Linebacker stands as a need for the Detroit Lions heading into the draft, and they’ll have Oklahoma’s Brian Asamoah in for a top-30 visit.
With the 2022 NFL Draft exactly three weeks away as of Thursday, teams are fillig their quota of top-30 pre-draft visits. According to Ryan Fowler of The Draft Network, the Detroit Lions have a top-30 visit scheduled next week with Oklahoma linebacker Brian Asamoah. According to Fowler, Asamoah visited the division rival Chicago Bears on Wednesday.
Asamoah is undersized (226 pounds), but he is a sideline-to-sideline run stopper and he registered 80 total tackles (56 solo) with 3.5 tackles for loss and one sack for the Sooners last season. Over three seasons in Norman he had 12.5 tackles for loss and five sacks.
Asamoah’s production against the pass went away in 2021, but it’s in his game as he had one interception and four pass breakups along with 66 total tackles in 2020.
Here’s the scouting overview on Asamoah from Lance Zierlein of NFL.com.
"See-ball, get-ball linebacker with an itchy, twitchy trigger and explosive pursuit speed. Asamoah is adequate at reading keys and diagnosing the action with quickness. His pursuit paths to the football are aggressive but they’re lacking in technique to maintain his gap integrity. His playing style is likely to have him around the football more often than not, but consistency in finishing tackles could be an issue for him in the pros. He’s athletic in pass coverage and could stand out on special teams. Asamoah is a 3-4 weakside inside linebacker or a 4-3 Will with the potential to find starting reps down the road."
Brian Asamoah is possible Day 2 target for the Lions
In most cases, with nickel as a base defense in the league, they Lions will only have two and sometimes only one off-ball linebacker on the field at a time, regardless of the front used as they shift to using more four-down lineman. After adding Jarrad Davis and Chris Board in free agency, there’s sentiment out there suggesting they’ll take a linebacker on Day 3 of the draft or not at all.
Still, Asamoah is in line to be drafted in third round or later and the Lions wouldn’t be burning a top-30 visit on him if they didn’t have some interest.