During his press conference on Wednesday, Kansas City Chiefs defensive line coach Joe Cullen praised the work of two rookie defensive linemen so far at OTAs.
“Well, the two are really good. I mean, when you study the draft and our scouting staff, led by our general manager, Brett Veach,” said Cullen, “they do a great job, and they were guys that we identified and had opportunities to really get around and bring them in for a visit, Zoom with them. They both love football, and they’re both football junkies, and they’re really good players.”
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The Chiefs added the two defensive standouts, selecting Tennessee’s Omarr Norman-Lott in the second round with the 63rd pick and Louisville’s Ashton Gillotte in the third round with the 66th pick.
“Well, they have great motors; they’re powerful, explosive, and sudden. And both of them at their school, where they’re represented, great in their role,” said Cullen, “When you look at Omarr (Norman-Lott), when you broke down his snaps this past year, he led the NCAA and pass rush win ratio by interior tackles. And then Ashton (Gillotte) played all over the place. He played end and inside. ‘4i’ was powerful. He was explosive when he went back to his junior year. Before his sophomore year, he had 11 and a half sacks. He was playing more on the edge. This year, they moved them inside a little bit. It’s a ‘4i’ kind of like Felix (Anudike-Uzomah) did when he was at K-State. So both those guys are going to bring great energy to the room, and they’re doing that now.”
During his last season at Louisville, Gillotte earned Second-team All-ACC honors. He led the Cardinals with 10 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks and started 12 games with 43 total tackles. Norman-Lott recorded 44 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, 9.5 sacks, and one fumble recovery in his two seasons at Tennessee.
This article originally appeared on Chiefs Wire: Kansas City Chiefs DL coach Joe Cullen is impressed by rookie linemen