Seattle Seahawks 2025 Draft Pick Deep Dive: Damien Martinez Part Two – The Traits

What’s going on everybody? Good afternoon. Hope you guys are doing well. And we’ve got more to say about Damen Martinez. Damen Martinez, recent Seattle Seahawk draft pick, seventh round pick. Earlier today, we went through his career so far by the numbers. And if you did not see that video, go check it out. Last video on the channel. But now we got to talk about him in terms of traits. What does he do? Well, what does he do maybe not so well? What does he need to get better at? What are some things that he’s never going to be great at? What kind of player are we dealing with here? Let’s go through it. Honestly, Damen Martinez is a fairly simple player to understand and there’s a pretty good list of things that he’s good at and not really that much that you have to be critical of him on. And I mean, again, we’re talking about a seventh round pick here, guys. If he didn’t have these flaws, he would obviously be a much higher pick. So, I think I think we did very, very well getting this guy. And and we’ll go through why in this video. Uh, first though, please like this video if you haven’t already, subscribe if you’re new, click the vid um click the bell for notifications, and become a channel member for $2 a month. Those are the best ways to support the channel. All right, so pros. Let’s start with the pros of Damen Martinez. He’s young. And this is not something you typically see with a seventh round pick. Usually seventh round picks are guys that hung around in college football for as long as possible, had fiveyear or even because of um eligibility, six-year careers, and they’re already 24 by the time they see an NFL field. So, the fact that this guy is 21 and will not turn 22 until I think December, might even be January. I can’t I’m not 100% sure when his birthday is, but it’s around there. Is pretty remarkable for a guy like this because it’s not like he was unproductive. Th this is a kind of a rare instance where his career arc almost feels like a much higher pick. And I think it speaks to the fact that he probably expected to be a higher pick and honestly probably should have been. So the youth is big and also kind of big would be the wear and tear on his body because he in his college career like we went over earlier today when we were going through the numbers under 550 career college touches. So there is very little wear on him compared to some other running backs. Like if you look at a guy like Ashton Janti who is obviously a better player than Martinez, but the wear and tear on Jeant’s body is far far more. So he should be able to really get a lot out of his NFL career. This is not somebody that touched the ball over a thousand times in his college career. 550, not even. um size is above average historically and even more standout in modern day. I know that if you compare him to historic running backs, 217 lbs isn’t that heavy, but for the modern NFL, it’s actually quite big and he’s probably going to be bigger. He probably slimmed down for the combine. So, you’re probably talking about a 225 lb back. A lot of the running backs you see these days are a lot smaller than that. So, he’s got a clear advantage in that area. He’s got a clear edge over other players, a clear kind of calling card as a player. Adds some above average athletic ability along with his impressive size. I know that he probably slimmed down for the combine, but his 10’4 in broad jump is pretty standout for a power back. His speed is, again, I compare it to Chris Carson. Chris Carson was I think like a 4640. This is a 45140. Uh I believe Carson was like a 16 10 yard split. This is a 154 10 yard split. I believe these are very competitive numbers. So this is not somebody that depends entirely on his power. So there there’s some slightly better Chris Carson potential here. I think he he’s got all the power and the uh running ability of a Chris Carson, but he’s a better athlete. Uh most of his yards come after contact using his really good contact balance to find yards. He can absorb big hits and stay upright. His ability to maintain the play through harsh contact is very notable and it should translate to the NFL well. I think that he will be somebody that is consistently hard to bring down. And if he can get into the secondary, he doesn’t necessarily have the breakaway speed, but defensive backs are going to have a very difficult time bringing him down, especially on their own because he is that powerful and that big. Offers some value as a safety valve on passing downs. He does have some pretty good hands. Not something he was utilized uh he utilized a lot in college. He only caught 32 passes across three years, but he does have some pretty good hands overall and he should be workable on screens. When he did catch the ball in his college career, he was pretty productive. Averaged over 10 yards a carry. I think it was over catch. I think it was over 11 yards a catch, close to 12. So, he’s doing things when he’s targeted in the passing game. Just didn’t happen a lot. Uh he’s got a good uh pace to his to his runs. He kind of waits for the hole to open, waits for the opportunity, and then he just bursts through the hole. It’s kind of like a receiver uh jogging through the first part of the route and then accelerating at the key moment to break open. He does a good job letting the play develop, kind of just jogging along, cautiously pacing himself, and then he just bursts through the gate. So, he does have that explosiveness. He does have that burst. He does have that start, stop, and stop start ability. So, it it’s it’s not like he’s just a guy who wants to run through you. He’s a guy who has good pacing. He’s got good vision. He’s able to seek out the hole and quickly act, utilize it. He understands where the play is going. He reads things well. Again, not just a guy who wants to run through people. He wants to run around people. He wants to find the right area to attack. He wants to wait for the opportunity to present itself. You know, the the modernday comp is always Levon Bell. He’s got some Levian Bell type abilities. He can pick through traffic and get defenders to whiff. He’s good at working through the thicket of defenders. He’s good at working through um very populated areas and getting players to miss with moves. Good at cutting, good at making sure that he works that that that he works through the first layer of defenders. So, he’s a versatile back. He isn’t just a power guy. He his cuts are clean and effective. He’s really good at stringing cuts together. Uh he slices through gaps and sets plays up really well. So, there’s a lot that he can do and not a lot he can’t do. Honestly, that there are a couple limitations here, but for the most part, there’s a lot that he understands. He knows how to hang back and not go until the hole is there. He knows how to not run up the back of his blockers. He hits with a ton of force when going into contact, guaranteeing a fall forward. So, he’s always squeezing out that extra two yards to make sure he gets the first down or maximizes every play. And this is a guy who averaged almost four yards after contact per carry. A lot of that is him just falling forward. Lower body strength lets him push push through contact without buildup speed. He doesn’t have to get that speed to power going in order to get that um extra yardage to get that ability to break tackles. he can just push through with lower body strength, leg drive, chops his feet well, and he also had a good amount of success in zone schemes and gap schemes in his career. He was very successful in zone at Oregon State and then very successful in gap at Miami. So, he might be a little bit better in gap than zone, but he can do both and he can do both well. All right. So, some of the concerns with Damen Martinez are again fairly obvious, but again, it’s just a matter of utilizing him correctly. So, he’s not quite fast enough to handle outside the tackle work and stretch runs, outside zone stuff is a little bit dicey, which is not a great fit with Kubak. It’s not. Kubak would probably prefer a guy like K9 or even a Kenny Macintosh. those guys are a little bit more suited to do the types of things that he typically wants a running back to do. But the thing I always say is not every carry is going to be outside zone. Not every running play is going to be a stretch run. So when you have a versatile um stable of running backs, you would assume that you’re going to do different things. So, just because he’s not going to be good at Kubak’s favorite thing does not mean that he will not be utilized well in some areas. He is a uh inside zone guy. He’s an inside the tackle guy and there should be plenty of that to do in this offense. Uh not going to bust a lot of big plays due to his slightly above average speed. And that speed might be more average if he bulks up a little bit. Maybe you’re looking like a four uh 456 or 45740 guy. Um the the kind of telltale trait there is less than half of his 10 yard runs turned into 15 yard runs. So a lot of his runs die in that 10 to 14 yard range. And that tells you that he’s not doing a heck of a lot in terms of uh breaking away and hitting home runs. He’s just getting a good run and then that’s it. A lot of the time it’s not like K9. K9 in college, his 10 yard runs frequently turned into much longer runs. Uh technique and hand placement is off when trying to pick up blitzes. He’s not a good pass protector. I think he’s relatively willing. I think he’s willing to block, but he’s not good at it yet. And he it’s it’s pretty rough. I don’t know if he’ll ever be good at it. He might just not be a third down back. He might just be a guy who cannot handle the blitz pickups. Wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up being mostly a on passing downs, mostly just be a safety valve guy. Maybe he’ll learn to run routes, but right now he doesn’t offer a lot there. Uh limited value in the receiving game. He doesn’t have a big catch radius, offtarget throws. He he doesn’t have the receiver skills that you’re looking for to bring them in. So, he doesn’t really do a lot there. and he didn’t run that many routes in in college. He was a very very simple route runner. He doesn’t bring a lot to the table there. He’s not running a lot of Texas routes or wheel routes or like true receiver type routes. It’s mostly just safety valve stuff. So, he’s going to need time to develop it. He could get better, but it will take time. And there is a little bit of a caveat with what we were talking about earlier with the fact that he um didn’t get a lot of carries in college. That also means he never was a featured back in college. He had one year where he had slightly more than 200 touches. He never had a year where he had more than 200 carries. He was always in a um running back stable. And while I think that’s more good than bad, it’s not clear if he can take on a full load. Now, in the modern NFL, I don’t really care about that that much. I think that’s fine. I think that’s reasonable. So, I’m not worried about it, but it should be noted that he’s never been a bellcow. Does kind of run standing straight up. Even though he is very powerful and has very good contact balance, he presents a bigger target for tacklers to hit. And I do think he could be a little bit better if he gets a little bit lower when he runs. And at this point, he might just be what he is there. He might never be able to get there. But it’s not like he’s lacking on the ability to make guys um uh uh to break tackles. So, I’m not too worried about it. But he does run st standing straight up. And there is a red flag in his past. He uh picked up a DUI like two years ago. So maybe there will be some off-field issues with him. So got to be a little bit careful there. But on the whole, there’s a lot more to like than not like here. And the guy’s versatile. The guy can bring a lot to the table. There are some things that he doesn’t do great, but even the things he doesn’t do great, he’s not necessarily bad at it, except for maybe pass protection, and theoretically, he could learn that. So, that’s all we have for Mr. Damen Martinez in the pros and the cons. Another video later today. Look at the tape. We’re going to take a look at what he actually did, look at some notes, and um that’ll do it for Damian. So, see you guys later. Go Hawks. Let me know what you think down below. This is a really fun, intriguing player. I like what I see. I think he’ll be good. I think he has something to do in the NFL for

A lot more to like than to not like with him.

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