Emmanuel Ellerbee (born November 20, 1996) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

who is a free agent. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

and was signed by the

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

as an undrafted free agent in 2018.

Early life

Ellerbee was born and raised in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

and attended high school at

Strake Jesuit College Preparatory Strake Jesuit College Preparatory (properly referred to as Strake Jesuit or Jesuit but often informally called Strake by students and alumni) is a Jesuit, college-preparatory school for Single-sex education, boys, grades 9–12, in the Chinatown, ...

. He was a second-team All-District and an honorable mention All-State selection at linebacker for Strake. A Houston-area top 100 football recruit, Ellerbee committed to play football for

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

after being recruited by

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, and

Texas State Texas State University is a public research university in San Marcos, Texas. Since its establishment in 1899, the university has grown to the second largest university in the Greater Austin metropolitan area and the fifth largest university ...

College career

Ellerbee played four seasons for the

Owls Owls are birds from the Order (biology), order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly Solitary animal, solitary and Nocturnal animal, nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vi ...

, accumulating 273 tackles, 16.5 tackles for loss, five sacks, and five fumble recoveries over the course of his career. Ellerbee was named first-team All-

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

for his junior and senior seasons and recorded 238 tackles over that span.

College statistics

Professional career

Atlanta Falcons

Ellerbee was signed by

as undrafted free agent on May 2, 2018, but was waived by the team on September 1, 2018.

Los Angeles Chargers

Ellerbee was claimed off waivers by

Los Angeles Chargers The Los Angeles Chargers are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Chargers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division, and ...

on September 2, 2018. He made his NFL debut on September 30 against the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

, playing on special teams. He was waived on October 20, 2018, after appearing in three games with the Chargers.

Seattle Seahawks

Ellerbee was claimed off waivers by

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...

on October 22, 2018. He was waived on November 6, 2018, and was re-signed to the practice squad. He was promoted to the active roster on December 1, 2018. He was waived by the Seahawks two days later and re-signed to the practice squad. He was promoted back to the active roster on December 12, 2018. On July 27, 2019, Ellerbee was placed on injured reserve. He was waived/injured on August 1, 2020, and reverted to the team's injured reserve list after clearing waivers the next day. He was waived from injured reserve on September 29, 2020.

Houston Texans

On October 12, 2020, Ellerbee was signed to the

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division, and play their home ga ...

practice squad. His practice squad contract with the team expired after the season on January 11, 2021.

Atlanta Falcons (second stint)

On July 26, 2021, Ellerbee signed with the

. He was waived on August 31, 2021, and re-signed to the practice squad the next day. The Falcons signed Ellerbee to their active roster on November 18, 2021.

Houston Roughnecks

The

Houston Roughnecks The Houston Roughnecks are a professional American football team based in Houston, Texas. The team is an owned-and-operated member of the new XFL founded by Vince McMahon's Alpha Entertainment and plays its home games at TDECU Stadium. History ...

selected Ellerbee in the third round of the

2023 XFL Supplemental Draft The 2023 XFL Draft, is the player selection process to fill the rosters of the eight teams of the 2020 reboot of the XFL, and the second draft in that league's history following the 2020 draft. The draft was held on November 15–17, 2022, with ...

on January 1, 2023. The Roughnecks brand was transferred to the

Houston Gamblers The Houston Gamblers were an American football team that competed in the United States Football League in 1984 and 1985. The Gamblers were coached by veteran NFL head coach Jack Pardee in both their seasons. They were noteworthy for introducing ...

when the XFL and USFL merged to create the United Football League (UFL).

References

External links

Chargers bioRice bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellerbee, Emmanuel 1996 births Living people American football linebackers Players of American football from Houston Rice Owls football players Atlanta Falcons players Los Angeles Chargers players Seattle Seahawks players Houston Texans players 21st-century African-American sportspeople Houston Roughnecks players