Commentary: What a friendship with a boat captain says about NFL combine standout Rome Odunze
SEATTLE – When Daniel Jeremiah says Rome Odunze is his favorite player in the draft, that encompasses everything.
It’s the balletic body control, an ability to flip his hips and snare a seed through the outstretched arms of overmatched Oregon safety Trikweze Bridges. It’s the blend of size (6-foot-3, 212 pounds), speed (4.45 seconds in the 40-yard dash), athleticism (39-inch vertical jump) and intellect, all of which earned admirers at last week’s NFL combine. It’s the insistence on plowing through opponents for extra yards instead of stepping out of bounds. It’s the resolve to pop a rib and puncture a lung while recovering a critical onside kick in a victory at Arizona, spend a night in a hospital and play two weeks later.
It’s the audacity to crash an Oregon fan livestream on social media in January, to drag the Ducks (one more time) and playfully advise: “Y’all better be nice to me. I might come back for another year, just to do it.”
It’s the production, the resume and receipts – 167 catches, 2,785 receiving yards and 23 touchdowns in his last two seasons in Seattle.
It’s everything you see on film …
And the friendship with a ship captain.
Last month, Jeremiah – NFL Network’s resident draft czar – was asked why Odunze is his favorite prospect in the current class. In a 240-word tribute, he listed all the apparent plaudits – big, fast, physical, smart, tough, on and on and on. He added that “some of the stuff I hear talking to sources and connections up there is that the guy is incredibly bright. He is a great leader. He knows every spot in the receiving room. He can play anywhere. He has been training with (17-year NFL wide receiver) Ricky Proehl, and Proehl said he is as smart of a receiver as he has ever been around.”
At which point, Jeremiah’s answer exited Husky Stadium. He relayed a simple story. Last summer, Odunze participated in the Dawg Derby, a charity and NIL fundraising event that pairs fans with Husky players for a fishing tournament on Puget Sound. (Odunze’s foundation also donated $5,000 to Tulalip Boys & Girls Club as part of the festivities.)
During said event, Odunze exchanged numbers with his boat’s captain, told him he enjoyed the experience and would like to go again.
Which, for a star wide receiver and future first-round draft pick, is just something you say – zero-calorie conversation, meaningless small talk for a sunny Seattle day. The captain didn’t actually expect a follow-up fishing trip.
They went again a few weeks later.
“It’s almost too good to be true with everything I hear about this kid,” Jeremiah concluded.
To which we can confirm:
It’s good.
And it’s true.
So says Tom Nelson, the ship captain in question, who hosts “The Outdoor Line” radio show on Seattle Sports 710 AM as well.
“Rome said (after the Dawg Derby), ‘I had a lot of fun. Let’s do this again.’ So then he brought a couple friends a couple weeks later and we got a couple beautiful big kings (salmon),” Nelson told the Seattle Times. “He was all fired up. I smoked a bunch of the fish for him and brought it over to his place. We have kept in touch, which has been fun, getting to share that journey (to the national championship game) a little tiny bit with Rome.”
Nelson, who spent a quarter-century as a Seattle firefighter, claims “you find out who people are by spending a day on the water, catching a couple fish, pulling some crab pots. You at that point are kind of a team yourself with whoever’s on your boat, because you’ve got a bunch of guys and a bunch of gear and a common purpose.”
“His curiosity with all things we were doing and how fast he grasped it and gained a mastery of it (struck me),” Nelson said. “Because there’s a couple different techniques we used, and one of them is a rod-in-hand technique called jigging, and that’s how he caught his fish. They weren’t biting that well, and we weren’t seeing fish on the sonar underneath the boat. So we told him, ‘Listen, just drop this thing straight underneath the boat, and lift it up and down a couple times.’
“He hit the fish right on the head. I swear, man. It was like a depth charge. He nailed this thing. It was the second-largest fish taken in the derby that day.”
Odunze might be the biggest fish to enter the NFL this offseason.
But don’t just trust the tape.
Ask the countless kids he signed autographs for on the field inside the Superdome in New Orleans after the Sugar Bowl, before shoveling confetti and streamers into his hat, maintaining the memories. Ask the folks at The Forgotten Children’s Fund, an organization that delivers Christmas presents to underprivileged kids across Western Washington. Odunze spent a day in December 2022 wrapping gifts with a handful of other Huskies.
Ask the marching band, which repeatedly dubbed Odunze its honorary conductor after memorable Husky wins.
Ask the trainers and janitors and student assistants and employees who quietly power a program; in that building, Odunze’s approval rating approaches Husky Stadium’s iconic overhangs.
Ask NFL Network’s Stacey Dales and Jamie Erdahl, who watched as Odunze refused to leave the field inside Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday, unsatisfied with his time in the combine’s 3-cone drill.
“This will be his fifth attempt, and he is the last player out here doing anything,” Dales said in disbelief, as Odunze tried to improve upon a 6.88-second time that ranked fourth among wide receivers. “I have never seen anything like this, Jamie, at the combine.”
Heck, ask this columnist – whose years of unrelenting questions were met with equally unrelenting grins – or the fishing boat captain/friend.
Or, sure, ask Jeremiah.
But favorites aren’t always first overall picks. Jeremiah mocks Odunze to the Bears at No. 9, following a pair of fellow wideouts in Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. and LSU’s Malik Nabers. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr., meanwhile, tabs Odunze to the Giants at No. 6 – behind Harrison, and ahead of Nabers.
Whatever the order, Odunze’s combine admirers learned something last weekend that those around Washington already know:
This kid is a catch.