The Tape

• Position: Defensive End
• Age: 23
• Height: 6’ 3”
• Weight:  287 lbs.
• 40-yard Dash: 4.89 seconds
• Vertical Jump: 35.5”
• Broad Jump: 113”
• Bench:  28 reps at 225 lbs.

The Roots

James Looney attended Lake Worth High School, a school north of Miami, Florida around the West Palm Beach area.  During his prep career, he was a four-year varsity player on both the offensive and defensive lines.  Outside of football, he also participated on the track & field and weightlifting teams for the school.  Coming out of high school, Looney was a three-star recruit as a defensive tackle.

Looney was fortunate enough to have been raised around the game of football with a father that played collegiately for Louisville.  While coaching his older brother Joe, James would attend practices of his older brother at a very young age and his father would let him play with the nine-year-olds at the age of five.  While in high school, James watched his older brother attend Wake Forest as an offensive lineman and get drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 2012.  His brother is currently a center for the Dallas Cowboys.

Due to his size and athletic ability, Looney garnered a hefty amount of interest from college programs throughout the country.  Big schools like Miami, Stanford, West Virginia and Boston College all had offers on the table for him to join their programs.  Smaller schools like Western Kentucky, Marshall, Tulane and Florida International had interest in Looney as well.  Looking to follow in his brother’s footsteps, he ultimately opted to join the program at Wake Forest University.

As a true freshman, Looney would see action in six games coming off the bench with the Demon Deacons program.  After his freshman year, the head coach that recruited him resigned.  Looney attended the spring workouts with the new coaching staff and realized that Wake Forest wasn’t where he wanted to finish his college career.  Looking to be closer to his brother, now with the 49ers, Looney transferred to the Cal program.

After the mandatory redshirt in 2014, Looney would play in 12 games as a sophomore with the Bears program and he accumulated 35 tackles, three tackles for loss, one sack, one pass defended and one fumble recovery.  Continuing to play strongly into his junior year as a defensive tackle, Looney would start all 12 games with 54 tackles, eight tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks and one fumble recovery.  During his final year in 2017, Looney would start all 12 games and tally 41 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, one forced fumble and two fumble recoveries.  He would earn All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention honors in both his junior and senior seasons.

During his college career, Looney proved to be a solid and reliable player on the interior of the defensive line.  After performing well at the NFL Combine and showing his athleticism for his large size, the Packers selected him in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft with the 207^th overall selection.

The Future

Looney will enter training camp with the Packers this summer as one of only three men listed at the defensive end position.  But, we won’t get hung up on the semantics of positions along the defensive front as Looney has experience playing as an interior lineman in both a 3-4 and 4-3 defensive scheme.  He will join a hungry and impressive crew that will all be fighting for spots on the final 53-man roster.

Coming out of Cal, Looney’s scouted strengths were having great instincts coupled with his impressive athletic ability for his size.  He was noted to have an infectious personality around his teammates.  Being a bit undersized to be a true defensive tackle at the NFL level, he was seen as being a situational pass rusher in a 4-3 defensive end type of role.  Looney’s scouted weaknesses were his drop in production his senior year of college and his inability to handle strong tackles at the NFL level.

While obviously facing an uphill battle to make the final roster during his rookie season, there is a lot to like about a kid like James Looney.  Brian Gutekunst’s philosophy of drafting athletically gifted players continued all the way into the seventh round of his first draft with the selection of Looney.  Looney is also fortunate enough to be surrounded by a couple of former Golden Bear teammates and alumni to help him acclimate to the new culture he faces in Green Bay.

The other likable trait about the young lineman is his personality.  In a brief interview following rookie orientation, Looney stressed how he is blessed to be in Green Bay and ready for the opportunity that lies ahead for him.  Witnessed by his older brother’s charade of wearing Ezekiel Elliott’s jersey and motioning the “Feed Me” gesture during a Cowboys practice, Looney comes from a long line of jokesters in his family and knows how to have fun around teammates while on the field.  He even broke out into song during his interview. 

How Looney fits into the defensive scheme of the Packers remains to be seen, but I know that I’ll be keeping an eye on #99 this summer.