Green Bay Packers: 3 Day Three Running Back Prospects

Lamical Perine – Florida

Sometimes with lists like this, I wait until the end to get to my favorite of the three guys. Not this time. Lamical Perine is my favorite running back in this draft that the Green Bay Packers could realistically select and I’m way too excited to write about him to wait until later.

Perine isn’t a particularly big back, standing only 5’11” and weighing 218 pounds. However, he runs with a ton of determination and refuses to go down. He has a similar trait to Aaron Jones of not letting himself lose yards on a play. Many times, especially this season, we saw Aaron Jones slip some tackles in the backfield and drive forward to get a hard-earned three yards instead of losing two. Watching Perine, I saw much of the same. This is my favorite of his traits and having a back that doesn’t let you get behind the chains is huge for keeping the ball moving.

I also love his burst of acceleration and his ability to change direction. He didn’t test extremely well at the combine, and his 20-yard shuttle and 3-cone drill times were average at best, but he applies his tools on the field better than a lot of guys that just have pure athleticism. When he gets the ball in space on an outside pitch or a swing pass he can explode and get huge yards.

He also has good vision and he has experience reading zone blocking as a four-year contributor and three-year starter at Florida who did some zone running which they mixed with power runs as well. He is great at finding the correct cutback lanes and exploding through them.

During his senior year at Florida, Perine also did a great job expanding his role as a receiving back. In his first three years combined, he had 32 receptions for three touchdowns. However, in 2019 he out-performed his career numbers up to that point by totaling 40 receptions and five touchdowns. He can beat a linebacker in man coverage and he can even split out and make a catch on the edge once in a while. But with that said, his hands could still use some work.

Finally, in addition to purely using toughness to break through tackles, he has a great stiff arm once he gets to the edge. When he’s running on the sideline, his stiff arm can make him break away from a final safety looking to bring him down, turning a 20-yard run into a touchdown. He can also use his pure speed to break away on the sideline, and while he ran a pedestrian 4.62 40-yard dash at the combine, his film says otherwise and shows great top speed once he’s past the second level.

His size and below-average physical test scores may deter the Green Bay Packers from drafting him, because of how much they love pure athletes, but this is the guy I would pound the table for on day three.