James Cowser (born September 13, 1990) is a former

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 wi ...

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, p ...

. 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 in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

at Southern Utah. Cowser was Football Championship Subdivision Defensive Player of the Year (2015). He holds the FCS record for career sacks (59) and tackles for loss (80).

Professional career

Cowser signed with the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...

after going undrafted in the

2016 NFL Draft The 2016 NFL Draft was the 81st annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible American football players. As in 2015, the draft took place at the Auditorium Theatre and Grant Park in Chicago. The draft ...

. On September 3, 2016, he was waived/injured by the Raiders and placed on injured reserve. On September 10, he was released from the Raiders' injured reserve. He was signed to the practice squad on October 4, 2016. He was promoted to the active roster on November 26, 2016. On September 1, 2018, Cowser was waived by the Raiders. He was re-signed to the practice squad on October 22, 2018. He was promoted to the active roster on October 30, 2018. He was waived on November 5, 2018, and was re-signed to the practice squad. He was waived on November 13, 2018, and later re-signed to the practice squad. Cowser signed a reserve/future contract with the Raiders on January 1, 2019. He was waived during final roster cuts on August 30, 2019.

Personal life

Cowser served as a missionary for the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

from 2009 to 2011. Cowser is fluent in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

and did an internship in NFL's China office in Shanghai.

References

External links

Southern Utah Thunderbirds bioOakland Raiders bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowser, James 1990 births Living people People from Kaysville, Utah Sportspeople from the Salt Lake City metropolitan area Players of American football from Utah 21st-century Mormon missionaries Latter Day Saints from Utah American football defensive ends Southern Utah Thunderbirds football players Oakland Raiders players