Florida State CB Asante Samuel Jr., son of former NFL star, heads to Chargers in Draft

Asante Samuel Jr., the son of three-time All-Pro cornerback Asante Samuel, is following in his fathers footstep into the NFL.

The Los Angeles Chargers selected Samuel Jr. with the 19th pick of the second round of the 2021 NFL Draft on Friday — No. 47 overall — after an all-conference career with the Florida State Seminoles.

Samuel Jr. was a first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection as a junior in 2020 and a second-team pick in 2019. His standout career in Tallahassee followed an All-American career at Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas, where he was a four-star cornerback, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings.

Samuel Jr. is the second St. Thomas Aquinas graduate to be picked this year, joining Ole Miss Rebels wide receiver Elijah Moore. Florida Gators wide receiver Trevon Grimes, another former Raider, should also get picked this weekend. He’s the fifth South Floridian to be picked in the first two rounds, the fourth from Broward County and the third Broward cornerback to go in the first 50 picks.

While Samuel Jr. is the son of a recent NFL star, his path to the league wasn’t exactly charmed. Samuel Sr. was still in high school at Fort Lauderdale Boyd Anderson when he learned his then-girlfriend was pregnant. He was 18 and a freshman playing for the UCF Knights when Samuel Jr. was born. He even had a game the day his son was born, played in it, then drove from Orlando back home to South Florida with his mother to be there in time for the delivery.

Samuel Sr. was the one to get his son playing football and he provided pointers along the way to help Samuel Jr. develop into a spitting image of his father. Like his father, Samuel Jr. started playing when he was 4 and, also like his father, he had Christine Samuel, Samuel Sr.’s mother, create a fake birth certificate for him, so he could play with 6-year-olds.

At 5-foot-10 and 185 pounds, Samuel Jr. is now built almost identically to his father, which helps both shrug off concerns about Samuel Jr.’s size.

The production at Florida State helped, too. Samuel Jr. finished the 2020 college football season with 31 tackles, three interceptions, one forced fumble and two fumble recoveries in only eight games.

Samuel Jr. learned he had to be a willing tackler and play bigger than his size or he was going to face the same sort of critiques his father did when he slipped to the fourth round in the 2003 NFL Draft. Those lessons helped Samuel Jr. top his father and go in the second round 18 years later