From rugby to the NFL, Jets edge rusher Paschal Ekeji is steadily picking up the game of football

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. —  Paschal Ekeji came off the practice field at Jets training camp on Monday morning favoring his right hand. It had gotten jammed up in a helmet during one of the live pass-rushing drills on the first day of full-padded workouts.

The 6-4 edge rusher didn’t seem too concerned and said he will be fine. He was back on the field Tuesday showing no signs of damage. These things happen.

“That’s football,” he said with a shrug.

He would certainly know. At least now he does. It’s just one of the lessons he has learned quickly about this sport.

Last year at this time he was still a member of the Sharks, a professional rugby team based in Durban, South Africa. He only began noticing football when a high school pal showed him Madden video games and some Odell Beckham Jr. highlight reels. Those caught his eye not just because of the one-handed catches but because like Beckham he wore No. 13. He began dabbling in football as an athlete around 2022 when his rugby agent received an email from former Giant and NFL Africa ambassador Osi Umenyiora.

With the Jets this summer, he is finally getting the chance to immerse himself in it fully.

Ekeji is part of the NFL’s International Player Pathway program (IPP), a 24-year-old who was born in Lesotho to two Nigerian parents and whose family later moved to South Africa. He was added to the Jets’ practice squad late last November, which essentially served as his in-person introduction to football in America. He got to be at MetLife Stadium for the last contest of the season against the Patriots, which served as the first football game he saw live at any level. Then he re-signed with the team on a reserve/futures contract in the offseason.

He is here at training camp hoping to make an impression good enough that the Jets not only keep him around on their practice squad this season — as an IPP designee he won’t cost them a roster spot so they almost certainly will do just that — but potentially use him as a pass-rushing weapon in an actual game at some point.

It is a far-fetched goal to be certain.

“If I didn’t have that mindset, I wouldn’t be here,” Ekeji told Newsday.

'Heart-to-heart' talk

Standing off to the side of the field following practice, he certainly looked the part of a potentially menacing player. He carries roughly the same dimensions as first-round rookie David Bailey and Will McDonald IV, who is entering his fourth year and has led the team in sacks each of the past two seasons.

That wasn’t always the case. When he first showed up to an NFL international combine event in Africa, he weighed just 205 pounds and scouts labeled him a wide receiver prospect. He was too young for the IPP program then, but in December 2024 he was eligible. By the time he arrived with the Jets last fall, he had switched to defense yet was still only 220 pounds.

“We had a heart-to-heart in my office and I told him, 'If this is what you want to do, here are the things that you have to improve on,' ” Jets coach Aaron Glenn said, with Ekeji’s size chief among those qualities. “He took it to heart.”

Ekeji spent the majority of this offseason in New Jersey adding to that frame and currently weighs 251. He joked that it probably means he can never go back to playing his first sport, soccer, but said the added muscle feels good on him.

“I’ve been enjoying it,” he said of his new-found size. “I feel pretty accustomed and comfortable with it. I feel much more explosive and powerful.”

Learning the game

Body mass wasn’t the only thing Ekeji had to add, though. As a football novice he knew almost nothing about the sport.

“They would just show me a card and tell me to go as hard as I can and try to follow the arrow on the paper,” he said. “I wasn’t doing any thinking. I just tried to hit the guy as hard as I could. But it was really fun.”

Veteran defensive tackle Harrison Phillips said there were times last season when Ekeji was so lost he would be on the field and ask questions such as: That’s called a tight end? That’s the running back? How do you know?

Now, Phillips said, Ekeji is able to understand the whole playbook and even makes identifying calls at the line of scrimmage.

“There isn’t a player who I have seen make a bigger jump in a short period of time,” Phillips said. “Now, it’s coming from a very low education on NFL football so I’m expecting him to make jumps. But to see that happen in a matter of months is super impressive.”

Ekeji was a winger in rugby so he often used his feet to outmaneuver opponents. He said there is similarity in the “grit” and “mentality” between rugby and football, but not much carryover in technique. He is learning to “marry” his hands and his feet together, he said, something he didn’t necessarily need to do in his earlier sports pursuits.

Learning the nickname

The Jets even have a nickname for Ekeji. They call him “Pistol P,” a nod to his quickness on the field that is reminiscent of basketball player Pete Maravich. Like many American references, Ekeji didn’t get that one at first, either, so he had to go look it up. He’s come to embrace it.

“Pistol P,” he said with a huge grin and pulling his fingers from his imaginary hip holsters like a cowboy. “The fastest gun in the East! Quick draw!”

It’s clear that Ekeji isn’t just a mascot, a novelty, or feel-good character in this camp, though. The Jets are working hard to educate him, build him up and polish him into an actual NFL player. Between his practice reps, he is constantly communicating with the more football-savvy people who surround him and are all too happy to help.

“The strides he is making and the leaders he has around him, I don’t even know his ceiling, but it’s high,” Phillips said. “I’m really glad he is on our team.”

That sentiment goes all the way up the chain of command to the head coach who has taken a personal interest in Ekeji’s development rather than delegate it to an underling.

“I love AG,” Ekeji said. “Ever since I got here he’s always been in my ear. If I do something good he’ll tap me on the helmet. If I do something bad he’ll get on me. I appreciate that. It shows that he has expectations for me. He is the head coach and he is hands-on with me. He hasn’t just tossed me to the side.”

At one point in Monday’s practice, coaches threw Ekeji in on a special teams scout team. It wasn’t a full-speed drill but he did manage to make an impact. He also won a few of his individual reps in Monday’s practice, even with the sore hand, marking the latest steps forward on his unorthodox trajectory.

“That was good,” he said of the speed rush around the left tackle late in the workout. “I wasn’t thinking as much. Before the rep I made my mind up what I was going to do and I just executed it. I wasn’t trying to get off and trying to read what the situation was.”

Next up will be chances to play in preseason games later this month.

“I just want to keep dictating what is going to happen on each rep as much as I can,” he said. “I want to take advantage of whatever opportunities I do get whether it’s on special teams or on defense.”

And after that? Who knows. Probably some more time to ripen on the Jets’ practice squad. But maybe, at some point, an actual role in an NFL game will be available to him and he can follow other IPP alums such as Jordan Mailata, Efe Obada and Jakob Johnson to an active roster.

“I'm proud of him,” Glenn said. “I'm proud of the way he's attacked this deal. He's giving himself a chance, and that's all he can ask for.”

Said Ekeji: “I’ve come this far. Why not keep on fighting and try to get to the next level?”

Now that’s football, actually. He gets that part completely.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.