American football outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux plays for the National Football League’s (NFL) New York Giants. The Giants selected him as the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.

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On December 15, 2000, Thibodeaux was born in South Los Angeles, California. Before switching to Oaks Christian School in 2017, he spent two years attending Susan Miller Dorsey High School and participating in football there. After finishing his senior year of high school football in 2018 with 18 sacks and 54 tackles, he was named the High School Football Defensive Player of the Year by USA Today.

He was the player in the 2019 recruiting class with the second-highest overall rating. Over numerous other offers, he decided to accept a scholarship to play collegiate football with the University of Oregon’s Oregon Ducks.

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He led Oregon with 9.5 tackles for loss and three sacks in seven starts as a sophomore, receiving third-team All-American recognition from the Associated Press. He also won the Pac-12 Morris Trophy as the conference’s outstanding lineman and the MVP award for the Pac-12 Championship Game. In the conference championship game against USC, he recorded one sack, two tackles for loss, and 12 quarterback hurries. Despite missing time in 2021 due to an ankle injury, Thibodeaux was selected to the first team of the Associated Press All-Americans and made it to the finals for the Chuck Bednarik, Ted Hendricks, and Bronko Nagurski Awards. 

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The New York Giants choose Thibodeaux with the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. Since Jason Pierre-Paul in 2010, the Giants had not selected a pass-rusher in the first round before making his decision. Additionally, it became the Giants’ first Top 5 selection of a pass-rusher since Cedric Jones in 1996.