"I embrace it a lot, you know today I think we did a good job of getting out the quarterback," Umanmielen said of the day the defense dominated the first team period. "But I embrace it a lot. I feel like I'm an elite pass rusher, and I feel like I know what I can bring to this team, and I'm looking forward to this season to put that on display."
Defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero's defense is predicated on having dynamic pass rushers off the edge, which means for Umanmielen, it's a chance to play in a defense designed for his skill set. It's a fortuitous marriage since it isn't always the case.
"I think this defense, you know, sometimes in some of our calls, we have three down D-linemen and two outside linebackers, so I think this defense just gives us a lot of freedom to get after the quarterback.
"A lot of times, they'll have the outside linebackers as—like, I visited a team in my 30 visits, and it was like the outside linebackers were more of droppers, like they played more of a box linebacker, like a second level linebacker play.
"But in this defense, they really give us freedom to work with the D-tackles in order to get after the quarterback."