#4 George Karlaftis - Purdue University Edge Player
- 6'4"
- 275 Pounds
Career College Stats/Accomplishments
- 26 Games Played
- 1x Third-Team All-American
- 1x First-Team All-Big Ten
- 14 Sacks
- 29 Tackles For Loss
- 97 Total Tackles
- 61 Solo
- 3 Forced Fumbles
- 4 Fumble Recoveries
- 1 Fumble Return for a TD
- 6 Passes Defended
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana. George was a Boilermaker here for three seasons.
As my title has stated for every other post in this series, this list is a list of my favorite players in the draft. Basically, my criteria for this list of players is a mix of whether or not I believe a player will be good, a bit of me liking their playstyle, or me simply liking a player for any other reason my heart/gut feels. I chose basically from prospects that have a chance of being chosen in the first two rounds.
Originally, I had George a bit further down on this list of players. BUT after a bit of research, I learned something about him that made me like him a lot more and want to root for him. George is from Greece, and well I am Greek myself! He grew up there and was a top athlete as a youngster. He had American parents, so he can speak English perfectly well. He moved to America around middle school after his father tragically passed.
This video really was well made and does a great job summarizing George's story.
There maybe has been some random players that have some Greek in them, who knows. If there are I have not heard of them. But there hasn't been many players actually from Greece. According to this website, there have only been five, and once again I've unfortunately never heard of them. One of them did make a Pro Bowl though, as a guard all the way back in 1939!! Good old Gust Zarnas!! Legend!! But even he only played in the league for three seasons, much like the other Greek born players.
But tonight, Greek born player number six has a chance to be more than just another player! He could be great!
George Karlaftis is a big powerful edge player with a surprising finesse aspect to his game and just solid awareness and overall IQ as a player. Once again, these multi sport athletes just have a certain quality about them!
THE GREEK FREAK!
George has a lot of strong traditional bull rush skills and he also has a skill to sort of just squeeze past players like he's simply in a rush at the airport and not trying to sack a QB. It really is something to see, it almost seems as though he's swimming past defenders and of course I come to learn he was a really high level water polo athlete in Greece.
George has great size for the NFL and he actually only JUST turned twenty-one like three weeks ago!!! I can only imagine how beastly he will look in three to five years!
I can't wait to see where he gets drafted tonight or maybe tomorrow! If the Titans snag him I'd be HYPE but the Titans don't really need him.
I will need his card for sure!
