The 6’5″, 305-pound Benenoch, who is 28 years old, was selected in the fifth round of UCLA in 2016. Although he has only played in two games (starting one) since 2018, he has accumulated 35 total NFL appearances and 22 starting nods.
Benenoch, a Nigerian-born football player, didn’t begin playing until his mother registered him for what she believed to be the high school soccer team. He eventually went to UCLA after earning a four-star recruiting status.
Caleb Benenoch Career
Benenoch started the final nine games at right tackle as a freshman, and then started all 13 games as a sophomore, earning him honorable mention all-Pac-12 honors. By the time he decided to enter the NFL draft after his junior year, he had started 35 consecutive games. In 2015, he started all 13 games for the second year in a row.
The Bucs picked Benenoch up in the fifth round of the 2016 draft after he impressed them at the scouting combine. He only played in four games as a rookie, but he started one of them. In his second year, he made five regular-season starting lineups.
Though he struggled at times, Benenoch started all 16 games for the team in 2028. He was released following the first game of 2019 after losing his starting position.
Later, he spent a few weeks with each of the Patriots, Panthers, Cowboys, and Lions before moving around the league for the remainder of the 2019 season without playing a single snap for any of them.
In 2020, he showed up for training camp with the Lions again, but he was cut before the season began. He spent the whole season on New England’s practice squad, and although briefly making the team’s active roster, he did not see any game action. His season concluded with him on the injured list.
Benenoch was released from Bills camp after two weeks in 2021, and he immediately reported to Saints training. He was waived during final roster cuts but was later activated to start a late-season game for the team, marking his first NFL action since the 2019 season opening.
How Good Is Caleb Benenoch?
Benenoch has a respectable frame but is thought to lack play strength. He passed up the opportunity to test his strength in the bench press at the scouting combine.
His 40-yard sprint time of 4.98 seconds at the combine was good, but his explosiveness and agility scores were below average.
The majority of Benenoch’s 35 career college starts came at right tackle, with the other five coming at right guard. But before to suffering an injury in the spring, he was scheduled to start at left tackle during his freshman season.
In the NFL, he’s shown a lot of adaptabilities. He started five games at right tackle in his second season after having started five games at right guard in his first season. He started at right guard for all 16 games in 2018. In addition to his roles as a jumbo package tight end and left tackle in the preseason, he played left tackle for two regular season snaps.
He made his debut for the Jets last week at right tackle, the same position he began at for the Saints in his lone outing last season.