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Ezekiel Ansah is emerging as one of the league's best defensive ends in his second year with the Lions.

(Melanie Maxwell | MLive.com)

ALLEN PARK -- "I don't think he's scratched the surface of just how good he's going to be."

That was Detroit Lions coach Jim Caldwell talking about his precocious defensive end, Ezekiel Ansah, on Monday. But it could have been defensive coordinator Teryl Austin, or general manager Martin Mayhew, or star defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh.

They've all made similar statements. And that's a scary proposition.

Because Ansah is already really good.

Consider last week's game against the Chicago Bears, when he racked up an astounding 12 total pressures on quarterback Jay Cutler. For comparison, the game's greatest defensive player, J.J. Watt, has racked up more pressures just twice this season.

"He truly plays like a man amongst boys out there, and just dominates out there on the front," safety James Ihedigbo said. " You could see it on Thursday."

Ansah's backstory is well-told by this point. He grew up playing soccer in Ghana, then moved to the U.S. to pursue a basketball career. He briefly tried his hand at track before finally settling on football at BYU.

Caldwell can't even recall his evaluation of Ansah in college. But the little-known defensive end, who started just nine college games, rocketed up draft boards due to his freakish athleticism. He eventually went to the Lions at No. 5 overall.

Though the Lions never considered him to be a project, at least publicly, many other teams and analysts did. The Lions got the last laugh on that one.

Ansah blasted into the league with eight sacks in 2013, a league-best among rookies. Now in his second year, he has a combined 49 QB hurries, hits and sacks, which ranks fifth among all defensive ends.

This guy is getting better so fast, no one seems to know just where his ceiling is.

"I don't know if he has one," defensive end George Johnson said. "I know that sounds funny, but it's the truth."

Ansah is in his fifth season playing the game. And he's already making plays that confound even his coaches and teammates.

"He is some kind of player, and he's developing by leaps and bounds," Caldwell said. "Every week he'll do something that will sort of vault him into a different level when you're evaluating. His strength, his speed at which he runs, the size of man that he is, his awareness, his hustle, and he's made plays all over the field."

It seems everyone has a play that jumps out from watching Ansah on film. For Caldwell, it's watching him use his speed to chase down smaller players upfield.

"He may be on one side of the field, and they'll throw a screen pass on the other and he gets involved in that play on the other side of the field," Caldwell said. "Against Minnesota, he had a couple reactions off of plays when he was deep in the backfield and he turned and ran and ran a play down.

"He made several tackles (that way), and it's pretty impressive -- particularly when you take into consideration that the guy is 280 pounds. He moves."

Johnson remembers the time they cued up film of the Green Bay game, and he watched Ansah spin out of his initial block, jump over the next blocker and then make the tackle.

"That's just pure instincts," Johnson said. "And for somebody to do that with only two years of (NFL) experience ... man, a lot of people don't have those kinds of instincts after playing their entire lives."

Defensive tackle Caraun Reid remembers the time he saw Ansah spin out of a run block against Miami, which is something no one does. Ansah made the play anyway.

"I was like, 'What the ...?'" Reid said. "I mean, you don't ever spin out of a run block. But Zig's Zig. Shoooot."

Rookie defensive end Larry Webster says the freakiest play he's seen was Ansah's strip-fumble on Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.

"Just beats the man around the corner, and the quarterback steps up to get out of his way," Webster said. "But he's got those long arms, you know, and still reaches out and knocks the ball out. Crazy.

"He's a freak athlete. Everybody knows that too. He could be one of the greats."

One of the greats? Like, historical greats?

"Why not?" Webster said. "Just look at him."

It is that freak athleticism that tantalizes with the possibility of what could be. Ansah, after all, is still in his fundamentals because he is so new to the game.

His greatest limitation might be his recognition of offensive schemes, and reading the keys of his opponent. In other words, the mental stuff that helps a player anticipate what's about to happen, a key step in a game that's played so fast.

Ansah thrives without it anyway.

Once he picks that stuff up, no one can really say how good he could be.

"He's kicked it into another level," Caldwell said. "You can see the power, speed, awareness, tenacity, all those kinds of things, but now he's playing with confidence.

"I think you're starting to see it."

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