Lache Seastrunk

[Pain_Train]

Before he blows up the combine, I thought I would post my thoughts on Seastrunk.

I know RB isn’t a Seahawk need, since we used our first non-Percy Harvin pick on luxury RB Christian Michael last year, Lynch is safely under contract with a high but manageable cap number, and Turbin is an ideal and cheap backup. However, I still put in time with RBs every year regardless of team need because #1) Fantasy Keeper league, and #2) I’m always, always looking for two guys in every draft: Barry Sanders and Bo Jackson. Darren Sproles is the closest I’ve ever gotten to Sanders, and Adrian Peterson the closest I’ve ever gotten to Bo Jackson who would have been the greatest of all time if he had committed to football and stayed healthy. Spoiler alert, nobody close to them is in this year’s draft.

Note: I've gone through about a dozen RBs so far, but thought I'd just excerpt my thoughts on Seastrunk, as that cat deserves his own thread.

My methodology:
I start with nfldraftscout.com because I’ve learned to trust Rob Rang over the last decade and look at their top 20 or so guys at a given position and download career highlights. I do the same for other guys farther down the list if they have unique measurables. If I see something in someone that flashes rare ability I move on to watching full games when I can find them to see if they can do it consistently or if it was just a one-off. To me, being a RB is more about, in somewhat descending order: explosive burst, vision, speed, lateral agility, toughness, power, balance and then an innate athletic ability to be able to cut while at speed that you either have or you don’t. I don’t really focus on 40 times, because if being a RB was just about being fast, the league would be full of sprinters in pads. But those rare guys that have everything else AND top end speed vault to elite status.


#1 Lache Seastrunk. 5’9”, 205.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATV13gzocN0

I’m stunned, flat out stunned that most scouting sites list him as the 5-7th best back this year. (#7 Dane Brugler? Really?) He is my #1 with a bullet and it isn’t even close. The way he moves with the ball in his hand is special. He is always looking to juke or shift with head fakes to set up the next tackler. You know how Lynch will run and throw up his offhand and shift just enough to make a guy just barely miss in a rare way that you don’t expect from someone with his size? Seastrunk does that too. (As a former physics major at U.W. I once wrote a paper on a cat’s use of its tail to right itself via conservation of angular momentum and always think of it when I see Lynch throw that hand up the way he does – beyond the scope of this discussion though.)

This run @ 43s seconds into the above video is Seastrunk in a nutshell. Vision as he takes the handoff to see a small opening in the A gap and under control enough and possesses the athletic ability to shift left a step without losing speed, (a McFadden or a Chris Johnson would have run into the back of their right guard or right into the arms of the waiting SAM LB and gone down right there) gets skinny though the hole and bursts out of the first level scrum. Hits top speed in 2 or three strides (avoids the ref) cuts left while at full speed to set up and run around the first defender and a subtle cut back right back towards the first guy to avoid the 2nd db downfield and then the crazy acceleration to split and escape both of them and enough vision to see the 3rd db closing quickly and just angles enough away from him to reach the endzone. Brilliant run. He says he’ll run under 4.4. at the combine. You throw that into the above mix and you’ve got a potential star in the making that could be a top 5 back RB soon. He is my top choice in my keeper league unless he goes to a terrible situation ala Christian Michael last year (in purely fantasy terms.)

[FolkCrusader]

He ran 4.46? That's a ways from the 4.2s.

[Pain_Train]

I thought it would be faster. High 4.3s.

Low 4.4s @ 200 lbs is enough though.

As I said, being a running back in the NFL is about a heck of a lot more than just running fast. Spectacular vert (41.5) and broad jump (11'2") show the explosiveness I see on film.