Myjai Sanders ( ; born July 12, 1998) 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 ...

outside 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, ...

for the

Arizona Cardinals The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division, and play t ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). 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 ...

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

and was drafted by the Cardinals in the third round of the

2022 NFL Draft The 2022 NFL Draft was the 87th edition of the National Football League's annual draft and was held from April 28–30, 2022, at the Caesars Forum on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The first round was held on Thursday, April 28, and w ...

Early life and high school

Sanders grew up in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

and attended

William M. Raines High School William Marion Raines Senior High School is a historically black high school in Jacksonville, Florida. The school is located off Moncrief Road in Jacksonville, Florida's northside at the corner Raines Avenue in northwest Jacksonville. Raines serv ...

before transferring to Camden County High School in

Kingsland, Georgia Kingsland is a city in Camden County, Georgia, United States. The population was 18,337 at the 2020 census. The Kingsland Commercial Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 17, 1994. It includes the area ...

before his junior year. He was named to the Coastal Georgia All-Area team by ''

The Brunswick News ''The Brunswick News'', based in Brunswick, Georgia, United States, is a daily newspaper in southeast Georgia. It was founded by the brothers C.H. Leavy and L.J. Leavy and began publication in 1902. The paper remains under the family ownership and ...

'' after recording 39 tackles, three sacks and seven quarterback hurries as a senior. Sanders committed to play college football at Cincinnati over offers from Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Washington State, UCF.

College career

Sanders played in ten games with seven tackles as a reserve in his freshman season. He was named a starter as a sophomore and finished the season with 40 tackles with seven tackles for loss and four sacks. Sanders was a named a semifinalist for the

Chuck Bednarik Award The Chuck Bednarik Award is presented annually to the defensive player in college football as judged by the Maxwell Football Club to be the best in the United States. The award is named for Chuck Bednarik, a former college and professional Ame ...

as a junior. He was named the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

Defensive Player of the Week after recording six tackles with 1.5 sacks in a 49–10 win over Memphis.

Professional career

Sanders was selected in the third round (100th overall) by the

in the

References

External links

Arizona Cardinals bioCincinnati Bearcats bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Myjai 1998 births Living people American football defensive ends Arizona Cardinals players Cincinnati Bearcats football players Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida African-American players of American football 21st-century African-American people