Damien
Martinez.
Damien
Martinez.
Miami (FL)· 5'12"· 217 lb· 4.51s 40
"A powerfully built 5-11, 217-pound back, Martinez projects as a high-floor short-yardage specialist and early-down grinder whose NFL value hinges on his ability to maximize every carry with contact balance and relentless leg drive."Pre-draft read
Downhill one-cut back who lined up exclusively from the gun in Miami's spread run game and won as a "big back." He presses the line with patience, plants once and drives through the crease with a low pad level and a forward lean that turns two-yard creases into five-yard gains. Contact balance is the calling card: arm tackles slide off and he finishes every rep falling forward.
Vision in congestion is better than the frame suggests, and he creates alternate paths inside without dancing. He is a functional but limited pass-game piece, more chip-and-check than route runner. Long speed is the ceiling limiter — 4.51 straight-line juice with no second gear — but the signature is punishing volume: 6.2 yards per carry on 514 college totes.
Gap/duo and inside-zone based run game with a defined early-down role
Year 1: practice-squad body and short-yardage/closer candidate who earns 6-10 early-down carries as the thunder in a committee. Ceiling: 1,000-yard rotational starter in a duo-heavy offense that keeps him off third down.
Wide-zone offense that asks the back to stretch the edge and win one-on-one in space, or a spread attack that keeps a single back on the field for every third-and-6 pass protection and option route.
Scheme fit hinges on the offense hiding him on passing downs; his value is concentrated between the tackles.
Damien Martinez 2024 Regular Season Highlights | Miami Running Back
Full-season cutup of the Miami year: contact balance, one-cut timing and short-yardage finishing.
2025 NFL DRAFT HIGHLIGHTS: Damien Martinez | RB | Miami
Pre-draft reel highlighting the downhill running style and yards after contact.
Miami RB Damien Martinez Midseason Highlights | 2024 ACC Football
ACC midseason package including the Florida State and Louisville games.
Martinez is the classic late-round early-down banger: a 5-11 5/8, 217-pound runner with three years of starter production at two programs and a running style that never asks the offensive line for much. He is a rhythm back who thrives on defined gap schemes, one-cut zone and short-yardage volume, and he plays with the pad level and finish of a heavier man.
The production is real and it traveled. He went for 982 yards as a true freshman at Oregon State, 1,185 as a sophomore, then transferred to Miami and delivered the program's first 1,000-yard rusher since 2016 with 1,002 yards and 10 scores at 6.3 a pop. His Pop-Tarts Bowl outing against Iowa State — 179 yards on 14 carries — was the tape that sold the closing speed of the pile, not of the sideline. The flags were third-down utility, a thin receiving portfolio and a lack of home-run juice that let safeties squat.
Boards had him graded as a rotational RB2 in the fifth-to-sixth range and the slide to No. 223 read as the market discounting backs without pass-protection reps or explosive traits. Seattle got a value flier at a position they were rebuilding, with the caveat that he had to prove it on teams.
- 01
Contact balance
Rarely goes down on first contact; consistently falls forward and converts marginal creases into positive yardage against loaded boxes.
- 02
Pad level
Runs with natural leverage and a low center of gravity, so defenders take on a shoulder rather than a chest and rebound off.
- 03
Decisiveness
Presses, plants and goes without wasted footwork; his one-cut timing in zone is on schedule with the pullers and combos.
- 04
Short-yardage finisher
Trusted in the tight red zone, with 26 career touchdowns and the leg drive to move a pile the last two yards.
- 05
Production at two programs
3,169 rushing yards at 6.2 per carry across Oregon State and Miami, plus a 1,000-yard year in the ACC after a Pac-12 move.
- 01
Long speed
4.51 forty with no second gear; he gets caught from behind on the perimeter and rarely finishes chunk runs in the end zone.
- 02
Pass protection
Willing but inconsistent in blitz pickup; late to identify the free rusher and gets moved back when he catches instead of strikes.
- 03
Receiving package
32 career catches for 391 yards; used mostly on checkdowns and flares rather than as a detached route threat.
- 04
Perimeter creation
Limited lateral burst to bounce and beat the edge, so outside zone runs get funneled back inside more often than they should.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.51sp50
- Vertical
- 35inp50
- Broad jump
- 124inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Oregon State | 13 | 161 | 982 | 7 | 4 | 61 |
| 2023 | Oregon State | 12 | 194 | 1185 | 9 | 11 | 126 |
| 2024 | Miami (FL) | 13 | 159 | 1002 | 10 | 17 | 204 |
| Career | — | 38 | 514 | 3169 | 26 | 32 | 391 |
Verified against cfbstats (2022, 2023), Miami athletics bio and footballdb (2024). Season totals sum to career totals. 2023 starts not verified and left null.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
- Cameron WardQB29%
- Xavier RestrepoWR12%
- Jacolby GeorgeWR7%
#3 of 20 tracked contributors · Production leaned on volume · Offense explosiveness 1.35 (p89) · CFBD — usage x PPA per tracked player
Downhill complement with real early-down efficiency but a capped role behind a lead back.
Same big-bodied one-cut identity with better contact balance than burst; the upside if the receiving work catches up.
Late-round back who never carved out third-down value and bounced between practice squads.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Martinez never got the runway a seventh-round back needs. Seattle waived him in late August 2025 after an inefficient preseason finale, signed him to the practice squad, then released him again on September 2 in a roster reshuffle. He spent most of his rookie year unsigned before Green Bay added him to their practice squad on December 30, 2025, behind Josh Jacobs and Chris Brooks. He did not appear in a regular-season game, so there is no NFL tape to grade yet, only a roster spot heading into 2026 with the Packers looking for depth at the position.
In hindsight the pick was reasonable and the outcome is unresolved. Nothing about the college profile has been disproven; the concerns that pushed him to Day 3 — third-down limitations and no explosive gear — are exactly what kept him off a 53-man roster in a league where backup backs must protect the quarterback and play teams. He is talented enough to hit as a rotational early-down runner if a rebuilding backfield gives him carries, but the clock on a 2025 seventh-rounder with zero snaps is already loud. Verdict pending.
Data note: Verified against cfbstats (2022, 2023), Miami athletics bio and footballdb (2024). Season totals sum to career totals. 2023 starts not verified and left null.