Imagine this…
An NFL player is in the middle of practice, and lines up on the defensive side of the ball.
After the snap, he rushes the quarterback and sacks him. His teammate high fives him and goes:
“That’s a sack!”
The player then looks at his teammate and says:
“What is a sack?”
Sounds impossible, right? Imagine playing the highest level of football, and having absolutely zero clue what a “sack” is.
Well for one current NFL player who is playing for the Los Angeles Chargers, he is indeed learning what a “sack” is.
Let me introduce you to CJ Okoye, who is one of eight players that have been placed on teams through the NFL’s International Pathway program.
Okoye is a 21-year-old from Nigeria, and is getting his near impossible opportunity to compete on the greatest stage in football.
In fact, he’s just now learning to play football, as his first ever game was this past Saturday against the Los Angeles Rams for a preseason matchup. And needless to say, it went great, because he sacked Rams quarterback Stetson Bennett on fourth down.
However, he had no clue that he “sacked” the quarterback.
Okoye told Rich Eisen:
“Believe me when I tell you I didn’t even know that was a sack. I didn’t know. Like, I thought he was out of the pocket, so I thought it was a tackle or something.
When I did it I was like yeah, I already got him down I was like, ‘Okay, it’s a tackle for loss or something.
Then a teammate of mine just walked up to me and said, ‘Yo you just got a sack!’ I was like ‘what?’ He said it again, ‘you just got a sack.’ Then I just went crazy, I did my dance.”
It remains to be seen if he’ll make the Chargers 53-man roster this season (probably gonna be tough for someone who has never played football before), bur nevertheless, quite the achievement. And who knows, he’s only 21 years old… he’s got time to improve.
A feel-good story any way you slice it.
Check it out:
