Mesidor first Ottawa-born first-round NFL draft pick — SkimNews
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- Akheem Mesidor was selected No. 22 overall by the Los Angeles Chargers in this year's NFL draft, becoming the first Ottawa-born player ever taken in the first round after defensive end Brian Belway played one strike-replacement game for the Los Angeles Raiders in 1987.
- Victor Tedondo, coach of Ottawa's Gridiron Academy, began training Mesidor at age 8 and drove players more than 800 miles to a University of Indiana camp in 2015, where Tedondo pulled a 14-year-old Mesidor from inside linebacker to the defensive line after three straight one-on-one losses.
- Mesidor transferred from West Virginia to the University of Miami, where he led the Hurricanes with 17.5 tackles for loss and 12.5 sacks in his final season as Miami reached the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
- Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh — who, while at Michigan, had offered a Gridiron Academy teammate of Mesidor's a scholarship years earlier — said of Mesidor's pass-rush game: 'The initial quickness, the strength, very polished in his arsenal of what he can do.'
- Ottawa went 30 years between Belway's 1987 appearance and Eli Ankou's 2017 Jaguars debut, but this summer has five homegrown players on NFL training camp rosters: Mesidor, Patriots linebacker Jesse Luketa, Bears defensive tackle Neville Gallimore, Rams outside linebacker Wesley Bailey and Dolphins defensive tackle Rene Konga.
- Mesidor nearly quit football after watching peers receive Division I offers ahead of him, taking a job at Domino's Pizza and stepping away from training before recommitting and landing his first D-I offer from Syracuse as a junior.
Why it matters: Mesidor's first-round selection — paired with four other Ottawa-born players on NFL training camp rosters this summer — validates the infrastructure Tedondo and other local coaches built in a city the NFL had essentially ignored for three decades. For the Chargers, the pick pairs Harbaugh's pre-existing familiarity with the Gridiron Academy pipeline with a six-year college veteran whose 17.5 tackles for loss and 12.5 sacks at Miami suggest immediate pass-rush production.
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