Which undrafted free agents could make an impact in the 2023 NFL season?

#6. Emil Ekiyor Jr., IOL, Indianapolis Colts (Alabama)

Alabama interior O-lineman Emil Ekiyor Jr, signed for the Colts ahead of the 2023 NFL season

The one name that absolutely shocked me how he wasn’t selected at all, is this Alabama first-team All-SEC guard. Just outside the top-100 overall recruits in 2018, Ekiyor played in 24 and started 13 games heading into his junior year, when he started all 15 games and helped Alabama finish top-six in terms of scoring offense (39.9). This past season he became a first-team all-conference selection by the AP and league coaches, once again being a full-time starter at right guard.

At 6’3”, 325 pounds, Ekiyor features a powerful, compact build and basically played 2,600 snaps in the SEC these last three years. This guy wants to bring the pain in the run game, with a thick lower half and easy ability to create flexion in his joints, where he is consistently to center blocks and create movement.

While he can ride people down the line in the zone run game, he’s also capable of bucket-stepping and scooping nose-tackles on the backside of wide zone. He was frequently utilized on different pulling assignments and the reactionary skills to secure blocks in space are impressive for a man his size are pretty darn impressive.

In the pass-game, he has the strong lower body to stymie powerful interior rushers, keeps re-fitting his hands and once he gets them latched inside the chest of guys across from him, their rush completely dies out a lot of times.

Ekiyor displays excellent awareness for second-level rushers and is capable of tossing them to the turf, whilst delivering some nasty rib-shots if he doesn’t have a direct assignment in pass-pro. That’s how he didn’t surrender a single sack or QB hit this past season across 414 pass-blocking snaps.

The two areas he still needs to work on are not allowing his head to drop as regularly and allow defenders to slip him because of it. That, along with becoming more effective with his hand-usage as a protector, being slightly off in his timing and relying heavily on two-handed strikes, which makes it easier for defenders to knock them away.

I’m still flabbergasted how he didn’t get his name called at all, as part of an interior O-line class that lacked many starting quality players beyond the top-five. Especially after seeing him move over the center at times during Senior Bowl week and being equally effective with his strong base to negate pass-rushers during one-on-ones.

The Colts O-line took a big step back as a unit last season, in part due to some pieces struggling individually and them having to make up for it in some way. They’re hoping Bernhard Raimann can settle in at left tackle after an up-and-down rookie campaign, considering it was only his third season playing on the front-five.

Right guard however is still a question mark, where I think Ekiyor has a legit chance to beat out Will Fries and Danny Pinter for a starting spot in training already.