Dameon Pierce Profile: Why the Houston Texans drafted the running back in the 2022 NFL Draft
The Houston Texans picked running back Dameon Pierce with 107th pick in the 2022 NFL draft.
Dameon Pierce's bio:
A former top-ten running back recruit from 2018, Pierce was immediately involved in the Gator offense and increased his production throughout his career. However, he was still heavily underutilized, especially as a senior, when he touched the ball just 119 times, even though he turned those into 790 yards and 16 touchdowns. That made up for a little less than half of his career production at Gainesville.
Dameon Pierce's strengths:
This dude runs the ball with apparent violence and contact balance, to where you even see him shake off defensive linemen in the backfield a few times, and he always finishes strong. He looks like a wild horse trying to be corralled once he gets going, while having the build of a bowling ball, where people are bouncing off his thighs and torso or twisting away. That clip of Pierce losing his helmet, but still running through tackles against Florida State was a favorite from last year’s college football season. And while the overall production throws up questions, Pro Football Focus gave him the highest rushing grade (93.5) of any FBS running back in 2021.
Pierce has the change-of-direction ability to bounce all the way around the backside edge defender, when he crashes down blindly and there’s no lane to hit front-side for Pierce. At the same time, he can stutter, nod inside. Then, as he sees defensive linemen peak inward, point the toe outside and beat them around the corner on a original play-direction. Pierce shows the suddenness to squeeze through a narrow crease between his blocker and a defender sat in the hole, to, at least, dive forward, when the play is covered, actively launching himself ahead on multiple occasions. And he has a phenomenal one-legged plant, along with twisting the upper body just a little bit, to run through wraps without being slowed down a whole lot. You routinely see him set up defenders, getting them to lean outside and then slice underneath, where now those arm tackles aren’t going to do much to him.
Analyzing his usage as a receiver, Pierce ran a bunch of swing routes, often times, off motion, clearing out space on the inside, but showing good burst, and then of course, the power when he got a chance to, as the quarterback dumped it off to him. The few times they did let him go further downfield, he usually showed good concentration on the catch, even with a hit coming in. During Senior Bowl week, we got to see him run different patterns, beating linebackers across their faces on angle routes and getting a couple of steps on them on wheels, after giving a little shake initially. Then, he was able to hit another gear once the ball was in his hands. With Florida’s RPO heavy scheme, true pass-pro reps were also limited, but he did look pretty impressive at getting in front of charging linebackers and holding his ground. He also put that on display in Mobile. In particular, on day two – as they did at the end of Lions' practices – he stone-walled App State linebacker D’Marco Jackson a couple of times when that matchup was called out by the coaches.
Dameon Pierce's weaknesses:
However, Pierce has to peak back inside more regularly to recognize opportunities to get upfield. He could bleed out runs some more, where he slightly overruns his blockers and isn’t ready to cut it up, after pressing a crease. Because, at that point, his only option is to bounce out wide, and his burst isn’t at that level, where he can just outrun the defense regularly. Pierce never touched the ball more than 123 times in a season. He carried it more than 13 times just once. There were complete drives for Florida, where Pierce didn’t see the field, and while you can put a lot of the blame on the Gators’ coaching staff, you have to question why he didn’t receive more chances – whether it’s understanding (protection) rules or whatever. We simply don’t have a ton of tape of him on passing downs, being used in any diversified role. While he flashed ability in that regard down in Mobile, he also dropped a couple of potential over-the-shoulder grabs, where the timing of him stretching out the hands was a little bit off.
Conclusion on Dameon Pierce:
This was one of the most underutilized backs throughout his college career. Pierce put on a show at the Senior Bowl and has a lot of people excited for an extended (three-down) role. There are things he has to clean up in the way he approaches the line of scrimmage, and we really only saw him run inside zone, HB sweep and a bunch of swing routes, but the short-area quicks, power and mentality are all there. NFL teams will have to sit down with him (and the Florida coaches) to figure out why he didn’t get the chances it seems he should have, but if there’s no red flag due to that, I’d love to bring him in later on day two.
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