Calm, Cool, Collected, Kaddu

March 6, 2012, 11:38 am

Poised to impress at his pro day coming up later this month, Oregon linebacker and soon to be NFLer Josh Kaddu talks with Chad about his preparation and his time at Oregon.

OLB Josh Kaddu was second in sacks (6.5) for the Oregon Ducks in 2011 and earned an All-Pac-12 first team selection. At 6-3, 235, Kaddu has the prototypical size for an NFL OLB. He is an exciting and aggressive player who has as much physical talent as anyone out there.

Kaddu, an invite to the NFL combine, participated in bench press, vertical jump and broad jump and fared pretty well in all three.

The analysis of Kaddu is that he is able to catch ball-carriers, he’s quick off his stance and can run you down. His overall physicality and running ability are big strengths for this athlete, talking with Chad about his continued development with strength coach Jimm Radcliffe, and what his workout regime entails as Oregon’s Pro Day approaches in about two weeks.

Some national analysts see Kaddu as the 10th to 17th OLB taken and could go somewhere mid-round, possibly the 3rd. He’s also been described to fill a role like Spencer Paysinger has in New York with the special teams unit. But no analysts or critics will tell Kaddu what he can and can’t do. His agility, his tenacity, will pull vault him in any direction his mind is set to.

Though he didn’t run the 40 at the combine, he plans to during his pro day, hoping to eclipse the 4.5 mark. And he’s fully capable of doing just that. It's not shocking that Kaddu is fast. That's kind of what Oregon does. But there's no doubt that a lot he will have a lot of work and a steep learning curve that will go on at the NFL level. But Kaddu, no doubt, can handle it.

This heady young man talks about what he wants to do after football, since the NFL can be a launching pad for so many other fantastic thing, so what is it? And during combine interviews, he was asked some pretty bizarre questions, but which one did he think was the most strange? And what are his thoughts on Chip Kelly and the state of the Oregon program?

Check out Chad’s conversation with Oregon linebacker Josh Kaddu here.