Brian Asamoah Profile: Why the Minnesota Vikings drafted the linebacker in the 2022 NFL Draft

The Minnesota Vikings drafted Brian Asamoah with the 66th pick in the 2022 NFL draft.

Slightly outside the top-500 overall recruits in 2018, Asamoah was already an impactful backup as a freshman and overall throughout his three years in Norman. He amassed 168 tackles, 12.5 for loss, five sacks, five PBUs and three fumbles forced during his time there. And while he was still rotated in and out to some degree as a sophomore, he barely left the field last season, when 56 of his 80 total tackles came in solo fashion. He was named a second-team All-Big 12 selection.

Brian Asamoah's strengths:

Despite looking like he played at sub-220 pounds at times at OU, Asamoah was shifted head-up over the center a lot and has that ability to read runs between the tackles. He absolutely has the speed to scrape over the top of blocks and shut down runs to the sideline, but doesn’t blindly go wide and is looking to shoot the inside gap if possible, where his instant acceleration pops off the screen. He can cover a lot of ground laterally with his shoulders nearly square to the line of scrimmage. Then, he can cut off angles by opening up his hips to the sideline. Oklahoma did a lot of slanting on their D-line to create chaos up front, while asking Asamoah to clean things up.

When he does attack, the Sooner missile has the short-area burst to back-door zone blockers. While he may lack the size to deal with large blockers, he can dip that near-shoulder and has the balance to stay upright when he takes a bump from the side. When he chases after the ball going away from him, you see that he can flat-out run. Running jet sweeps to his side and wide zone the other way usually aren’t very good ideas. This guy plays with his hair on fire, and he brings a lot of energy to the table.

Asamoah is such an easy mover in space. He did a lot of middle hook and Tampa-2 sink drops, where he makes quarterbacks decline throws down the seams. He shows good peripheral vision to crowd throwing windows to tight-ends between the hashes, taking away a lot of easy completions on hooks or stick routes, but also on mesh concepts and other patterns, where he may drift with a route initially, but transitions to somebody else entering his area. Then, he can chase things down to either sideline, when he sees the ball come out, to limit big-play opportunities. He can quickly gain depth after initially stepping up against run-fakes, and he is so sudden with the way he goes from flowing with zone blocking and then chasing after alert screens or RPO reads the other way, where you see him get involved on the tackle a split-second later. You see it on tunnel screens as well, where his agility to work around bodies and put hands on the target is highly impressive.

This past season, Asamoah was lined up outside the tackle box a lot more and was asked to set the edge and crowd easy high-low reads. He has the ability to come upfield and make key tackles in space on scrambling quarterbacks. When he’s brought as a blitzer, he can anticipate the snap and looks like a bat shot out of hel., Then he can squeeze past offensive linemen, with an ability to bend his rushes, in order to close to the quarterback, where his last few steps are in turbo mode. There’s some physicality to go through backs stepping up in the hole and he doesn’t shy away from running into a guard at full speed either, to free up one of his teammates on a twist.

Brian Asamoah's weaknesses:

Due to the lack of size, Asamoah tends to cross-face blockers prematurely, when the ball-carrier hasn’t committed yet, and runs himself out of the action, as the cut-back occurs. And while he does have long arms to keep blockers away from his frame theoretically, you see guys get in there and drive him for a good ten yards a few times. Rarely does Asamoah actually stand up and drive back RBs. Instead, he will wrestle and twist them to the ground, for some extra yardage. You see it, at times, where he has the stop “in his hands”, but somebody backs his way forward, just beyond the marker. With the scheme Oklahoma ran, Asamoah will have to develop the ability to execute classic run fits and be disciplined in his reads. When he’s chasing out to the flats against check-downs, he would benefit from throttling down and forcing his opponent to actually put a move on him, rather than beating him easily with one quick cut.

Conclusion on Brian Asamoah:

The toughest part about evaluating the linebacker position these days is judging how much the ability to read his keys in a more methodical fashion is worth and how much you can develop it as you transition to the next level. You look at another Oklahoma linebacker who went in the first round a couple of years ago in Kenneth Murray, who has yet to get comfortable in the NFL, in that same kind of role. So similar to that, Asamoah might not fit in any defense, However, if you put him at WILL on base down and don’t allow combos to work to him too quickly, before you move him closer to the middle in passing situations, to take advantage of his ability to flow around, he can be a real asset to a defense.

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