Malik McDowell

Born on the 20^th of June, 1996 in Detroit, Malik McDowell is an American football player who holds the position of defensive tackle for his team. Currently a free agent Dowell played college football at Michigan State. McDowell attended Loyola High school in Detroit, Michigan and completed his high school in Southfield High School in Southfield, Michigan.

His football career was very successful in high school. He got a rate of a five-star recruit by Rivals.com and also rank as the second-best defensive end in his class. Malik got a rank of 26^th best player overall. He then went to Michigan State University and played college football there.

McDowell played college football under head coach Mark Dantonio and in the 2014 season, he played in all 13 games where he had 15 tackles and 1.5 sacks. He got a name as an All-American by Fox Sports as a sophomore in 2015. He announced that he signed with an agent to enter the 2017 NFL Draft on December 5,2016.

Career

McDowell got an invitation to the NFL Combine where he completed every combine drill except for the short shuttle and the three-cone drill. He chose to run only positional drills for the scout’s team. The team representatives in assistance when he participated at the Michigan State’s Pro Day. He also attended visits and private workouts with nine different professional football teams such as Baltimore Ravens, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks, and Washington Redskins. NFL Draft Experts projected McDowell to be a first-round pick.

ESPN and NFL analyst Bucky Brooks ranked McDowell as the top defensive tackle available in the draft. Whereas Sports Illustrated and Pro Football Focus ranked him the second-best defensive tackle. NFL Media analyst Mike Mayock ranked him the third-best interior defensive line. He was also the 35^th overall in the second round by Seattle Seahawks in the 2017 NFL Draft. Seahawks signed McDowell to a four-year contract of $6.95 million where he was guaranteed $4.40 million. He also received a signing bonus of $3.19 million.

McDowell got into an ATV accident a few weeks before training camp. He was into the did not report list on July 30,2017. But later returned to practice and was placed on the non-football injury list due to his injuries from the accident. Malik got into a scuffle with local police on February 18, 2019, and got out on March 2,2019. His cap hit for the team SEA in the years 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 are $885k, $1.85M, $1.9M and $2.21M respectively.