Evan Weaver doesn’t like wasting time or pretending to be someone he isn’t.

Whether it’s introducing himself to his future bosses or building a putting green in his parents’ backyard during the quarantine, the Cardinals’ sixth-round draft pick prefers to get out in front of things, tackle it with a passion and give it to you straight.

Ask the 6-foot-3, 235-pound linebacker from Spokane, Wash. what he loves the most about football, for instance, and he’s an open book.

“I think winning. I think winning and hitting people as hard as you possibly can and really taking the soul out of people,” Weaver said bluntly during his first conference call with Arizona reporters upon being drafted with the 202nd overall pick.

When Weaver first met Cardinals General Manger Steve Keim and head coach Kliff Kingsbury, he didn’t hold back, either. It was at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., and when Weaver entered a room where the Cardinals’ contingent was waiting, he was wound up as tight as an unopened pickle jar.

“He walked into the room and it was two seconds until you realized the saying – it’s better to say ‘woah’ than ‘sick ’em,’ ” Keim recalled. “It was like, ‘Easy, Francis. Chill out a little bit.’ He’s ready to roll and he’s a tough guy.”

Tough? Weaver must have never heard of Will Rogers because he’s never met a ball carrier he liked. He’s destroyed most of the ones he’s met, especially last season as a senior at Cal, when he led the nation with a school-record 182 tackles. It was the third-highest, single-season total in FBS history – only Luke Kuechly, then of Boston College, has ever had more (191 in 2011, 183 in 2010).

For a tackling machine who doesn’t just want to bring a player down but knock the soul out of a person, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“That’s a bit aggressive, but that sounds like him,” Kingsbury said, giggling. “Like Steve said, when you meet him at the Senior Bowl, he walks in that room and he’s on fire and he’s ready to hit people in that room. That’s how he waked up and that’s how he goes to sleep.

“That’s how you want them. He’s definitely going to come in with a chip on his shoulder. That’s kind of his edge out there on the football field. The production speaks for itself.”

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So does the intensity, like when he destroyed an entire dresser with his bare hands while watching the third day of the draft unfold last Saturday. To hear him tell the story, one NFL team apparently had assured him they were going to draft in the fifth round. It never happened and now a dresser is dead because of it.

“Yeah, I did inflict a little bit of damage into my dresser,” Weaver said softly.

Blame his mother, Christine. That’s where it all started, after all.

“I think it goes back to a really young age when my mom would yell at me from the stands, ‘Wrap ’em up! Wrap ’em up!’” Weaver recalled. “If I missed a tackle or something, I’d have to do like 50 push ups before I could even get in the car after our games.”

Asked if there was ever a reward for not missing any tackles, Weaver shook his head during his most recent Zoom video conference call.

“The only incentive was I got a ride home,” he said, “and got food.”

Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph acknowledged to reporters the other day that he didn’t know much, if anything at all, about Weaver until one of the team’s scouts sent him a batch of game film to watch. He was unaware that Weaver was the Pac-12’s Defensive Player of the Year, a first-team All-America selection or that he led the nation in tackles last season.

“I just press play,” Joseph said. “I don’t want any background. I don’t want to know their accomplishments. I just press play, but what I came away with was a real good football player.”

He’s so good that he might get a chance to be the primary backup at strongside inside linebacker behind veteran Jordan Hicks, who finished third in the league in tackles last year. Weaver said he hopes to learn as much as he can from Hicks and others as he waits for his shot. If it means playing mostly on special teams for now, so be it.

In his mind, though, Weaver knows he will win over the coaching staff. He’s done that his whole life, even if he’s never been called the most athletically gifted throughout his career. Effort, he said, always trumps athleticism.

“You know, 4.4 40’s don’t win you Super Bowls. Guys who are willing to actually play win you Super Bowls,” Weaver said, adding, “The top six offenses in the league last year were run-heavy offenses. You’re not going to win games having your 190-pound DB linebacker in there trying to tackle Derrick Henry. You tell me how that worked in the playoffs.

“I think teams are going to start realizing it, especially as the running backs get bigger and you realize giving up 30 points and trying to score 40 probably isn’t going to win you a lot of games. I think that’s why the Cardinals brought me on – to try and bring a little bit of a different mojo to it.”

Weaver certainly brings that. Keim and Kingsbury noticed it right away — first at the Senior Bowl and later at the scouting combine in Indianapolis.

“When I first walked in there, I did the same in all my meetings. I wanted the coaches to know who they were going to get,” Weaver said. “I hate people who just generically answer the questions and it’s all pre-thought out. That’s not the player you’re going to see day to day. I was going to let them know who I was. I’m a pretty fiery dude. I want to compete with everything I do.

“It’s definitely something I’ve had my entire life.”

Have an opinion on the Arizona Cardinals? Reach McManaman at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac. Listen to him live on Fox Sports 910-AM every Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 on Calling All Sports with Roc and Manuch and every Wednesday night from 7-9 on The Freaks with Kenny and Crash.

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