Browns push Ogunjobi to be top nose tackle
Larry Ogunjobi, working during drills in training camp, is battling Jamie Meder for the starting nose tackle job.
Ogunjobi, 24, has accepted the challenge.
“If I want to do the things I say I want to do, (winning a starting job is) just one of the things that has to take place,” Ogunjobi said. “So as I come to practice every day, my biggest thing is being the best version of myself each and every day.”
The first pick of the third
round (65th overall) in 2017, Ogunjobi primarily played three-technique last season, but, this year, Browns moved him to nose tackle, his main position at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Although he could always slide back to three-technique, nose tackle is Ogunjobi’s preferred spot.
Nose tackle is the “fastest way to the quarterback, really, a straight line,” Ogunjobi said. “I’m a different type of nose. I’m not this space-eater. I can move. I can get in the backfield. There’s a lot of things I can do to just kind of make things harder on people.”
Ogunjobi’s production as a rookie last season suggests he has the potential to reach this stated goal: “To just be recognized as one of the top players at my position.”
He appeared in 14 games last season with just one start and had 32 tackles, including a sack.
Ogunjobi has been exchanging text messages with some of the sport’s best defensive tackles — Geno Atkins of the Cincinnati Bengals and Aaron Donald of the Los Angeles Rams — to pick up tricks of the trade. For the second consecutive offseason, Ogunjobi worked out with Atkins at Chip Smith Performance Systems in the Atlanta area. They trained together for about six weeks this offseason, and Ogunjobi sends film of his pass rushes to Atkins every night for critiquing.
“I feel like I’m such a better player (than I was last year) just because of the time that I took to really understand and really study film and really see things from a different perspective,” Ogunjobi said. “Everybody’s fast. Everybody’s strong. Everybody’s talented. But it’s the guys from the neck up who understand the game is mental that really make the difference.”