Seattle Times – When the Seahawks drafted tight end Luke Willson last year, most people probably had two reactions. First, to make a joke about the Seahawks taking an actor (Luke Wilson, one L) in the fifth round. And, second, to look up who the heck Luke Willson (two L’s) was.
But Willson offers an interesting window into the draft. He played at Rice with Vance McDonald, another tight end who the 49ers drafted in the second round. Willson was highly productive as a sophomore and junior, but he battled injuries as a senior. His stats dipped significantly.
Where McDonald was viewed as a high draft pick, Willson was not invited to the NFL combine. But some of Rice’s coaches insisted there wasn’t a huge difference between the two, and Seahawks general manager John Schneider said Willson tested the second-best of any tight end in the draft.
“We saw the talent, we saw the range of ability,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “But it was really John Schneider’s knack of understanding where he would get drafted that made him so valuable to us. At that spot, that’s as good a pick as you could make.”
