Young NFL breakout candidates for 2024: Cardinals EDGE B.J. Ojulari

Edge defender — B.J. Ojulari, Cardinals

Similar to Atlanta, it’s been a couple of years since Arizona has had standout players on the edge of their defensive front.

In 2021, both Chandler Jones and Markus Golden reached double-digit sacks for the Cardinals. J.J. Watt did heat up for them down the stretch the following season to start his retirement the right way, but none of their young guys on that side of the ball have emerged for them since. Dennis Gardeck led the group in sacks this past season, while they tried to transition a former first-round pick in Zaven Collins to the edge.

If there’s one player that they drafted since 2022 who I believe can be that difference-maker for them at the position, it would be B.J. Ojulari. As the brother of another All-SEC outside linebacker in Azeez (Georgia), the younger sibling became one of the more consistent EDGEs in the country. He had 12.5 sacks and 20 tackles for loss over his final two seasons at LSU.

His 95 total pressures across 646 pass-rush snaps over that time was even more impressive.

As a rookie for the Cardinals, Ojulari recorded 40 tackles, five of those for loss, and four sacks, logging just over 400 snaps. Looking at the advanced metrics, on 161 pass-rush snaps, he logged 20 total pressures, and nine of his 36 tackles in run defense (22 solo) resulted in defensive stops.

That sample size is relatively small, and you would’ve liked to see him emerge among a group without any big names, but they did at least get solid play from a heavy rotation of guys on the edge.

Meanwhile, B.J. may have weighed in around 245 pounds standing at 6-foot-2, but he’s always looked undersized. That was a major concern coming into that draft. He did log 46 percent of the defensive snaps from week 10 onward, though.

Head coach Jonathan Gannon and defensive coordinator Nick Rallis made it a priority to get him out there. Now with another full offseason of working on his body, his overall game and learning what was one of the more complex systems across the league, I think we’ll see results from the second-year player.

Ojulari has always had more of a slender frame, but you saw that difference compared to NFL offensive linemen as more pronounced in his rookie season. Just locking out and anchoring against drive blocks proved to be an issue, especially when he was in wider alignments or stepped down late from that sort of overhang position, where tackles had a runway leading up into contact.

However, you can’t blame him for a lack of physicality or willingness to stick his nose into the action, while being active to slide off blocks and get initial contact on the ball carrier.

He utilizes his arms, measuring over 34 inches in length, well to keep opponents away. When battling more modern move tight ends in-line, I thought he generally had the upper hand and was able to yank them aside once the ball was in range.

As I sort of mentioned just now, Ojulari was regularly lined up as the de-facto apex defender, off the ball between the slot receiver and the last man at the line of scrimmage, where you’d typically see a SAM linebacker or (big) nickel. Because of that, he’s tough to occupy with his length to battle through blocks in the quick screen game, he’s a pretty smooth mover for that lanky build and reliable at bringing people down one-on-one as he widens out to the flats.

Officially, all eight targets with him as the next-closest defender in coverage were completed, but only for 54 yards, as the quarterback dumped it off in his direction without any real success. That speaks to his ability to get out into space, square up the target underneath and corral him without help.

Depending on the source you look at, he didn’t miss any tackles or just one attempt all year long, slinging those long arms around the legs of the ball carrier.

Transitioning to what he provides getting after the quarterback, Ojulari has good burst off the ball and is a shifty rusher to threaten the edges of tackles. This guy bends like Gumby, where he’ll dip underneath blockers as he steps to their hip and in particular as an inside looper, where he’s strong enough through contact to get his body tilted at the quarterback and come free.

Yet, you see him dig his hands into the frame of bigger pass-protectors quite a bit, to create some separation and win in the reactionary phase of the battle. Plus, then he’s sudden with his swipes to get by blockers caught in suboptimal positions. He’ll need to work on his hand placement, more so attacking the pec or sternum of tackles, to make the long arm a reliable weapon in that regard, however.

Considering how he was used as a rookie, it didn’t help his numbers as a pass-rusher. So often Ojulari would be aligned on the edge of a slot receiver in a condensed stack or a bunch, where he had to work through traffic instead of just focusing on winning his one-on-one on the edge.

Looking at PFF’s numbers, that isn’t nearly reflected appropriately, as he officially only spent 18.6 percent of his snaps away from the defensive line, but even when he’d ultimately move forward, he didn’t get to just attack the outside shoulder of tackles like you’d usually see from players at his position.

Something I appreciated about watching his tape as a rookie: I thought he did a nice job of tracking the quarterback’s movement and not losing contain, overrunning the arc too much and just finding ways to speed that guy up a little bit.

Watching the Cardinals defense on tape last season, they kind of just threw stuff at the wall, and as I’ve previously mentioned, a lot of their opponents have noted that they were tough to figure out, even if the bottom-line numbers may not reflect that.

We can talk about how they can still become more structurally sound, but they had the third-most “adjusted games lost to injury” (59.5), and the big point here is that they need some of their recently drafted players to emerge for them.

Zaven Collins is in the final season of his rookie deal, and the organization already declined his fifth-year option as someone they transitioned the former first-rounder from off-ball to outside linebacker.

They selected Darius Robinson late in the first round this year, and he will play some snaps on the edge for sure — especially if they want him to be their jumbo strong-side D-end as part of even fronts — but I look at him as more of a 4i-/5-technique in base personnel.

Otherwise, you’re looking at a bunch of role players at that spot, who have their moments but shouldn’t keep the coaches from getting a talent like Ojulari on the field more, such as Dennis Gardeck, Victor Dimukeje and Jesse Luketa.

I believe for Olujari more so than anybody among the names discussed across this exercise, having played his rookie year to acclimate to NFL size and physicality will be huge. He should attack this offseason in terms of weight training and transforming his body to not be at a strength disadvantage as regularly, which could make a difference in 2024.

With the pass-rush pedigree I saw from him at an early age, I’m confident that we’ll see him become one of the guys this organization builds around.