Imagine you’re a football coach. You meet a kid in middle school and can immediately sense his talent, even if you can’t quite grasp the scope of it. When that kid gets to high school, you have the privilege and responsibility of being his position coach, tasked with harnessing the raw ability this nearly 300-pound high school defensive lineman possesses.
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When he graduates high school, you follow him to college and serve as his position coach for a three-year college career that includes All-American honors and an Outland Trophy. For seven years, you’ve watched and helped one of the most talented players in the country develop into a first-round pro prospect. Draft weekend will be special. You’ll get to watch the culmination of years of hard work, as that middle-schooler you met all those years ago walks across the stage as a top-10 pick. Now imagine that player asks you to be with him and his family in the green room at the NFL Draft, part of his intimate inner circle sharing the greatest moment of his football career.
That was the case for A.J. Blum, Ed Oliver’s high school defensive coordinator and position coach and defensive line coach at Houston. Oliver invited Blum to be with him and his family in Nashville on draft day when the Bills selected the Houston defensive tackle with the No. 9 pick.
“That’s a once-in-a-lifetime deal,” Blum said.
Few know Oliver the way Blum does. He’s been in Oliver’s corner for every phase of his football career. Now he’ll watch from afar as Oliver takes the next step to the NFL. How will Oliver handle the transition from nose tackle to three-technique? What should people make of the questions about Oliver’s maturity? Where does Oliver still have room to grow?
Blum answered those questions and more in a phone conversation with The Athletic.
What was it like in the green room on draft night?
Yeah, it seemed like it went on forever. You don’t know. It was kind of a unique experience because there are so many cameras in that green room. They go from area to area based on the information they’re getting on who is the possible pick. You follow them around and get an idea. It was pretty tense because there were a lot of scenarios that were presented with where he might go. But you know, I had a feeling the whole time it was going to be Buffalo unless somebody took him before. When the cameras went to the tight end at the eighth pick it was evident, had a good feeling. He got his phone call and the rest is history.
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How did Ed handle everything in those final hours leading up to the pick?
He was good. That morning he and his family went out to a ranch outside Nashville and he got to ride a horse a little. He was good. It was amazing. It seemed he was really calm. He had to leave early to go to the red carpet stuff, so he left at like 4 o’clock. When the draft actually started, he was good. He just sat in his chair, had his little brother throwing the football with him, just relaxing. He was sitting near Josh Allen — they had training together — so they’re talking back and forth. It was a neat experience.
How far back does your relationship with Ed go?
I knew of him when he was a sixth grader. Actually got to work with him because he came to our junior high camps in the summers. His brother was already at Westfield High School, so we knew Marcus had a little brother that was going to play. That was where I really started to get to know him. I would see him at Marcus’ freshman football games — him and his mom and his grandma would be there. I would always give him a hard time, checking on him about his grades and stuff. Our program at Westfield when I was coaching there, we would go over and watch the kids work out during their athletic period. I was able to go over there and watch him run around and play during the season, and that was the beginning of getting to know him.
You saw his journey from the beginning and got to spend the biggest night of his football career with him. What was that like?
It was special. It really was. Just honored to be a part of his camp and that whole process. It was really neat. I’m very thankful for it. Obviously we’ve spent a lot of time together, so I think he was willing to let me in on a special moment in his life because of the time we’ve spent.
At what point did you have an idea that a night like that was possible for Ed?
It was definitely his freshman year of high school. I worked with him when he was in junior high, but seeing him move around during the fall camp of his freshman year, doing the different D-line drills we did, you could see the change of direction. He was a lot bigger his freshman year than he had ever been at any other time. He was almost 300 pounds. Just his movement. You knew if things stayed on the right track, you just had a feeling. It was a unique situation because we had so many good defensive linemen at Westfield High School, and he came in and it was like, oh wow, this guy is in a league of his own. You could tell.
What is it like as a coach to have a player as talented as Ed? I imagine you can’t just coach him like any other kid.
That’s the great thing about Ed. His desire to be great, he had an understanding. I always have a philosophy with guys that I’m going to get on you about something, and when you fix it I’m going to find something else to get on you about. You’re never going to get out of here a free man. That’s how he was raised. I coach extremely hard and with attention to detail. There’s always something. Very rarely is there a perfect rep. That was a thing with Ed. You just … there were basic skills that he just was so good at that you just had to take it to a different level. It was a higher level of coaching. Whereas one guy may have issues with his steps, Ed was really good coming out of his stance, had great feet, so as a coach you have to figure out what your target area is to make him better. With Ed, it was hand placement, pad level. Those are the things that you kind of have a recipe for every player. You get an idea of what they’re good at, what they’re bad at, what they have to fix and what they have to consistently work on. You have to coach every player different, and obviously you coach Ed differently in terms of the details. Everybody gets coached hard. That’s just how it is and how it has always been.
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He mentioned he was ready to go pro after his freshman year of college. Was there a challenge in keeping him focused or motivated for those final two college seasons?
More or less the thing with Ed is he’s going to be productive, he’s going to get his production, his numbers, his tackles for loss. The biggest challenge with Ed his sophomore, junior year of college was the whole. Not necessarily the middle of the race or the beginning of the race, but what we were going to do at the end. He was All-American as a freshman; obviously we sat down and set out some pretty lofty goals together. You can do this and this every week, but if you want to keep the end goal in mind, the Outland Trophy winner or whatever, this is what we have to do on a consistent basis. You have to uphold that standard every week. It was more of business as usual from a day-to-day basis, but there was more emphasis on what was going to come out at the end.
Do you have any favorite moments from watching Ed play over the years?
Gosh, there are so many. I think one I’ll never forget his junior year in high school, he had a scoop and score in the back of the end zone and ended up returning it 103 yards. It’s just amazing. They had the ball on the 20-yard line, the quarterback scrambles and I bet Ed ran 130 or 140 yards on that one play. To out-run everybody and juke and make people miss on that return for a touchdown, it was pretty amazing to watch. There’s just so many plays. He had a really big hit against Texas Tech his sophomore year. He crossed the center’s face and ended up unblocked, and from his lateral movement he has so many hits where it’s almost a blindside hit on a running back and the guy goes flying.
What did you make of the talk before the draft about Ed not being coachable?
I just think that the NFL is such a smoke-and-mirrors deal during the months before the draft. There’s so much rumor and innuendo. Everybody wants a hot topic. That was one of the craziest things I’ve learned this month. This has been the longest time Ed has been without a team. He was done playing in December, moved to Florida and started training. Visiting Ed and talking to him when he was down there training, I just wanted him to be somewhere because it’s just been so odd. To hear, ‘Well, he’s un-coachable.’ All of a sudden this stuff comes out and you’re like, where did this come from? It’s amazing to hear the comments that he was misused in college as a nose guard, but not one person in the United States of America said one word about it his sophomore and freshman year and his junior year when he was playing. The Outland Trophy committee didn’t say, ‘Wow you’re being misused, but you still win the trophy.’ I mean what are we talking about?
There’s more people out there that want to see failure or want to bring up negativity than people who want to bring up the positive. That was definitely a learning experience for me from January until now. What are we talking about? I had people ask me, you read all of these awesome reports on him about his pad level and get off and this and that. Then I had people asking me about, ‘Well, why did you put him in a frog stance?’ What are you talking about? Nobody said a word about a frog stance his freshman year or his sophomore year when he won the Outland. You want to rave about his pad level, well the stance is one of the reasons he’s able to be so low. It’s just crazy, eye-opening.
I guess it’s easy to misread a situation when you’re not in it. It’s easy for certain personality traits to be misinterpreted.
One-hundred percent. We’re talking about an attitude or whatever with a defensive lineman. Would you rather have a defensive lineman without an attitude? How many defensive linemen do you know without an attitude that are very good? Seriously. They are the dogs. I’ve coached defensive line for 16 years. They all have a unique trait. Some of them, most of those unique traits aren’t the norm. They are extremely abnormal to an average person, whether good or bad. They’re different. Guys complain about an attitude, but I guarantee they would take whatever they can get if they had this guy in their corner. What are we talking about?
People could say a lot of the same things about (Bills defensive end) Jerry Hughes, but he’s one you want on your side on Sundays.
You talk about all the good ones. You think people complained about Warren Sapp’s attitude? John Randle? They’re all crazy. Every good one I’ve had has had a quirk. That’s the edge. That’s the D-lineman. I haven’t met very many choir boys that play D-line, I’ll tell you that.
The Bills have said they are going to make him a three-technique in their defense. How do you think he’ll transition to that? What are some of the challenges that come with that move?
I think it’s going to be amazing. I had been telling Ed all along after the pro day, seeing the head coach and GM at his pro day, I was like, wow, this is the real deal. I went back and did some research and I had been telling Ed all along that from a scheme standpoint of every team that’s interested in you, Buffalo is probably the best fit. When we were in high school, I called 46 games with Ed playing three-technique or 2i, basically what he’s going to be playing in Buffalo. It’s going to be amazing. It just is. You can say all you want about him playing the zero-technique in the three down that we had at Houston, but he was very active. He stunted probably 70 percent of the time. I think the thing that’s going to be awesome is you’re not going to have to stunt him as much because he’s going to be on the outside shoulder or inside shoulder of that guard, and it’s going to allow him to really use his skills in a one-on-one situation. I’m sure he’ll get his fair share of double teams, but it will be a lot less than he got at Houston.
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I think it’s going to be amazing. I know he’s excited. I think it’s going to be really good. From a standpoint of what he needs to get better at, he is such a natural with his speed and explosiveness that a lot of times he defeats blocks by his get off, not so much side-stepping his blocker but by being a penetrator. When you’re a penetrator, you don’t necessarily have the use of great hand placement and block disengagement, but he’s going to be in situations, where that’s going to be one of the biggest things. Having worked with him for seven years, that’s going to be one of the biggest things he’ll have to refine as a skill, is just staying on that edge and being able to get off that block. People want to compare him to Aaron Donald, but he and Aaron Donald are two completely different players. Aaron Donald bench-pressed 550 pounds in college. That’s why he’s so good at getting off blocks. He gets that separation and he can still control and get off blocks. A guy like Ed, he’s punching a guy so fast and moving by him that he was able to get away with it. That’s going to be one of the biggest things that he’s going to have refine. Attack, lock out and then disengage. Just getting off those blocks. His feet are going to be great. His speed is going to be great. It’s just about controlling it and staying in that gap.
(Top photo: Troy Taormina / USA TODAY Sports)
