SPOKANE, Wash. — It was a long wait on Saturday, but Evan Weaver finally heard his name called in the NFL Draft.
Weaver was selected by the Cardinals with the 202nd pick in the sixth round.
Weaver becomes the first Spokane native drafted into the NFL in six years. The last Spokane native to be drafted into the NFL was Weaver's fellow Gonzaga Prep alum Bishop Sankey. Weaver led the Bullpups to a state championship his senior year in 2015.
"It feels awesome to represent Spokane," Weaver said. "It's just a city that's done so much for me and I'm trying to put us on the map."
He said the Cardinals were one of the teams interested in him through the draft process. The linebacker said he's ready to go in and work hard in the Cardinals 3-4 defense that he's already accustomed to play in after his seasons with California.
"Just being underestimated my whole life and people overlooking me my whole life, coming from a small town in Washington playing football you don't really get looked at a lot by colleges," Evan Weaver told the Phoenix media on Saturday when asked about wanting to prove people wrong. "Thankfully Cal picked me up, and now I got picked up by the Cardinals. I'm ready to roll and ready to prove people wrong and just focus more on winning games."
The linebacker was a tackling machine last season as he led the nation with 182 tackles. That also was good enough for a school-record at Cal. His efforts earned him Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and All-Pac-12 first team honors.
Weaver is known to have a firey attitude and for using slights as motivation. He has a rock that he writes all of the things critics have said about him on.
"I think I bring a hyper-competitive guy who's willing to put in the work to do whatever it takes to win as many games as possible," said Evan. "I think I bring that and just having to prove myself from here on out and get some wins for the Cardinals."