: As a seventh-round pick, the odds are against him making the roster, and they’re even lower for him to be a contributing player in Year 1. But the Saints are also potentially in a desperate position at tackle, even after using a first-rounder on Taliese Fuaga.
The path may be narrow for Ezirim to see the field in 2024, but it does exist.