How Nikita Whitlock Went from Undersized Afterthought to Rare 2-Way NFL Player

When Nikita Whitlock signed as an undrafted free agent with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2014, they made it clear he wouldn't make their roster as a defensive tackle, the only position he had ever known.

Whitlock had just recorded nine sacks during his senior season at Wake Forest. He earned second-team All-ACC honors in 2011 and 2012 and received a first-team All-ACC nod in 2013, which came after a high school career when the Texas native was named the state's 5A Defensive Player of the Year in 2008.

Texas has a whole lot of high school football talent, which is sort of like saying there's water in the ocean. But each time Whitlock tried to climb another rung on the football ladder, those who evaluate talent often focused on only one measurement: 5'10".

That's his height, and with it comes a weight of 250 pounds. Compared to other defensive tackles, Whitlock is often a shrub among Douglas Firs, especially when he's tasked with beating giant interior offensive linemen.

His skill is clear on tape, but trying to shatter the size mold at any level of football is a daunting hurdle. And initially, even getting an opportunity in the NFL seemed like a distant dream.

"I said, 'Hey, coach, you know I played defensive line in college,'" Whitlock said to Bleacher Report, describing a half-joking conversation he had with the Bengals defensive line coach upon his arrival. "He just straight up told me, 'You'll never play defensive line for me.'"

Whitlock has heard different variations of "no" many times, mostly because coaches fear what they can't teach.

He heard it when only a single Division I scholarship offer landed in his mailbox, even after that shining high school career in a state where football is as essential to life as three daily meals.

He heard it when 256 names scrolled by during the draft and he was left waiting.

And he heard it when he received entry into the NFL after a position switch. Now he's playing two positions with the New York Giants. One is his natural position, while the other is a position he had never lined up at before and had to learn at football's highest level.

Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Whitlock is a defensive tackle at heart and a fullback on the depth chart. He's the rare two-way player in a league where sticking around long enough to play one position, and play it well, is challenging enough.

It all makes for an interesting conversation at social gatherings.

"Often people say, 'Oh, you play defensive line in the NFL, that's so crazy,'" Whitlock said. "Well, to me it's like, I play fullback, and that's crazy."

Crazy indeed, because it's quite the accomplishment for a guy who hadn't played any offensive position at all to win a job on that side of the ball. The legend of Whitlock grows further, as while learning to play fullback, he's recorded a sack and six total pressures despite only seeing 41 snaps at defensive tackle. He's pressured the quarterback on a whopping 14.4 percent of his defensive snaps in 2015, according to Pro Football Focus.

This is probably a good time to mention that Whitlock's opportunities to develop in even a limited defensive tackle role have been scarce. So scarce that, as Art Stapleton of the Record recently observed, he sometimes settles for locker room tutorials.

Whitlock's thirst for knowledge and success at both positions isn't surprising after speaking with coaches from his past.

There's a universal language coaches use. Often to the home viewer, the bedrock of that language sounds like an endless stream of cliches when ex-coaches work the broadcast booth. But to them, certain scribbles in their notebook carry deep meaning, especially when one word is repeated, as is the case with Whitlock.

That word? Motor.

'He could stand flat-footed, kick an exit sign and land on his feet'

Bill Howard could talk about Whitlock all day. He warned me about that when I called his office to speak with the head coach at Wylie High School, where Whitlock first started to shed doubts about his height.

"When Nikita was here, he just had an unbelievable motor," Howard said, providing our first reference to the standout athlete's inner engine.

"He got more awards than any other high school student we've ever had come through Wylie. People couldn't block him. He would work so hard that you couldn't stop him."

Whitlock was more than just a football player during his high school days. That's not unusual, as many NFL rosters are lined with players who excelled in other athletic endeavors throughout both high school and college. Recall, for example, Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and his rim-rattling.

But what's unique about Whitlock is that he was more than just an athletic wunderkind in every sport. He always dominated as a small guy in a big man's natural habitat.

"It's funny, because as I look back, in every sport I've ever played, I always did what the big guys do," Whitlock said. "I don't really know where that comes from."

"I played basketball in high school too. I started and played center. I was down in the post, and my backup was 6'6". I wrestled as a heavyweight, and I only weighed 220. And in track I did shot put and threw disc. In every sport, I was the best in my area.

"I actually thrived on it. In basketball, for example, I loved being matched up against a 6'8" guy. I loved to beat them at what they're supposed to beat me at. And to show them that sure, you can't teach height, but you can't teach heart either."

To review, then: At 5'10", Whitlock was a center among the towering basketball trees, a heavyweight bruiser and a disc-throwing brute. He's only a tuba short of covering every standard high school big-man thing.

Oh, and he also bench-pressed a school-record 405 pounds. It's clear why Howard can talk about Whitlock for so long and why the local media in Wylie has proudly covered his spinning NFL highlights.

Which is appropriate, because Whitlock's long, loving relationship with the spin move first started at Wylie. The two are high school sweethearts, basically.

"It became my go-to move because with my height and my speed, oftentimes the offensive lineman wants to short-set me and get their hands on me quick," he said. "The best way to counteract that is to come under. So I just figured out early that if they're short-setting me, a spin would be effective."

Whitlock's whirling and sacking weren't enough to make Division I college offers tumble into his lap. Some size apprehension is understandable, though eventually proven production should make those concerns fade.

That didn't happen, and Whitlock was largely seen as a linebacker coming out of high school. Even when Wake Forest brought him aboard, it wasn't to play defensive line.

"They didn't want him to play D-line out there and were going to put him at linebacker," Howard said. "I went out and watched him practice that spring. They said, 'What do you think?' and I said, 'Well, he's not a linebacker. I think you're misusing him.'"

He landed at Wake Forest because, much like Howard, Tim Billings saw a special fire in Whitlock. Billings, who also said "motor" several times throughout our conversation, was the Demon Deacons secondary coach and later became the co-defensive coordinator.

"He's five-foot-whatever, and he could stand flat-footed, kick an exit sign and land on his feet," Billings told Bleacher Report.

"The greatest thing about Nikita is not only that he's an amazing player, but he has an amazing heart. There's no one like him that I've ever recruited, and I've coached in college for 34 years."

Those aren't words tossed around lightly by a coach stuck in wistful reflection. Billings identified two sources of strength in Whitlock. First, the physical kind, which is on display every time he powers past a house-sized interior offensive lineman or blasts through to open up a hole as a fullback.

"For his size, he's unbelievably strong," Billings said. "He has great leverage on offensive linemen. They have a hard time getting on him because he's so short.

"He has great quickness and explosiveness. He's great with his hands, too, and he's one of those guys who just have a knack for feeling pressure and going against it. He can make decisions on the move. It's just natural for him."

Whitlock showcased his strength in the slice of weight-room glory below. Note that his opponent in this arm-wrestling match is former Wake Forest offensive and defensive lineman Frank Souza, who weighs in at 6'4" and 310 pounds.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, Billings also saw mental strength within Whitlock. That was eventually the final selling point when Billings tried to convince his fellow coaches to offer a scholarship, and the last push came from an unlikely source.

"It was a hard sell until I took our linebacker coach there to meet him," Billings said. "There was a girls' volleyball coach at the high school, and she came toward us and said, 'You're recruiting Nikita?'

"Yeah.

"Then she said, 'I just want you to know that's the only young man here I'd let babysit my children.'"

Strong character, however, carries only so much weight in the NFL, where locker rooms are filled with veteran leaders. To succeed there, Whitlock had to embrace a different view of the field.

'What's different? ... Everything else'

The Bengals signed Whitlock to be a fullback. When he didn't make their roster, the seeds for his two-way existence were planted during a brief stint on the Dallas Cowboys practice squad. That's when he was utilized on the scout team as an interior defensive lineman.

Now the Giants have discovered that in the right moment, his smaller stature is actually an advantage and provides an element of surprise.

"I think a lot of advantages come with being a shorter guy," Whitlock said. "Leverage is key while playing defensive line. If you don't have leverage, you're done, and I have automatic leverage."

"My height also gives offensive linemen a smaller surface area. The less surface you have for them to get their hands on you, the harder it is for those guys."

To stay in the NFL, though, Whitlock had to drift more toward his new fullback title while still not letting his defensive tackle background fade. His usage in either role has been determined by both the game plan and game situations. That has led to a scattered weekly snap count.

Week	Fullback snaps	Defensive tackle snaps
1	11	0
2	9	0
3	14	9
4	13	9
5	2	4
6	10	9
7	12	2
8	9	1
9	23	3
10	6	4

That's 150 total snaps over 10 games, with 72.7 percent coming as a fullback. He's also regularly deployed on special teams coverage.

Whitlock is a busy man on game days, but if he had an NFL business card, "fullback" would be printed in large letters now, with "defensive tackle" in the fine print below.

The 24-year-old had to learn the nuances of another position. Some fundamentals translated easily from his former football life as solely a defensive tackle.

"The thing that translates most for me from tackle to fullback is leverage and low pad level. That's something I understood from the jump. When I was in Cincinnati, the other fullbacks often had the same teaching correction. Coaches would tell them, 'You're too high.' I never had that issue.

"I knew how to bend my knees and come out of my hips, which is something you don't learn at every position."

What was the most significant difference then?

"Everything else."

When game-deciding plays are dissected frame by frame each week, it's easy to take a core element of the sport for granted. The offense dictates the action, which is why there's a rigid structure to every movement. The defense largely reacts, countering the offense's maneuvering.

Switching your vantage point on that elaborate game of football chess is a tough mental challenge.

"The angle you take to block somebody is completely different from the angle you take to tackle somebody. How you read a defense from the offensive perspective is completely different from how I read as a defender.

"But I think the thing I struggled with the most is that as an offensive player you have to be much more proactive, and as a defensive player you're reactive. So oftentimes as a defensive player it was, 'Hey, you have the C-gap, so get there and just play ball.' But as an offensive player it's, 'Hey, you have to go through the C-gap and block that guy at this angle if this play is going to work.'"

So far, the adjustment has gone well, with Whitlock sprinting through holes before unloading on defenders. Let's ask Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Kwon Alexander for an update on his progress:

Early effectiveness as a two-way player hasn't changed Whitlock's sharp perspective on the short life of an NFL career.

He's driven to succeed and to have a long career as a fullback, defensive tackle or both. But he has a backup plan that requires swimming, among other rather intense activities.

Lots of swimming.

'Being a Navy SEAL has always been my dream'

Whitlock wasn't sure what sort of football future awaited him when his collegiate career ended at Wake Forest. Being passed over was a familiar feeling after he received only one Division I offer.

So he started training for a different physical challenge on the side while still maintaining his football form and skills. He wanted to join the Navy SEALs.

"My wife wouldn't like me saying it now, but being a SEAL has always been my dream."

He trained on his own right out of college with that dream in mind. Swimming many, many miles is hard for anyone. Add in football weight, and it can end in a sinking feeling.

"I wasn't too sure what my NFL chances would be. So I started swimming a lot and running a lot. I went out to the pool in my apartment complex and just kept swimming and swimming, trying to prepare. There were a few times when it was close, and I'd catch cramps and almost drown. I started having my wife come out with me just in case.

"I think [the Navy SEALs] are still an option, but I'm going to take this NFL thing as far as it'll go."

Whitlock's NFL thing could carry on for quite some time, as he's given himself two roles. He's part defensive tackle now and part fullback. And he always plays them both with his motor revved high.