Injuries shroud abilities of Seahawks rookie tight end
Luke Willson’s stats are the first thing you notice when digging into his past. More specifically, his stats from his senior season at Rice.
Willson, a tight end, caught only nine passes for 126 yards in his final collegiate season while playing in only six games because of ankle and lower back injuries. But his coaches at Rice – as well as members of the Seahawks coaching staff and front office – insist the numbers don’t do Willson justice.
“Luke was the kind of guy,” said Ryan Cantrell, an offensive graduate assistant at Rice, “that when we didn’t know what play to call, we’d go: ‘OK, we have Luke in the game. Let’s call a run zone-option to him because we know he’s going to make the block. Or we’ll call a quick three-step drop and know that he’s going to get us those 4 yards for a first down.’ He’s the guy that you can rely on for whatever it is you need him to do.”
Willson fell to the Seahawks in the fifth round, but general manager John Schneider said Willson tested the second best of all the tight ends in the draft. Willson ran the 40-yard dash in 4.51 seconds at Rice’s pro day, which would have been the second-fastest time among tight ends at the NFL combine.
The Seahawks view Willson, who is 6-foot-5 and 252 pounds, as a multifaceted tight end whose speed can provide a downfield threat in the middle of the field. Willson displayed an ability to get behind the defense in the first two days of the Seahawks rookie minicamp, particularly on the first day.
Willson hauled in a couple of deep passes down the sideline, including one nice catch-and-run that he turned into a touchdown.
“That was probably the brightest spot that you could really see a guy jump out today,” Carroll said on Friday.
Willson spent a good portion of his senior season as a blocker, something with which he said he’s comfortable. He was more productive earlier in his career, when he caught 33 passes as a sophomore and 29 as a junior. He led the Owls with 425 receiving yards as a sophomore.
Willson said he is feeling much healthier than he did in his final season at Rice. He said he still needs to adjust to the speed of the NFL game, but he also said, “There hasn’t been anything too crazy so far, so that’s been kind of nice.”
Schneider called Wilson an interesting prospect on the day the Seahawks took him, and his college coaches don’t have any doubt that he will find a niche in Seattle.