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Ziggy Ansah's closing speed on opposing quarterbacks, combined with his power, is a rare commodity in the NFL. (AP Photo)

In the days leading up to the NFL draft, Bill Polian - the general manager who built the Buffalo Bills team that went to four consecutive Super Bowls - knew what it would require for a team to draft Ziggy Ansah: Courage.

But to the drafter go the spoils.

And according to Polian, the Detroit Lions will be handsomely rewarded being the team with the courage to pick Ansah.

"I would always ask our staff, when we got to (the point right before the draft), 'If this player is going to fail, tell me why he will fail'," Polian said on ESPN. "And when you look at Ziggy Ansah, is he going to fail because he doesn't have physical tools? No. Is he going to fail because he's not mentally tough? No. He made it in a new land all by himself. Is he going to fail because he's not intelligent? No, he's a statistics major. Is he going to fail because he doesn't have experience playing the game? Maybe...but, you can teach that.

"All of the other things are red flags that will cause someone to fail. He's not going to fail because of those things. He's going to succeed. And the likelihood of his success is pretty darn good."

The experience factor - Ziggy has never been a starter for an entire college season, let a lone a 16-game NFL schedule - is of course where many (read: all) of the concerns with him lie.

But rate of change analysts see when it comes to Ansah's skills and technique has blown minds.

"In the Utah game (September 15, 2012), he got caught up in double teams, and he had no idea what was happening to him, and he didn't know how to get out of them," Polian said. "By the time he reached Notre Dame (on October 20, 2012), they would double team him and he would recognize it instantly.

"He's got what we call 'slipperiness', which Jason (Taylor) had in abundance. He just finds a way to get off a block and just escapes from it naturally. In the space of about six weeks, without ever having played the game before at the highest level, he learned how to defeat a double team. It takes people years to do that. To me, this is a guy that has it all. And here's the most important thing, Cinderella's going to break the glass slipper into smithereens. This is a tough, physical, ferocious guy."

Ansah had just four assisted tackles in the mid-September matchup with the Utes. In two games against Notre Dame and Georgia tech a month later, he had 14 tackles (7 solo) and a sack. In his final game of the season, in the Poinsettia Bowl against San Diego State on December 20, 2012, he had five tackles, an interception, a forced fumble and a pass break up.

The rise of Ziggy, between that Poinsettia Bowl performance and this past Thursday evening, was meteoric. From completely off the radar to comparisons with the best.

"He's more physical than Jason Pierre-Paul," Polian said of the oft-used comparison between Ziggy and the two time Pro-Bowl defensive end of the New York Giants. "This is a little bit of a Bruce Smith comparison. I mean physically. He has the ability to transfer speed into power like that.

"It's the rarest commodity to find."

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