New York Giants UDFA offensive tackle Dodji Dahoue (pronounced DOH-jee DAH-way) certainly stands out in a crowd, and not just for his uncommon physique. He stands 6-foot-9 and roughly 300 pounds, which is even out of the ordinary in an NFL locker room, but Dahoue’s path to the NFL is even more unique.
Dahoue is very new to the game of football, only picking up the game in 2022. And in fact, Dahoue wasn’t an athlete at all growing up.
Dahoue was born in France and his family moved to Washington DC a few
months after he was born, where he lived for the first five years of his life. His family then moved to Mali in West Africa, where he grew up and lived until returning to the States to go to college in 2021. Dahoue started his collegiate career at Santa Rosa Junior College, a community college in Santa Rosa, California. There, Dahoue decided to give athletics a go, with basketball seeming a fit due to his height.
He quickly found out that basketball wasn’t for him, but tried his hand at football. Dahoue was a tight end that year, red-shirting while he learned the rules of the game. He then transitioned to offensive tackle for his red-shirt freshman season, where he was named Freshman Of The Year in 2022. Dahoue was voted team captain as a sophomore and also earned all-conference honors in 2023. He transferred to Eastern Michigan University, where played in six games in 2024 before earning a starting job at offensive tackle in 2025. Unfortunately, Dahoue’s 2025 season was cut short by a torn ACL after just five games.
Oh, and Dahoue’s degree is in mechanical engineering. That’s hardly a “normal” path for an NFL athlete, in and of itself.
That the Giants would sign a young man who has only been playing the game for four years, and is currently rehabbing a torn ACL, makes Dahoue incredibly intriguing. We likely won’t see much from him right away, and he could qualify for the NFL’s International Pathway program. That would allow the Giants to keep Dahoue on their practice squad without sacrificing a spot, rehabbing his injury in-house and developing him at his own pace.
It would be an incredible boon — and find by the scouting department — if Dahoue is able to become a factor in the Giants’ offensive line room, let alone the Giants’ own Jordan Mailata.
