Zion Logue participation in Pro Day a dream come true as he looks for opportunity
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia’s Pro Day on Wednesday was full of players that enter the draft process feeling pretty confident they’ll get picked. With 13 Bulldogs as participants though, that wasn’t the case for every player there. For all the guys like Brock Bowers, Kamari Lassiter and others out there that are all but certain they’ll get selected, there’s also plenty like Zion Logue just battling to catch the attention of a single scout in attendance.
“Just that I can play football,” Logue told reporters when asked what it was he wanted to show during his workout. “I know everybody watched it at the Combine, but to get in front of them and for them to be on the field with me and see me, see that I can move, see that I can strike the pad, I can actually play football.”
“My mentality, from the way that I walk into the building to the way I leave, everything you get asked to do, you have to have a purpose for doing it,” he added. “That’s what Coach Smart prides our program on, and it’s the number one thing that’s helped me get through.”
Logue spent five seasons in Athens as a part of the Georgia Football program. Playing in 50 career contests, Logue totaled 52 tackles including 4.5 for loss with a double-digit stop total in each of the past three years.
“Toughness, culture builder, extreme effort,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said about Logue and what he’ll bring to an NFL team. “He’s probably on every one of our tapes we show the first day of practice of, we call it getting out of a stack. He covers down at a high level. He plays on field goal PAT, he played on punt protection. He can do a lot of things for a team.”
For Louge, the opportunity to work out in front of the scouts both at the Combine and Pro Day wasn’t just a chance to show what he is capable of as a player. It was also a dream come true for him.
“My first word was ball,” Logue said, speaking on his earliest memories of the NFL. “There’s so many of them. I was a huge college football fan growing up … Going through this process and seeing teams that I’ve admired over the years, seeing Coach (Mike) Tomlin face to face, it’s like, ‘Wow!'”
“It was huge,” he added about the Pro Day specifically. “The days I was in school, I’d skip class a little bit to come watch the older guys go through theirs, so to actually go through mine, it was pretty surreal.”
Logue has played alongside several first round picks over the years including fellow defensive linemen Travon Walker, Jordan Davis, Devonte Wyatt and Jalen Carter. He said he still talks to Davis to this day, calling him like a brother and spoke with him about what to expect during the draft process. Unlike Davis, Logue won’t be hearing his name called on the first night of the draft, and he’ll likely have to wait until day three at the earliest. However, he’s keeping the right attitude about it all.
“I just want to play football,” Logue said. “Everybody can watch the film and see I can strike, see I can play physically, see I can actually move and actually play ball … Things are starting to roll pretty fast, but I’m taking it day by day.”
“It would mean everything (to get drafted),” he added. “My parents read me this book when I was a kid and it had all 32 football teams on it. It was like a bedtime story, and it was about my life. I need to find it, my mom’s trying to find it somewhere, but that was my main goal growing up.”
The NFL Draft is set for April 25-27 in Detroit. Round 1 takes place on the first night while the second and third rounds occur on day two. Then, come Saturday, the draft continues with the rest of the seven-round event and the start of undrafted free agency.
