This game, Eyioma Uwazurike has come to believe, is about what’s done in the dark. And there was plenty of sun on summer and fall days in Detroit, growing up and growing large. But there was no spotlight on his old campus at Southfield-Lathrup High in Lathrup Village, Mich., because the very school itself was scheduled for demolition, the infrastructure of the football program already crumbling.
“We had a mechanic,” Uwazurike recalled Monday, “for a D-line coach.”
The Broncos defensive lineman knew, from young, that he would have to push himself out of the rubble. It was all he knew. He learned it from watching his mother, who worked days and nights to provide for him and his two brothers. He learned it from taking care of his younger brother, born with a heart disease that brought a developmental disability. This became Uwazurike’s purpose. And he learned he’d have to fulfill it all his own, because Southfield-Lathrup ceased to exist after his senior year of high school in 2016, and fielding a competitive football program did not exactly seem a massive institutional priority.
“There’s pages on this kid,” said Eli Rasheed, Uwazurike’s old defensive-line coach at Iowa State. “And all the reasons people would say — ‘You can’t be successful.'”
He is, now, despite a near-career-ruining series of decisions. Uwazurike served a year-long suspension in 2023 for betting on NFL games, and was reinstated in 2024 in the middle of Denver’s training camp, a then-raw former fourth-round pick now starting at Ground Zero with learning Vance Joseph’s defensive playbook. Get a year-long suspension as a fourth-round pick, as Rasheed said, and you normally get discarded.
But Uwazurike has known what it’s felt like, all his life, to work in the dark.
“You had to go learn on your own,” Uwazurike told The Denver Post Monday, on his high-school development. “Go to camps, and learn things. And pick up on your own. It taught us how to be self-driven.
“If we wanted it, we had to actually go find it,” he continued. “So, I always kinda had that. Still got that today.”
Now entering his fifth NFL season — or really, his fourth — Uwazurike is finally primed for a share of the spotlight in Denver. John Franklin-Myers’ looming free-agency departure was the worst-kept secret inside the Broncos’ building in 2025; Uwazurike even publicly campaigned for his old running mate’s impending starting spot in January. And after riding out several drastic forks in the road, the not-so-veteran is now the odds-on favorite to pick up Franklin-Myers’ key vacated snaps at the heart of Denver’s defense.
“I feel like I’m definitely ready to start in that position,” Uwazurike reiterated Monday, “and whatever that comes with. But I feel like I play a big role no matter what, you feel me? Because I play nose, 3-technique and 4-technique, so I’m all over the field.
“Regardless, I gotta have a good season … if itap to start at that 4i position, so be it,” Uwazurike continued, a few words later. “I know for sure I’ll be ready.”
On the Broncos’ first ramp-up day of training camp last week, head coach Sean Payton said there were “two to three” players in the defensive-line room vying for Franklin-Myers’ old job. The leading man, now, has emerged, in a race to develop interior chemistry with returning All-Pro Zach Allen.
“I definitely find myself doing, right now, a lot of that stuff that JFM was doing with Zach last year,” Uwazurike said.
Uwazurike played 36% of Denver’s defensive snaps last season in a key role on the defensive line. Close to half of his looks last year, though, came against the run; Franklin-Myers held a much larger role on passing downs. And recently, Uwazurike has begun sitting with Allen for 10 to 15 minutes to go over pass-rush looks after the team’s final meetings of the day during camp.
“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve learned a lot right now off of him,” Uwazurike said, speaking on growing rapport with Allen. “So big salute to Zach. He knows what he’s doing in that world. Itap not just about being able to pass-rush – itap about knowing your opponents, and knowing whatap going on, and how to work with each other properly in that pass-rushing aspect. And he’s doing a good job teaching us, for sure.”
This is far from a one-man, plug-and-play job. Joseph’s defense rotates interior defensive linemen constantly, given the type of on-field package and situational down. Third-round pick Tyler Onyedim has acquitted himself quite well since summer offseason workouts, and 2025 third-round pick Sai’vion Jones has as much pass-rushing upside as anyone in the bunch; veterans Jordan Jackson and Matt Henningsen, too, have both gotten first-team reps at times in team periods. And ascending nose tackle Malcolm Roach has been the other most frequent body, as Uwazurike said, who has played in Franklin-Myers’ old position.
The 6-foot-6 Uwazurike, though, offers the best blend of versatility, proven reps and untapped upside. After a career-best 3.5 sacks and 49 tackles in 19 total games last season, he turned 28 in May. Virtually nobody views him as such. Payton, in fact, called him “young” Monday.
“I think he grew a lot last season,” Payton said. “I mean, there’s some really good tape. I’m excited about whatap up for him, because he’s got all those traits you’re looking for. And itap important to him.”
In a football sense, really, Uwazurike has always been younger than his age. Rasheed recruited Uwazurike for two to three years out of Southfield-Lathrup, and never met his head coach; everyone back at Uwazurike’s old high school, as Rasheed recalled, “knew they weren’t going to have a job there.”
Even after five stacked seasons of improvement at Iowa State — with nine sacks as a senior — old Iowa State defensive coordinator Jon Heacock would tell NFL scouts that Uwazurike’s best football was ahead of him.
“I just felt like, he, mentally, was young in the game of understanding the whole big picture,” Heacock recalled.
In those years of high school ball and beyond, Uwazurike often found YouTube as his best teacher, with no pass-rush coach to learn from. He studied tape of All-Pros like the Steelers’ Cameron Heyward and Chiefs’ Chris Jones, trying to find havoc-wreaking defensive lineman with similar statures; Uwazurike spent plenty of time this offseason, too, watching now-Bengals star Dexter Lawrence to study his nose-tackle reps.
“But (now),” Uwazurike grinned, “I’m playing the — whatever’s available.”
What is available, he knows, is Franklin-Myers’ next to Allen. That will require some adaptability. Uwazurike is used to that.
“Last season was the year I got to do everything,” Uwazurike said. “Go into OTAs, have a good camp, good preseason – right into the season, had a really good season last year. So yeah, I feel like we got the whole thing going over, starting over again, this year. And hopefully I can take off with it.”
