Former Dallas Cowboy Chido Awuzie thriving with Super Bowl Cincinnati Bengals
For the third straight season the Super Bowl will feature a team with a former Dallas Cowboys starter and draft pick who left via free agency for a fresh start.
Just like linebackers Anthony Hitchens and Damien Wilson, who both played in the previous to championship games with the Kansas City Chiefs after the Cowboys didn’t prioritize retaining them, cornerback Chido Awuzie will have his shot at a ring this Sunday when his Cincinnati Bengals take on the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI.
Awuzie was a second-round pick of the Cowboys in 2017 and he started 42 games in four seasons in Dallas. Yet, the team made no attempt to retain him in free agency last year so he quickly signed a three-year, $21.75 million contract with the Bengals.
The Cowboys also didn’t know how to use him, and they contemplated moving him to safety. But they ultimately decided to focus on developing Trevon Diggs while also hoping to pick a cornerback at the top of the draft.
The latter didn’t happen as their top two cornerbacks were off the board early. But luck intervened on draft night as the Cowboys dropped down two spots to select Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons at No. 12.
Parsons became an All-Pro as a rookie, and is the favorite to win Defensive Rookie of the Year. And Diggs led the NFL in interceptions and was also named to the All-Pro team.
All great, but things may have worked out even better for Awuzie, who played the best football of his career in 2021 while getting back to his roots and finding a home in Cincinnati. Awuzie recorded 53 solo tackles, two interceptions and 14 passes defensed in 2021 while becoming one of the top players on a Super Bowl-bound defensive unit.
Diggs certainly has made game-changing impact plays, but Awuzie has proved to be one of the league’s top cover corners.
Pro Football Focus graded Awuzie as the highest-graded AFC cornerback and third best overall in the NFL at 83.4. His coverage grade of 84.2 ranked third in the NFL.
It wasn’t necessarily about the Cowboys missing on Awuzie, but him simply thriving in a new environment. His best PFF grade in Dallas came in 2017 with a 78.4 and his worst grade was 51.9, which came in his final year with the club, in 2020, when he missed eight games due to injuries and COVID-19.
Awuzie said the change of scenery made a difference for him. He went from the country club atmosphere with the Cowboys and their state-of-the-art training facility at The Star in Frisco to bargain-basement Bengals who don’t even have an indoor facility.
“It showed me football can be played without all the lights,” Awuzie said. “We don’t have an indoor, but it all goes back to that blue collar mentality. That’s the kind of person I am.”
“We get to work. You know, you have to get to work, and we have to do our job the best we can,” he said. “And I learned that very quick, that it don’t take much to form a winning football team.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 2:06 PM.
