From Nigeria to Winnipeg to a shot at NFL draft
Defensive lineman the only Canadian in the running
Talk about an unlikely path to the draft.
In 2010, David Onyemata was living in Nigeria and hadn’t even heard of American football. In 2016, an NFL team is going to pay him to play it.
The former University of Manitoba star is the only Canadian with a good shot at being selected in the league’s draft, which kicks off Thursday and concludes early Saturday evening. The defensive lineman is a Day 3 pick in the NFL draft, meaning he’d be taken anywhere from the fourth to seventh round.
Onyemata possesses prodigious raw talents for a 6-foot-3, 300-pound man: great power, burst and athleticism. He was not invited to the NFL’s scouting combine, but at his U of M pro day he put up numbers that match him physically with the top D-linemen in a draft packed with good ones.
There’s an outside shot that a team sold on his talents might take him Friday night in Round 3.
It’s amazing, really, that a 23-year-old who grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and immigrated to Winnipeg in 2011 — all by himself — finds himself in this position this week.
“It was in high school in Winnipeg when I first heard of football,” Onyemata said. “My buddies, who came up to my high school from the States, kind of talked about it. I wasn’t even aware of football then.
“The first time I watched a football game was in 2011 on TV. It was a CFL game. I can’t remember what teams were even playing.”
Onyemata’s parents still live back in Nigeria. They sent him solo to Canada to get a quality education.
It was only late last season that Onyemata said he became convinced he could make it to the NFL. On top of being named a two-time West all-star in Canadian college football, he won the J.P. Metras Trophy as the nation’s top down lineman last season. He was invited to take part in the East-West Shrine Game in Florida in January, a U.S. post-season bowl game for departing U.S. college stars. Coaches switched him to defensive end, yet Onyemata still turned some heads.
NFL Network’s chief draft analyst Mike Mayock took notice and continues to talk him up.
“The Onyemata kid has sparked the most (NFL) interest of all (the Canadian) guys,” Mayock said last Friday on his pre-draft conference call. “I followed him around at the East-West game for two days.
“He looks the part. He’s a big, good-looking kid. He moves well. He has no idea what he’s doing, but in the one week of the EastWest game, he improved immeasurably, which gives coaches hope that he could translate that at the next level. I’ve got him stacked in my fifth round. But ‘Will he be ready to contribute?’ is the thing.”