Irmo be there: Emmanwori's journey from 3-star recruit to Seahawks chess piece

Rhyme: Nick Emmanwori's Origin Story

Nick Emmanwori is used to being told that he’s a “versatile chess piece”, so being drafted by the NFL’s premier defensive chess player when the Seattle Seahawks traded up for him last month is a fitting transition to the league for the 35th overall pick.

StadiumTalk’s Jordan O’Malley noted as such in citing Emmanwori as one of the best player-team fits in the entire 2025 draft:

Emmanwori plays like a chess piece — smart, fluid, and ready for chaos. He’s built like a linebacker but moves like a corner, which gives Seattle’s defense unusual flexibility. Seattle’s new defensive wizard, Mike Macdonald, will have a blast with him, moving him all over the back end to confuse quarterbacks and wreck the game plans.

But despite Emmanwori’s (born Nicholas Ovundah Eze Emmanwori) 99th percentile athleticism and unique versatility, he hasn’t always been viewed a future NFL player, let alone one who got compared to the best safety in the league by Mike Macdonald:

"I think what we found with Kyle (Hamilton) is that the system allows for us to get multiple safeties on the field and also be in the slot kind of with enhanced coverage responsibilities... He can affect the game that way kind of at the second level while training at the third level. Gives us some depth at the safety room, guys that we currently love that are on the roster. To be able to affect the game early on in his career, too, as he starts to develop, same story with Nick."

Being a top-1000 recruit in the country is not easy by any means, but rarely suggests a future in the NFL.

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Nick Emmanwori was a 3-star recruit

Emmanwori played at Irmo High School in South Carolina, a school in which the previous most famous alumni was probably the WWF wrestler known as “The Patriot”… But a few years into Emmanwori’s playing career at Irmo, it became obvious that he might be ready to take down The Patriot for good.

Starting at safety during his junior season, Emmanwori totaled 100 tackles, eight TFLs, two interceptions, a forced fumble and three sacks in only nine games. The team moved him to “hybrid linebacker” as a senior and his already-impressive stats skyrocketed at the perfect time:

232 tackles, 19 TFL, 4 sacks, 8 forced fumbles!

He was of course called one of the best players in the state, especially on defense, but 247 listed him as a 3-star recruit and only the 59th-ranked safety prospect in the country. Rivals was kinder, giving Emmanwori 4 stars and ranking him as the 28th OUTSIDE LINEBACKER. There’s that versatility again.

However, Emmanwori’s “low” stars could simply be related to the fact that once South Carolina University made him an offer, he basically stopped listening to other offers. There were probably also questions about his position — as there are today — and that even extended to his future college coaches:

Defensive backs coach Torrian Gray wanted him as a safety, whereas defensive coordinator Clayton White was arguing for him to be a linebacker.

Regardless, second-year head coach Shane Beamer landed Emmanwori and no matter where he would play, the Gamecocks got a future All-American in their 2022 recruiting class.

“Versatile Playmaker” meets Kam Chancellor’s college coach

Emmanwori committed to South Carolina after they were impressed by his athleticism at an offseason camp:

South Carolina became the first Power 5 school to offer the local prospect after the 6-foot-3, 200-pound turned in impressive measurables in the 40-yard-dash, vertical leap and broad jump at camp last month and was also impressive during the 1-on-1s.

A versatile playmaker, Emmanwori could play safety, nickel or grow into a linebacker at the next level.

Emmanwori told the media that it was important for him to go to South Carolina and make his hometown of Irmo proud, also describing himself as a “coachable” “athletic” “freak” who “does his job” and is a “good guy”:

Heading to college, Emmanwori became an immediate starter in White’s defense, but Gray won the argument to have him play safety for the Gamecocks. This also meant that Emmanwori had the same defensive backs coach in college as one of Seattle’s all-time greats:

“Coach Gray coached him and he coached me, so Coach Gray used to tell me all the time that we have a lot of similarities, he used to compare our games a lot,” Emmanwori said. “Kam Chancellor is one of my favorite safeties ever, so it means a lot going to Seattle. I used to watch him all the time on TV; I used to pull up his highlights before games. It’s crazy.”

In Emmanwori’s first two conference games, he totaled 25 tackles. (Partly related to the fact that South Carolina gave up 92 points combined in those losses.) Less than a year after he was rather overlooked as a safety recruit, Emmanwori could add these notes to his resume:

• Freshman All-American

• SEC All-Freshman

• South Carolina’s DEFENSIVE MVP

• 85 tackles

He also helped South Carolina clinch their first win over 7th-ranked Clemson in almost a decade by recovering a late fumble in a 31-30 victory:

The defensive coordinator, White, said that part of the reason Emmanwori is so versatile, beyond his athleticism, is that he’s obsessed with football:

“He played nickel one year, he played field safety, boundary safety, he probably could have done a couple of other things,” White said. “On top of all that, he’s more of a football savant than people probably even know. He is a football junkie — he’s smart, he understands offense and defense and big-picture stuff.”

As a sophomore, Emmanwori ramped up his value as a defensive back by recording the first two interceptions of his career and increasing his passes defensed from 1 to 8. Strangely enough, Emmanwori’s six career interceptions (2 as a sophomore, 4 as a junior) came over this nine-game span.

This included a pick-six against Kentucky and two picks (with a pick-six) against Oklahoma. At the end of his junior season, Emmanwori was named as a First-team All-American, First-team All-SEC, and he had placed himself among a small group of defensive backs who would be considered for the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.

The one sore spot on his college resume was a “miscommunication” (Emmanwori’s words) with coaches that led him to being benched and escorted off of the field in the second half of his final career game. Nothing else is known about the interaction(s) that led to his strange exit. But he’s still got coaches in his corner defending his character and commitment.

High school coach Aaron Brand calls Emmanwori a “hero” who will next become a great Seahawk:

“I tell him all the time that he’s our hero,” Brand said. “He was kind of the start of when we started getting back good and just the fact that he stayed in this area…he had so many people throwing so much at him last year in between his sophomore and junior year. He could have taken million dollar contracts from a bunch of places. But, I think people forget about that part of Nick, about how loyal he’s been to this program and how he’s brought to this city of Columbia and to Irmo High School and to the University of South Carolina. I think his name is going to go down in the history books and we look forward to great things out of Seattle, Washington also.”

“Best combine performance I’ve ever seen”

If Emmanwori’s college career wasn’t enough to convince a team to pick him in the first round, certainly you would think his athleticism would have made it a guarantee…even though it clearly wasn’t. Todd McShay wrote that Emmanwori’s combine performance “may have been the best I’ve ever seen”.

VIDEO: Emmanwori’s combine workout

Emmanwori’s 10/10 Relative Athleticism Score is matched by few players in history, with one of those rare players being DK Metcalf. Emmanwori is the only safety in combine history to run a sub-4.4, a vertical over 43”, and a broad jump over 11 feet. That’s all aside from the fact that he’s 6’3, 220.

McShay acknowledged that there are concerns on film — a point that’s been made by just about every analyst who reviews Emmanwori’s tape — but believes that his athleticism and length will be worth the risk in the first round. And that’s before McShay or anyone else knew that his next defensive coordinator would be Mike Macdonald; it’s just that Emmanwori’s constant ride of a position change isn’t like to settle down during his first few years in the NFL.

Emmanwori’s “over/undah” for rookie position

Emmanwori was one of only three FBS college players to play 300 snaps at safety, 100 snaps at slot corner, 100 snaps at linebacker, and 100 snaps at outside linebacker in 2024. (Honestly, I’m more shocked that there were two other players who did that.)

It is probable that Emmanwori won’t have a single position for the Seahawks next season, but as noted by Legion of 12s and others, his apparent weaknesses as a deep zone safety make it likely that he’s going to spend a lot of time in the box and closer to the line of scrimmage in 2025.

Emmanwori, who doesn’t turn 22 until February (one day before the Super Bowl), is likely going to need 1-3 years to develop his elite athleticism into acceptable coverage and tackling skills that would allow him to start at safety. As I wrote this week, this is why Julian Love is probable secure through at least 2026 and also why Coby Bryant may need to be extended.

His game actually deserves little comparison to how Kam played, and his resume as a draft prospect is miles behind Kyle Hamilton’s. But not being exactly like other players doesn’t mean that you can’t become a great player in your own right:

That’s actually how GREAT PLAYERS are often created. They make their own unique mark on the sport and become the mold rather than fit into someone else’s shadow.

Nobody knows yet if Emmanwori’s versatility is because he can fit anywhere or because he’s a misfit everywhere, but if the Seahawks are proven right in their decision to trade up for him then it will be Macdonald’s ultimate checkmate.

Seaside Joe 2269