Kayvon Thibodeaux is regarded as one of the top pass rushers in this year’s draft class and there’s little question about how he impacted games as a member of Oregon’s front seven.
There are questions about his work ethic and passion for the game of football, however. Thibodeaux said on Friday that he got a “hard time” from the Giants during an interview at the Scouting Combine about “what’s gonna happen if I’m not the star coming in.”
Thibodeaux responded by saying that he’s “been trained for this my whole life” and that any concerns about his love for and devotion to the game would fall away once people get to know him.
“I don’t think I necessarily had to convince teams of it, but that’s the media narrative,’’ Thibodeaux said, via Paul Schwartz of the New York Post. “I’m an L.A. kid and if you know the adversity I went through to get here and the things I had to sacrifice and the things my mother had to sacrifice for me to get here you’d really understand how I feel in my heart. When you talk about fire, you talk about passion, I can’t really explain it. I get emotional thinking about it because of all the sacrifices it took me to get here. I’m blessed to be here.”
The Giants pick fifth and seventh and Thibodeaux has also met with the Jets, who have the fourth and 10th picks, and Texans, who pick third. That gives a sense of where Thibodeaux is likely to land unless teams find his answers about his drive to be unconvincing.
