Ja’Whaun Bentley

Ja’Whaun Louis Bentley is a professional football player for the New England Patriots. He was selected with the 143rd pick in the 2018 NFL draft and has been having the best season of his career. He has recorded 51 solo tackles and 41 assisted tackles.

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick recently spoke about Ja’Whuan saying “it goes all the way back to DeMatha, and then Purdue, and then here. That stuck out early here, as kind of you envision him as taking over some type of leadership role on defense, which is natural for a middle linebacker. Those guys in the middle of the defense, middle linebacker, the center, the quarterback, guys like that. You want them to have leadership, verbal command, be able to control things from the inside out. It’s a lot easier that way. That’s a little bit of part of their position. So, he’s done a really good job of that. It kind of comes naturally to him. But he’s well prepared, he works at it every day, he trains hard. So he kind of does everything right.” Bill Belicheck is one of the greatest NFL coaches of all time and To be complemented like this by a coach like Bill Belichick means a lot.

Ja’Whuan was born on August 24, 1996 in Glenarden, MD and attended DeMatha for high school. In high school he was a dominant linebacker and was named first team WCAC as a senior. Malcom Mccraw, a sophomore linebacker, said “When someone as great as Ja’Whaun went to your school you would want to model your game after him and live up to what he was.”

Ja’Whaun was a 3 star recruit and committed to Purdue University. In his first season he recorded a total of 76 tackles. His stats were similar throughout his college career and eventually was drafted into the NFL. After being drafted his first couple of seasons in the NFL started slow. In 2018 he recorded 14 tackles,  in 2019 he recorded 44 tackles, and in 2020 he recorded 91 tackles. He has consistently been improving every year and definitely has a bright future ahead.