Florida football: Lamical Perine a fourth round steal for Jets

Florida football running back Lamical Perine gets drafted in the fourth round by the New York Jets. Fantastic value?

Former Florida football running back Lamical Perine stands at 5-foot-11, which is an ideal height for a running back about to be pummeled in a professional league.

His weight of 216 pounds needs to be added to if he’s to take the beating from defenses every week.

His 40-time was a meager 4.62 seconds, which was disappointing to say the least, but a football player is much more than a straight line and a stopwatch. In fact the best way to describe Perine is football player.

His style of running is abusive. He gets north and south as fast as he can and then finishes with great tenacity. He competes incredibly hard, and exhausts defenses by constantly churning his legs as to make butter of them.

Florida football has produced not just another bruising running back, but Lamical Perine also has soft hands and runs routes with ease. Watching the ball being poached out of thin air and cradled in each of his paws is a thing of beauty.

A case for value

Pro Football Focus considered Florida football to have a below-average offensive line in 2019; ranking them at 92 out of 130 total teams. A member of Pro Football Focus gives a bit more detail as to what Perine had to work with.

"Highest-graded player: OG Mikey Minihan – 61.9 (181st)No unit on the Gators offensive line ranked higher than 85th overall, and their struggles in pass protection saw them give up 116 pressures that included 40 combined sacks and hits, the 16th-most allowed. Their run blocking wasn’t much better either, as they ranked just 93rd as a group in that facet."

There you have it! Perine was dealing with a Gator offensive line that wasn’t quite up to snuff, yet was still able to average 5.1 yards per carry.

He also gave you an extra 3.73 yards after contact. This is by far my favorite statistic to measure running backs by, it screams effort when times were tough.

Florida football is always preaching toughness and boasting a never die attitude. Perine is just another example of when the going gets tough the tough get going.

Final Grade

Florida’s Perine had to wait until the fourth round to be selected, which is right where many analysts had him going. The Jets selected Mekhi Becton, an offensive tackle from Louisville with their first pick; a new protector for Sam Darnold is tough to argue.

Lamical Perine is a perfect fit for what the Jets are trying to do. They want their running back to get up-field as soon as possible and fight for yards under any circumstances. These are two very familiar boxes Perine checks

Adam Gase has always loved a duel-threat running back. Let’s face it, having to run a player off the field because he can’t catch is a waste of time. Perine runs hard and catches anything throw to him. It sounds like a marriage made in heaven.

Drafting this Florida Gator in the fourth round was a steal. The Jets got an excellent player at an even better value. Grade: A.