INDIANAPOLIS — The Ekiyor family woke up last Sunday morning dealing with disappointment.
Emil Ekiyor, Jr. expected to be drafted. Expected to hear his name called somewhere between the third round and the end of the fifth. Expected to celebrate at home in Indianapolis with his family, the culmination of a lot of hard work and dedication.
Ekiyor, Jr.’s phone stayed silent as the picks kept flashing across the screen, prompting him to wonder what had gone wrong, what teams hadn’t seen in the 40 starts he’d made at Alabama, playing his way to All-SEC honors at one of the best programs in the country, a program the NFL mines every year for draft picks.
Colts general manager Chris Ballard finally called near the end of the draft, convinced Ekiyor Jr. to sign with the team as an undrafted free agent. Ekiyor, Jr. had made it to the NFL, even if it wasn’t the way he wanted to get there.
Cathedral center Emil Ekiyor (72) committed to Alabama over the weekend.
But the Ekiyor family got up the next morning and headed to Eastern Star Church in Indianapolis for Sunday services.
“We were so amazed at how many people hugged him and loved on him, were just so excited for him,” his father, Emil Ekiyor, Sr., said. “Nobody cared about being drafted or undrafted. They were just so excited, saying, ‘Wow, it’s such a blessing you’re home, we’re coming to the Colts games.’ That just kind of gave him so much joy.”
Joy and perspective.
Perspective he’d already started to process Saturday night.
Ekiyor, Sr. played in the NFL as a defensive lineman with the Colts, Falcons and Raiders franchises as an undrafted free agent out of Central Florida, and as he’d watched his son deal with the disappointment of going undrafted, he’d tried to keep his son’s spirits high.
“You feel your son’s disappointment,” Ekiyor, Sr. said. “It wasn’t a thing about how he performed. That was one thing I wanted to make clear to him. He’s put in the work, he’s done a lot of things, he’s grinded. You don’t start 42 games in the SEC, people don’t give that to you because you’re a nice guy.”
The family had gotten a call from Ekiyor, Jr.’s agent, Joel Segal, in the late rounds of the draft.
From what Segal had been able to gather, Ekiyor, Jr. fell down draft boards because of a knee injury he’d suffered in 2021, a knee that had prompted arthroscopic surgery. Ekiyor, Jr. dealt with multiple injuries at Alabama — including a sports hernia and a separated shoulder — but the knee apparently caught NFL teams' attention.
“It was just the MRIs, everything at the Combine, that raised the red flag,” Ekiyor, Jr. said.
Ekiyor, Jr. does not feel like the knee is a problem, and his father said his son wasn’t called back for Combine medical rechecks, the second opinion some prospects go through in Indianapolis a month after the initial event to allay team’s concerns.
But in the final few weeks before the draft, Ekiyor, Jr. became aware that it was a part of his draft evaluation.
“Kind of had an idea going in,” Ekiyor, Jr. said.
The Ekiyors believed the body of work the Cathedral product had put together at Alabama would convince a team to draft him.
Ekiyor, Jr., could feel a chip on his shoulder building as teams passed on him. Fourteen guards and nine centers were taken, but Ekiyor Jr.’s name was never called.
“I won’t even sugarcoat it, it’s definitely an experience that I feel like will fuel me for the future,” he said. "But I took a step back, looked at myself and realized I did everything I could, I worked as hard as I could, I didn’t have any regrets about the process, but moving forward, I definitely just kind of want to prove people wrong.”
His father reminded him that plenty of undrafted players put together long careers in the NFL.
Including some he grew up watching in Indianapolis.
“Showing him guys like Jeff Saturday, other guys who have played at a high level and somehow, somebody made a judgement about them being drafted, not being drafted,” Ekiyor, Sr. said. “If you’re hungry for it and you’re going to the right situation, those kinds of things work out for you. What you think is a bad thing turns out to be a total blessing for you.”
The Colts are clearly the right situation.
While there were other teams interested in signing Ekiyor, Jr., Indianapolis gave him a $5,000 signing bonus and brought him to a roster that has a void on the depth chart behind starting guards Quenton Nelson and Will Fries, although center Danny Pinter can also play the position.
Ekiyor, Jr. has an opportunity to prove himself in Indianapolis, and he’s been through plenty of fire in his time at Alabama.
“I do have a lot of confidence in myself and my abilities, the work that I’ve been putting in, and those experiences, playing in big games, national championships, things of that nature, will kind of suit me well,” Ekiyor, Jr. said. “The competition at Alabama, it prepares you for the NFL level.”
Ekiyor, Jr., is on the field at the Colts’ rookie minicamp this weekend, wearing No. 66 and taking his first steps toward an NFL career in Indianapolis.
An NFL shot that might not have come the way he wanted it, but a shot nonetheless.
“What started out as so much disappointment ended up being, by Sunday afternoon, so much excitement,” Ekiyor, Sr. said.
Excitement for a shot he can still make count.
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05-05-2023, 06:24 PM
Why guard Emil Ekiyor Jr. went from projected 4th-round draft pick to Colts UDFA
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