3 things to know about Patriots third-round pick Yodny Cajuste
A lifelong basketball-player-turned-offensive-lineman will compete for a job at left tackle in training camp.
The Patriots drafted one offensive lineman in the 2019 NFL Draft: Yodny Cajuste, a 6-foot-5, 321-pound tackle out of West Virginia. The Super Bowl champions selected Cajuste in the third round with the 101st overall pick.
Cajuste arrived at West Virginia in 2014 as a redshirt freshman slated to play defensive line. By 2015, he had switched positions to offensive line and established himself as the Mountaineers’ starting left tackle. Cajuste was named one of the Big 12 conference’s offensive linemen of the year alongside Dalton Risner and Dru Samia in 2018.
He joins Isaiah Wynn, Cole Croston, and Cedrick Lang as the Patriots’ options at left tackle in 2019 after the departure of Trent Brown this offseason.
Here are three things to know about the Patriots’ newest lineman:
Cajuste didn’t play football until his senior year of high school.
Cajuste played basketball throughout his childhood and high school years at Miramar High School in Miramar, Florida. (Coincidentally, their school mascot is the Patriots.)
According to a 2016 article in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Cajuste was convinced to play football in the spring of his junior year of high school by football coach Damon Cogdell, who was a standout linebacker at West Virginia in the late 1990s. Cogdell told Cajuste that if he played in the spring season and did not have an offer from any college programs at the end, he could give football up.
Cajuste was ranked 40th in the nation among offensive tackles by 247sports at the end of his first and only high school football season. According to 247sports, he received offers from Florida, Florida Atlantic, FIU, and Oklahoma State before ultimately committing to West Virginia as his high school coach, Cogdell, was hired by the program as an assistant linebackers coach (Codgell is now a coach with Alabama State University.)
He briefly went viral for throwing punches on the turf.
During West Virginia’s Sept. 29 game at Texas Tech, Cajuste showed some potential as a professional boxer in addition to an offensive lineman.
things got a little chippy in Lubbock yesterday. pic.twitter.com/2zMdw1O0PT
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 30, 2018
After a first-and-10 run by the Mountaineers, Texas Tech lineman Eli Howard appeared to shove Cajuste, who responded with a punch to the face. Howard attempted a punch of his own, but he missed. Cajuste had swiftly ducked out of the way and assumed a boxer’s stance. No more punches were thrown, but both players received unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on the play.
When Cajuste was asked about the incident and its subsequent popularity on Twitter, he laughed it off while playing the incident down.
“I’m just here to play football,” Cajust told reporters later that week. “I wasn’t here to go all viral.”
You can watch a longer version of the clip here.
Cajuste had surgery to repair his quad muscle in March.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported March 29 that Cajuste had surgery in Philadelphia. Rapoport said then Cajuste should be cleared to play in three months.
West Virginia offensive tackle prospect Yodny Cajuste underwent surgery to repair his quad muscle yesterday from Dr. William Meyers in Philly, source said. Surgery went as expected and the Big 12 co-O-lineman of the year should be fully cleared in three months.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 29, 2019
The surgery or overall concerns about Cajuste’s long-term durability – he suffered season-ending knee injuries in both 2015 and 2016 – did not appear to impact his draft stock much, though. The Patriots took him in the third round, around where projections on Bleacher Report and USA Today had placed Cajuste.
