RE: Blazers in NFL preseason games
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Anthony Rush was off the grid, which is hard to do for a guy listed at 6-foot-5, 350 pounds.
After the Eagles cut him on July 27, the Lions flew in the rookie defensive tackle for a workout. It went well, but Detroit didn’t have the roster room for him, so the Lions stashed Rush at a local hotel.
“They said they had to cut somebody to make room for me, so they kept me overnight again,” Rush said after Thursday night’s game at Arizona. “Then the Raiders swooped in.”
Rush’s agent, Justin Turner, had told Raiders director of pro scouting Dwayne Joseph that he was going to give the Lions until that second morning to sign his client. So, Joseph called back at 6 a.m. PT to check, and Turner and his brother, co-agent Joel, then gave the Lions a 20-minute deadline. The Lions needed until that afternoon, they said, and Rush was in the air.
Raiders coach Jon Gruden put a little more flair on the whole situation.
"We had an intercepting airline to go in there to steal him away. " Gruden said. "it was a great job our scouts, really getting him here."
There was little fanfare when Rush signed with the Raiders. Just a few small lines on the transactions list about an undrafted player out of UAB. A week later, though, he had everybody wondering who he was and where he came from.
In the preseason opener against the Rams, Rush was moving people and had four tackles, three at the line of scrimmage and one for a loss of yards.
"It felt pretty good, " Rush said. "it's just football, I am in the league now, so, everything has to be 100 percent"
While he didn't have the same stats against the Cardinals in the second preseason game on Thursday, he helped set up an Ethan Westbrook sack and one of his two tackles was very, very strong.
Rush held off Arizona guard Jeremy Vujnovich with his left arm and swung down running back D.J. Foster with his right hand when Foster tried to pass.
"I can stop the run, but I can always work on my pass rush, “Rush said. "I'm a 345-pound guy. I better be able to stop the run."
"He caused some tackles for a loss and pushed the pocket pretty good," Gruden said. "We like him."
Football coaches have always liked Rush, dating back to when he was a 270-pound tight end at Cary (N.C.) High and was being recruited by Michigan. He didn't have the grades and wound up at Northeast Mississippi Community College, where he played two years and the schools picked up the scent of an athletic, now 310-pound defensive tackle.
Rush chose UAB because the school offered him a scholarship first, before the SEC schools did, and he had 77 tackles (20 for loss) and two sacks in two seasons there. But the play that went viral in 2017 was a 27-yard interception return when Rush tipped the ball up, caught it and then outran the quarterback to the endzone.
OK, so by now you are asking the obvious question: How was this kid not drafted? And no one's mentioned yet that he apparently can run a 5.02-second 40-yard dash.
Well, eight days before his pro day at UAB, Rush stepped out of the sauna at a workout facility and walked on a broken indoor pitching mound. He sustained a deep cut by his big toe, there was muscle tissue damage and an infection that required surgery.
"Twenty-eight teams came and saw him at the pro day and he couldn't go" Justin Turner said. And he wasn't drafted."
Joseph was in the Eagles' personnel department up until the draft, and Rush was a big target for them as a free-agent signing. When Joseph left for the Raiders, there seemed to be some confusion on the Eagles about how to use Rush.
"Anthony is designed to eat two gaps at one time" Turner said. The Eagles had three injuries to cornerbacks at the start of training camp and needed to sign Orlando Scandrick. So they waived Rush to clear the roster spot.
"I was surprised I got cut in Philly," Rush said. "I didn't even know how to take it, honestly. They did what they did and told me they could live without me...I guess they can live without me, we’ll see."
The Raiders are sure happy Rush showed up in their lives. He still has two preseason games left to nail down a roster spot, and he welcomes the pressure of living up to his first two preseason games.
"Oh yeah," Rush said. "Every day, I just try and come to work and attack. Know my assignments and go through them. Like I said, it's just football.
"I had confidence I could do this even before the draft. I went to a smaller school and didn't get as much publicity as the Power 5 schools but I always knew I could play."
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Blazers in NFL preseason games
