Photo: Courtesy ECU Pirates
The Toronto Argonauts have signed American DE Kendall Futrell.
Lucky for me, I’ve watched about five hundred hours of East Caroline Pirates film over the past few years, with every other CFL player seemingly coming out of that program, so I can tell you all about him.
He had a pretty quiet career at ECU until his senior season (2019) when he suddenly exploded. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what changed, because he was being used the same way, but he went from being just another passive body on the line to being a menace, hell-bent on getting to the quarterback. He finished the season with 43 pressures, 44 tackles, and 10 sacks.
Futrell was technically an outside linebacker who lined up as a rush end about 2/3 of the time. He’s explosive off the line and has an elusive enough inside move to irritate even the most technically sound offensive linemen.
On the negative side, he’s not a good run defender, and he doesn’t angle around the edge like you see natural ends do where they get almost parallel to the ground, so he struggles outside against long-armed tackles. He’s also not very big for the position at 6’2, 225lbs.
His size makes him far more suited to the CFL than the NFL. He had a brief run with both the Bengals and Texans, but they wanted to use him at WILL, so that didn’t work out. The BC Lions gave Futrell a look last season, and I was surprised he didn’t stick. Perhaps a second go with a CFL team is what the doctor ordered.