INDIANAPOLIS: There are fans watching draft prospects bench press this year at the NFL Scouting Combine, but there isn’t a Ben Gedeon cheering section.
“I was kind of wishing my brother would come with an air horn over here at the bench press,” Gedeon, a Hudson native who played linebacker at the University of Michigan, joked Saturday at the Indiana Convention Center. “I think that would get me going.”
Turns out, Gedeon didn’t need an extra boost. He bench pressed 225 pounds 27 times to place first among all linebackers in the event.
“I was happy with that number,” said Gedeon, 6-foot-2 and 244 pounds. “It’s a good number.”
Gedeon has two older brothers who were also standout athletes at Hudson High School. Alex is five years older than Ben, and Sam is three years older than Ben.
In 2012, Alex told the Beacon Journal when he was a junior or senior in high school, Ben could hang with him and Sam in weight lifting when Ben was in seventh grade.
“I don’t know,” Ben Gedeon said at the combine. “My brothers were pretty strong dudes, but I always tried to compete with them. So I think that made me better growing up. I played ball with guys four or five years older than me just ’cause I was always with my brothers.”
With the bench press conquered, Gedeon is focused on continuing the mission on which he embarked in January at the Senior Bowl. He wants to prove he can hold his own in pass coverage and be a three-down linebacker in the NFL. So he thinks Sunday’s on-field drills will be vital.
“I want to show my athleticism. I think a lot of teams kind of pigeonhole me as a run-thumper linebacker,” Gedeon said. “I want to prove I’m athletic enough to be a three-down linebacker and I can play in coverage and I can move around.”
Gedeon said he’d travel to Northeast Ohio with his father, Mike, when his time at the combine ends. Before that, the younger Gedeon expects to meet with his hometown Browns at the combine.
“It’s the team I grew up watching,” Gedeon said of possibly playing for the Browns. “My family are Browns fans, Cleveland sports fans, so that would be a very cool opportunity.”
For now, he must settle for being a combine bench press champion, which is pretty cool on its own.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com.