The GreenBay Packers didn’t take long before snapping up B.J. Raji at the 9th position in the 2009 NFL and there’s good reason why. Despite sitting out a year in college, his stats were amazing both at Boston College and in the NFL combine.

College

At 6’1″ and 335 pounds, B.J. Raji is an imposing force. He’s got the size to easily hold his own in the middle, but he has that Gilbert Brown height that allows him to get underneath offensive linemen and push them into the backfield.

In college Raji racked up 105 career tackles. This included 32.5 tackles for loss which was 74th best in the nation. That’s an impressive statistic when you consider the fact that he was most often double-teamed by two massive offensive linemen.

B.J. also ranked 64th in the nation in sacks with 12.5 QB sacks. Again, Raji is often plowing through two blockers on his way to the quarterback. In addition to his 12.5 sacks, B.J. Raji also broke up nine passes in his college career.

NFL Combine

Before sharing with you the statistics B.J. Raji you need to remember that this is a guy who weighs 335 pounds. The numbers he showed at the NFL combine were beyond impressive.

Raji pulled off a vertical leap of 32″ and a broad jump of 8’7″. It’s just not right that a guy this big can move all that bulk around like that. It’s not right, but, now that he’s a GreenBay Packer, we’re glad he can.

But Raji can do more than jump. He ran a 7.90 second cone-drill and a 4.69 second 20 yard shuffle. His cone drill was actually fairly slow compared to other defensive linemen, but the Packers picked him up to absorb two linemen in the middle not for his blazing speed.

One of the combine events the Packers were probably most interested in seeing Raji’s abilities in was the bench press. In the bench press a reasonable 225 pounds is lifted by competitors. The point is not to see how much they can lift, but to gauge the endurance level of their strength.

One of the big criticisms of Ryan Pickett was whether or not he could last an entire game in a 3-4 scheme. No doubt the Packer brass wanted to know the same of Raji if they were going to select him. Raji put lifted 225 pounds for 33 repetitions. Only one offensive lineman and four defensive linemen could better him in that regard.

Raji wasn’t incredibly fast in the 40 yard dash. However, I’d challenge all my readers to get a friend and a stopwatch and see if they can top Raji’s 5.23 in the 40.

B.J. Raji was a solid pick with some impressive numbers backing him. He’ll definitely be an impact player when the GreenBay Packers hit the field in 2009.