Ezekiel “Ziggy” Ansah, whom the Detroit Lions drafted No. 5, came to BYU from Ghana hoping to play basketball. He ended up on the track team, where teammates and coaches coaxed the 6-foot-5, 275-pounder into trying football. After less than one year as a starter, he became the only top-five pick since 1990 with no high school football experience.
At BYU, the affable Ansah quickly developed a sort of Paul Bunyan persona, blowing up kickoffs in practice and wrecking weight rooms. “When he got to BYU, he’d never lifted a weight in his life,” college teammate Romney Fuga told ESPN The Magazine in April. “But we’d all seen him with his shirt off. Suddenly we realize, ‘Wait — all of this is just DNA?'” After sitting out much of the NFL preseason with a concussion, the defensive end recorded his first half-sack in Week 1 against the Vikings. He looked even more comfortable last weekend against the Cardinals, playing 50 snaps and consistently drawing double-teams. With two quarterback hits and one hurry, Ansah graded out as the Lions’ second-best defender against Arizona, according to Pro Football Focus’ metrics. If all goes to plan, it will be the first of many impact games for the 24-year-old.