C.J. Prosise Can Be More Than a Change-of-Pace Back for the Seahawks

With the 90th overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks selected Notre Dame's C.J. Prosise, making him the fourth running back off the board.

Prosise converted from wide receiver to running back for his senior season with the Irish and took to the position well, averaging 102.9 rushing yards per game and running for 11 touchdowns in 10 games.

Rotoworld's Graham Barfield has introduced a new project this year that he calls "Yards Created," an attempt to isolate a running back's production from his offensive line. The first prospect he charted was Prosise. With only a few prospects finished so far, there's not a lot of context around the numbers, but there's some really interesting stuff in there.

Prosise forced a missed tackle on 38.6 percent of his "opportunities" (rushing attempts plus targets) in the five games charted and finished with 4.90 yards created per attempt. Prosise had a higher percentage of his runs go for 20-plus yards (7.01 percent) than any other 2016 prospect.

Having converted to running back from wide receiver, there's also little reason to doubt his abilities in the passing game, making him a well-rounded prospect in the mold of David Johnson from last year.

Here's a quick look at how Prosise measures up, courtesy of PlayerProfiler.

And while people whose first impression of Ryan Mathews is "injury-prone" may be worried about the comparison, it's actually one that should have you fairly excited.

Mathews has ranked above the league average in Rushing Net Expected Points (NEP) per carry (our in-house metric that measures the points a player produces compared to expectation-level) in all but one of his NFL seasons.

How Prosise Fits in Seattle

Prosise joins the Seahawks' backfield, which is expected to be led by Thomas Rawls.

Looking at the numbers, the Prosise pick makes the 2016 outlook for the backfield much cloudier than it was pre-draft.

Here's a different look at Prosise's measurables (courtesy of MockDraftable).

And here are Rawls' from last season.

Rawls joined the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent last season, while they spent fairly significant draft capital on Prosise.

Rawls performed very well when given a big role in 2015, rushing for 100-plus yards in four of the six games in which he saw double-digit carries, but the fairly small sample and the fact that he's coming off of a broken ankle combine with the Prosise pick to create a lot of uncertainty about his role for 2016.

Regardless of how you expect the backfield situation to shake out, this pick looks good for both the Seahawks, who are adding an incredibly promising back who can contribute in both the running and passing games, and for Prosise, who joins an offense that has ranked top-10 in Adjusted Rushing NEP in three of the last four seasons.