Although the Pittsburgh Steelers added Mark Barron as a free agent, they’ll utilize the draft to address the lack of depth at inside linebacker without a doubt, looking for much-needed speed and intelligence at the position – something that has been missing since they lost Ryan Shazier to serious injury. Eric Herrmann, in his latest SCU mock draft, had the Steelers taking Stanford Cardinals linebacker Bobby Okereke. While Okereke has areas where he absolutely needs to improve, his skillset is such that he could provide immediate help in attacking the ball – something he is really good at.

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As a redshirt senior, Okereke made the Lott IMPACT Trophy watch list for the best defensive player in the country and the Butkus Award watch list for best linebacker in the country. Okereke’s best trait may be that he has a great initial step and can get to his top speed quickly. He attacks the ball and can close ground in a hurry, which often took opposing ball-carriers by surprise at the collegiate level. Okereke fits as a pursuit WILL or box safety (due to his size) at the pro level, with the ability to excel in timing his attacks at the line of scrimmage and can beat ball-carriers to the corner. His ability to range sideline-to-sideline, especially in covering boundary-type plays would be a plus on a Steelers roster.

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COMBINE RESULTS

40-yard dash	3-cone	Broad jump	Vertical jump	20-yd shuttle
4.58 seconds	7.25 seconds	33.5 inches	122.0 inches	4.26 seconds

Hard work pays off.
The Farm 👉 #NFLCombine
🤓 @BobbyOkereke pic.twitter.com/t7tTeawTQR

— Stanford Football (@StanfordFball) March 5, 2019

At Stanford, Okereke went from being a reserve defender (redshirt freshman season) to an honorable mention All-Pac-12 selection with 96 tackles (7.5 for loss), four sacks, and one interception in 14 starts in 2018. Okereke also logged five passes broken-up, forced two fumbles and scored a safety.

.@BobbyOkereke's career-high 13 tackles helped secure a ninth straight Axe.#TBT | #GoStanford pic.twitter.com/oYmDkbHo3h

— Stanford Football (@StanfordFball) March 21, 2019

STRENGTHS

Although he’s received criticism for diagnosing plays, his film shows that he generally reads his keys and is intelligent in how he reacts to the play. Okereke plays his gap and is able to identify lead blockers in order to prevent from being washed out and fills the hole.

He shows bursts of explosiveness in plays where he has identified where the ball is and meets the ball-carrier with little hesitation. He is also quick to diagnose a designed rushing path and hustle to meet the point of attack before the ball-carrier. With rangy sideline-to-sideline speed, Okereke is able to slide well and still maintain good awareness in man or zone coverage; he’s not afraid to go one-on-one against tight ends or rushers.

WEAKNESSES

Where Okereke needs work is in his block deconstruction; he tends to come in too high and can get swarmed because he doesn’t stack-and-shed with good hand usage. If he gets caught in the box, he needs to learn to dip under or swim past smart blockers so that he can finish tackles throughout contact.

He’s not in the opposing offensive backfield a lot and tends to remain on his side of the line of scrimmage more often than not – which can be both good and bad; bad if he’s caught flat-footed and gets tangled up with blockers, good if he’s playing the gap and being patient to prevent a big play. That isn’t to say he can’t make a sack, but many of the sacks he earned came as a result of pursuing a scrambling passer outside of the pocket.

Okereke will need to improve his overall tackling, as well. Instead of lunging into contact, he needs to use his full body to leverage opponents and wrap through as he brings them to the ground. Included in that will need to be more aggressiveness in going to the opponent rather than passively tracking them until he can apply a hit.

PREDICTED ROUND GRADE

Most draft analysts agree that Okereke sits in the third-to-fourth round range.

.@StanfordFball LB Bobby Okereke. 34 6/8 arm length and wingspan of someone over 6’10” (82 5/8). And he’s going to run in 4.5’s. This play from #seniorbowl shows why length matters. Best comp to Darius Leonard in this year’s draft. He won’t make it out of Round 3. #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/k09sEvmIC8

— Jim Nagy (@JimNagy_SB) February 19, 2019