{"id":776359,"date":"2026-02-25T22:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/776359\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T22:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:31:18","slug":"what-we-learned-during-wednesdays-activities-in-indianapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/776359\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Learned during Wednesday’s activities in Indianapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

6) Mesidor sees advanced age as a feature, not a bug. There’s a lot to like about Akheem Mesidor<\/a>, a relentless pass rusher who earned first-team All-ACC honors this past season with 12.5 sacks, including 5.5 in Miami’s four-game College Football Playoff run. As Bucky Brooks’ No. 3 edge defender<\/a> and Daniel Jeremiah’s No. 20 overall prospect<\/a>, Mesidor is widely projected to be a first-round pick. But one potential knock on his draft profile is the advanced age. Having played college football for six years — two at West Virginia, followed by four with the Hurricanes — Mesidor turns 25 on April 5, making him one of the older players in this draft class. He doesn’t see this as a negative, though.<\/p>\n

“You can call me a seasoned rookie,” Mesidor said on Wednesday in Indianapolis. “I think I’m coming in more mature with a different approach, different mentality than a lot of younger guys. I think my age could be a plus.”<\/p>\n

To his point, Mesidor draws steady praise for the maturity of his game, which combines a non-stop motor (SEE: last season’s impressive total of 63 tackles, including 17.5 for loss) with a deep bag of pass-rushing moves (tied for fourth in the FBS with 67 pressures, per Pro Football Focus). A native of Ottawa, Canada, the 6-3, 265-pounder believes the prolonged voyage truly refined his skill set, which will allow him to hit the ground running in the NFL.<\/p>\n

“Everybody has their own path, everybody has their own timeline — mine just happened to be six years in college,” Mesidor said. “And I was able to continue to learn and grow with these amazing people around me who helped me become the person that I am right now.”<\/p>\n

One of those people has been Jason Taylor, Miami’s defensive line coach for the past three seasons. A Pro Football Hall of Famer with the seventh-most sacks in NFL history (139.5), Taylor has been an invaluable resource for Mesidor.<\/p>\n

“I’m always in his office, always in the facility. JT has a couch right there — I’m always laying on it, we’re always talking or watching film,” Mesidor said. “He’s been a tremendous help and like a mentor to me throughout this whole process.”<\/p>\n

A product of Akron, Taylor wasn’t drafted until midway through the third round (No. 73 overall) back in 1997. Mesidor appears set to come off the board much earlier in a couple months. But that’s also a testament to Taylor’s tutelage.<\/p>\n

“He was tremendous in the league, a legend,” Mesidor said. “And he taught me how to be a professional, how to approach the game, how to approach the way you eat, sleep, train, all these different things.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6) Mesidor sees advanced age as a feature, not a bug. There’s a lot to like about Akheem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4955,1965,1228,7,6,609,17981],"class_list":{"0":"post-776359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-combine","10":"tag-combine-draft","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-no-minute","14":"tag-what-we-learned"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}