CANADIAN TACKLE’S PERSEVERANCE ABOUT TO PAY OFF
Shepherd took unlikely path to NFL Draft, where he’s expected to be picked on Day 2
Here’s how grateful Canadian Nathan Shepherd is just to be regarded as a sure-to-be-drafted NFL prospect, let alone a consensus Day 2 pick.
The defensive tackle snailmailed handwritten notes of appreciation to GMs of all teams that brought him in for a private visit or workout before the NFL Draft, which begins Thursday night in Dallas with Round 1, continues Friday night with Rounds 2-3 and concludes Saturday afternoon with Rounds 4-7.
Shepherd is the only Canadian likely to be selected.
“Yeah, for the teams that brought me in, I wrote notes of thanks,” Shepherd said Tuesday.
“Honestly, I was stacking up with a bunch of teams on visits. And in those notes I had to make fun about the fact that I’m Canadian, for sure. I hope they got a kick out of that.”
Shepherd’s seven-year odyssey from a scrawny linebacker at J. Clarke Richardson Collegiate in Ajax, Ont., about 25 kilometres east of Toronto, to one of this draft’s top interior defensive linemen as a powerful, musclepacked six-foot-four, 315-pounder is about as unlikely an NFL success story as you’ll read.
After running out of money following a two-year stint at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., Shepherd had to leave football for two years. He worked in a plant nursery, in electrical construction and in a boxing factory as he kept packing on muscle, saving up money and patiently waiting for the chance he was sure would come to resume his college football career south of the border.
It did, in 2015 at Fort Hays State University, a Division II school in Kansas that — in competing against the likes of Central Oklahoma, Lindenwood, Emporia State and Southwest Baptist — produces few NFL players.
Shepherd turned heads last fall in his senior season. He earned an invitation to the Senior Bowl in January and sparkled in two days of practices against many of the best offensive linemen in this draft.
“Shepherd was the one guy who could take (UTEP guard) Will Hernandez’s punch and still keep his space,” said NFLDraftscout. com’s Rob Rang. “I mean, Shepherd is a very powerful man.
“Once you start taking on the biggest, baddest offensive linemen in the country at the Senior Bowl and you’re not getting moved — you’re moving them, in many cases — it was a ‘wow’ kind of moment. … It’s like somebody just walked up to him and put a highlighter all over him. Like, there he is. It was that clear.”
In impressing NFL talent evaluators even more in position-specific drills March 4 at the scouting combine, Shepherd cemented his Day 2 draft projection.
Shepherd proved a popular invitee by NFL teams over the past month. More and more, teams prefer prospects not discuss their private workouts. But WalterFootball.com is one website that reliably keeps track and it lists Shepherd as having paid private visits to the Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals, Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons, New York Giants, Detroit Lions, Carolina Panthers, Houston Texans and Minnesota Vikings.
The Cardinals, Cowboys, Falcons and Texans also privately worked him out.
Shepherd said he grew up a big fan of the Baltimore Ravens, but he made it clear Tuesday: “I’m a professional now. It’s whoever is hiring.”
NFL Network chief draft analyst Mike Mayock is as connected with NFL talent evaluators as anyone. On Tuesday, Mayock released his only top-100 ranking of prospects and he has Shepherd at No. 43. Other respected talent evaluators have Shepherd rated in that neighbourhood. Dane Brugler of NFLDraftScout.com and NBC Rotoworld’s Josh Norris both have Shepherd 50th.
“He is a big dude with an NFL body,” Mayock said of Shepherd. “He’s got kind of rare movement skills. I think the 3-4 teams would look at him and say, wow, he could be a five-technique, which is a defensive end in 3-4. But he also might have the movement skill down the road to develop into a (situational) rusher inside.
“He’s kind of a rare guy from a height, weight, speed perspective. Raw as could be. I think he’s, worst case, a second-round talent, but he might drop into the third round, just because it might take a little while to get something out of him because he’s so raw. But I’m telling you, I think the league is really intrigued by him and think he’s got a lot of upside.”
Shepherd said such accolades and high draft projections have caught him off guard.
“Imagine that, right? It’s crazy,” he said. “Because I never really was hung up on the draft — at all. I just wanted an opportunity. So wherever I went, as long as I made a team, that meant I made it. I’d have been definitely happy with just that.
“But now, with the recent events I’m just finding out about, that I actually might go a lot higher than I thought I would, it’s all a blessing.”
I’m telling you, I think the league is really intrigued by him and think he’s got a lot of upside.