they\u2019ll do better than me<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nIf Bernard develops into what the Eagles hope the 2026 seventh-round pick could be, Bernard may get his wish.<\/p>\n
Without organized football in Nigeria, Bernard had to improvise. He relied on natural devices to learn the craft.<\/p>\n
“[I was] using three trunks as bags to just practice pass rush, to be a blessing to my country,\u201d Bernard said.<\/p>\n
Many see parallels between Bernard and Eagles tackle Jordan Mailata, a 2018 seventh-rounder the team found in Australia. As Mailata sees it, that\u2019s where the comparisons end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should not draw comparisons to my story, and Uar\u2019s story,\u201d Mailata said recently, via Udoh. \u201cThis is two different positions, two different people. . . . My story has influenced people\u2019s opinion of whether he will work out or not. I think it will work out, but only time will tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mailata\u2019s confidence comes from the basic realities of the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cUar is a freak,\u201d Mailata said. \u201cHe is also not of this planet. He\u2019s just freakishly strong, freakishly fast, and I can\u2019t even compare him to me, just because he\u2019s just not of this world, by metrics and numbers wise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I saw, my first day, they had a 315 on the bench, and he was repping 315 like it was 225, and I was like, where did they find this guy?\u201d<\/p>\n
If Bernard \u2014 who remains very raw \u2014 pans out, more people will be asking that question. And when they find out the answer, more teams may be taking Bernard\u2019s advice and looking for more NFL talent in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
And perhaps, in time, more of a football infrastructure will be introduced to a country that could become a pipeline for pro prospects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Eagles found rookie defensive tackle Uar Bernard in Nigeria. Bernard believes that he\u2019s far from the only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-716562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}