Jordan Glasgow Talks Preparation For The NFL, How Michigan Got Him Ready
Michigan linebacker Jordan Glasgow is taking his shot at the NFL. The former walk-on will look to make a roster come this fall, just like his brothers Graham and Ryan before him. The Coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on his pre-draft preparation, as U-M's pro day scheduled for March 13 was cancelled one day prior.
"I was not invited to the combine, sadly," Glasgow said on the Huge Show Tuesday with guest host Matt Shepard. "I feel like I was going to run some good times, and do a lot of the things that the scouts would like, so I was looking forward to it.
"I know a lot of people were looking forward to that day to impress scouts. We’re all kind of gritting through, going through this new experience, trying to find a way to impress people with interviews or with whatever we can."
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The cancellation of the pro day isn't the only thing that has interrupted Glasgow and other prospect's routines.
"It’s just affecting the ease at which I can train, preparing for the NFL and hopefully my professional career," he said. "It’s just made it a little bit more difficult to find consistent places to work out, to find consistent times. But, I’ve been working through it. I’ve been getting the work that I need to get in. I’ve been doing everything that I can do at this moment."
After moving around a bit early in his career in the Maize and Blue, Glasgow settled in at inside linebacker, where he started all 13 games as a fifth-year senior, notching 89 tackles, including 7.0 tackles for loss and 5.0 sacks. Most NFL teams that he's spoken to have indicated they'd be looking at him as an inside backer, but he's open to playing wherever he's needed.
"I think I can play inside linebacker or I could play some sort of a hybrid linebacker position, whatever a team would really want me to do," he said. "I’ve been told more inside linebacker than anything else. That’s what I’m going to prepare for, but I mean, I feel like I could play any position that a pro team would see me playing. I feel like I could adjust to it."
Glasgow's willingness to move around on defense, coupled with his experience as a special teams standout, will undoubtedly help him impress pro teams.
"I think that helps a lot," Glasgow said of his special teams experience. "A lot of people coming out don’t really think about how important special teams are, especially early on in a person’s career.
"If you play on all four phases of special teams, a team is going to want to keep you, even if at that moment you can’t contribute on defense. It gives them a reason to keep you, to develop you into a defensive player if you’re able to perform on special teams and make a direct impact."
Glasgow believes his experience as a walk-on turned scholarship player and starter add to the list of why he could fit in on an NFL roster.
"I came in as a walk-on, and I think the hardest thing was adjusting to being at the very bottom of the totem poll," he said. "Coaches didn’t really see you … at least when I started, they didn’t see you as someone that could contribute. You kind of had to earn everyone’s respect. You didn’t really start out with it like a lot of scholarship players usually did, depending on the person. It was just a lot harder to change people’s minds, because people had a specific perception of you, so you not only had to prove yourself, but you had to change what people thought of you, which is pretty difficult to do."
Growing up with two (much bigger) future NFL players doesn't hurt, either. The oldest, offensive lineman Graham Glasgow, just signed a four year $44M contract with the Denver Broncos in free agency. Ryan is a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.
"I remember growing up a lot differently than they say I grew up," Glasgow said with a laugh. "I remember them being a lot meaner than they say they were and a lot rougher. One of their excuses for beating me up or making fun of me was always to make me tougher. They said, ‘Well, it made you tougher.’ Probably. At the end of the day, I’m happy for how they treated me because it made me who I am right now."
Glasgow is fine with others using his story for inspiration, too, saying he's not tired of people talking about the unlikely path he took to being a standout at a school like U-M.
"We all came up through the walk-on path, and they both made it to the NFL," Glasgow said of he and his brothers. "I’m trying to get there now. I’m fine if people use me for inspiration or a feel good story. I mean, it’s nice to have people see my experiences and what I went through and say, ‘Well, OK, that’s something that I can use to maybe lead me or to inspire me to do something more or better or to try something new or to try something that people may feel is beyond myself, but I know that I can do it.’"
He's not pushing his former U-M coaches to lobby for him to NFL teams, but Glasgow hopes the kind of person and player he was in Ann Arbor will lead them to speak highly of him when asked.
"I haven’t asked anyone to try and push for me," he said. "What I tried to do was present myself as an individual that they would want to go to an NFL team and say, ‘This is someone that you would want to have.’ Or, if an NFL team were to speak to them, they would say, ‘This is someone that I can’t say anything bad about.’ Obviously, Coach Harbaugh, his brother is the coach of the Ravens. If I’m a player that Coach Harbaugh thinks that he would want on his team or he wants more of me on his team, he would go to his brother and say something about me, or he would talk about me in some way that would lead him to believe that he would want me on his team, as well. That’s the person I try to project myself as and that’s the person that I want to be. I just want to be someone that everyone wants to get behind and everyone wants to back."
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