So much for Quinton Dunbar being a potential answer in the Green Bay Packers’ secondary.
The Packers signed the veteran cornerback to the practice squad last week but released him on Tuesday. They filled the spot by signing outside linebacker Aaron Adeoye, who was in for a workout earlier this week.
The 28-year-old has quite a background. A native of Marion, Ill., his collegiate career began as a basketball player at Ball State. During the 2011-12 season, he earned Mid-American Conference all-freshman honors by averaging 3.5 points and 4.2 rebounds. Despite the success, he transferred to John A. Logan Community College in Carterville, Ill. In his one season there, he averaged 14.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game to earn third-team All-American honors.
That got him a shot at Western Kentucky for the 2013-14 season. He averaged 3.7 points and 4.3 rebounds for a 20-win team. In search of more playing time, he transferred to Southeast Missouri State for his senior season. In 30 games that included 23 starts, he averaged 5.2 points and 4.1 rebounds.
Not ready to give up on athletics, he decided to play football – a sport at which he was a three-year letterman and all-conference defensive end at Marion High School. In 2015, his only year of eligibility, he had two tackles in four games.
In 2017, Adeoye played in the Champions Indoor Football. In 2018, he played in The Spring League and was selected by the Birmingham Iron of the new Alliance of American Football. The AAF, however, folded at midseason.
"That was probably one of the best decisions of my life," Adeoye told Duquoin.com. "That's where I really learned how to play football. In college, I played football, but I didn't learn football. I don't think without the AAF I would know as much as I do now. It was like an accelerated course for football for me."
A week after the AAF went under, the Baltimore Ravens offered him a workout.
“I had to ask was this real, is someone pranking me,” Adeoye told SEMOFootball.com. “After I figured out it was real, I was like, ‘Man, hard works does pay off.’”
After the 2019 draft, the Ravens signed him. He spent most of the 2019 and 2020 seasons on Baltimore’s practice squad, though he did play eight snaps on defense against Pittsburgh in December. This year, he spent the first half of training camp with Baltimore and the final week with the New York Jets. He had one tackle with each team in the preseason. In 2019, he had a sack in a preseason game against Green Bay.
The 6-foot-6, 260-pounder comes from an athletic family. Older brother Adewale Adeoye was a defensive lineman at Utah State and younger brother Ayodele Adeoye is a backup linebacker at Texas.
Meanwhile, the release of Dunbar perhaps signals that veteran cornerback Kevin King isn’t too far from returning. King missed Sunday’s game at Chicago with a shoulder injury. Upon replacing Isaac Yiadom after the opening series, Rasul Douglas had a strong debut.
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