Ulofoshio Remains a Top LB Even After His Injury and Recovery Phase
Ulofoshio Remains a Top LB Even After His Injury and Recovery Phase: Pro Football Focus has named Ulofoshio the best linebacker in the country for the second year in a row, despite the fact that he has been injured for a long time. Think about that. Even if it seems hard to believe to many, it’s true. Eddie has been named to the second team of All-Pac-12 once. He is ranked one spot above Oregon’s highly decorated Noah Sewell, and the howling can be heard from Portland to Eugene and back.
The inevitable player
Again, this is a list of teams from coast to coast, not just the Pac-12. Ulofoshio is in rehab right now, working on getting healthy again after hurting his knee during winter workouts. This is on top of the half-season he missed last fall because of an arm injury against UCLA. DeBoer will only say that they expect the linebacker to come back after the season starts, which, if he’s on the ZTF’s recovery plan, would be in October.
At Pac-12 Media Day, DeBoer said, “I never want to sell him short because he’s relentless in his rehab. Whatever the doctors said, I wouldn’t doubt if it was three weeks earlier than that. I know he’s doing really well.”
PPF Findings
PPF’s findings are not based on intuition, bias, or guesswork like many other lists are. Instead, they are based on statistical formulas. Who else can tell you that he has tried to make 148 tackles in his career and only missed seven? Ulofoshio comes out as very good. PPF likes what the defensive leader for the Husky team has done in the past and what he can do again. Here is the latest report from that group’s scouts about Ulofoshio.
“Even though he has played less than 300 snaps in each of the last three seasons, Ulofoshio has more than proven to be one of the best at the position. He began as a walk-on in 2018 before eventually earning playing time down the stretch in 2019, and he shined (210 snaps in the last five games). From there, he was limited to only four games in 2020 due to the pandemic and played six games in 2021 due to injury. He owns a 90.3 career PFF grade across 743 snaps with an 82.0-plus grade as a run defender, pass-rusher and coverage defender. Ulofoshio has attempted 148 tackles over that duration and missed only seven. Unfortunately for Ulofoshio and Washington, the off-ball linebacker will miss at least a few games of the 2022 season due to another injury that was suffered during conditioning, but head coach Kalen DeBoer is hopeful he can return for a portion of the year.“
The Comeback
This season, he will likely come back around the middle of the season and pick up where he left off, tackling everyone with a vengeance. Ulofoshio will be like a whole new player in some ways since he will be wearing No. 4 instead of No. 48. If only the Huskies could get Ulofoshio to play as a starter for 12 or 13 games get him fully paid for, and get him healthy again. Then, the computers at PPF could go crazy.