Dareke
Young.
Dareke
Young.
Lenoir-Rhyne
"A barely recruited Raleigh kid who broke his leg before signing day, became a 24-touchdown hybrid at Division II Lenoir-Rhyne, and turned the 233rd pick into four Seattle seasons and a Super Bowl ring."Pre-draft read
A Division II hybrid built like a running back and moving like a receiver. At 6-2 and 224 pounds with a 32 5/8-inch reach, Young took handoffs, ran routes and covered kicks at Lenoir-Rhyne, and his pro day explains the seventh-round interest: 4.44 forty, 4.19 shuttle, 6.88 three-cone, 37-inch vertical.
The catch radius and the contact balance were real, and he averaged 20.6 yards a catch as a junior against South Atlantic Conference defenses. What he never had was a refined route tree or reps against pro coverage. His college production came on schemed touches and vertical shots, which is why the NFL projection was always special teams first, with the receiver work as a long-term development bet rather than a day-one plan.
A team that treats its fourth and fifth receivers as core special teamers first and rewards size on the perimeter in the run game.
Year 1: four-phase special teams player. Ceiling: a return specialist and situational big-bodied receiver.
A pass offense that asks its depth receivers to win with route nuance from the boundary, where he has neither the tree nor the separation quickness.
Seattle used him precisely this way, and the 2025 return job was the version of the ceiling that actually existed.
Dareke Young junior highlights, Lenoir-Rhyne
The 2019 breakout season that put a Division II receiver on NFL boards.
Dareke Young gets the draft call at No. 233
Seattle's final pick of the 2022 draft taking the call.
From Division II football to Super Bowl champion
The arc from Hickory, North Carolina to a ring in Super Bowl LX.
Young grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, went to Middle Creek High School in Cary and was barely recruited, breaking his leg entering the process and landing at Lenoir-Rhyne, the Division II program in Hickory that had sent Kyle Dugger to New England in the second round two years before him.
He was a rotational freshman in 2017 with two catches for 18 yards in eight games, then a package player in 2018, when he appeared in all 14 games with seven catches for 122 yards and two scores plus 38 carries for 318 yards and four more. The 2019 season was his breakout: 25 catches for 515 yards and eight touchdowns as the team's leading receiver, 49 carries for 335 yards and four scores, 12 touchdowns on 74 offensive touches.
COVID-19 wiped out the fall of 2020, and in the abbreviated spring season he played two games and caught 14 balls for 218 yards and two touchdowns, including a nine-catch, 166-yard performance in the conference championship against Tusculum. A knee injury limited his final fall to five games, but he was second-team all-conference anyway with 25 catches for 303 yards and four touchdowns, tying a program record with three receiving scores against Mars Hill. He finished with 24 touchdowns on 161 career touches. Seattle took him with the 233rd and last of its picks.
- 01
Rare size-speed combination for a small-school receiver
224 pounds with a 4.44 pro day forty and an 11-foot-3 broad jump.
- 02
Genuine positional versatility
88 career carries at 7.5 yards a pop alongside his receiving work, a package player who could line up anywhere.
- 03
Touchdown efficiency
24 scores on only 161 career touches, the mark of a player his coaches schemed the ball to in the red zone.
- 04
Special teams readiness
he covered kicks throughout his college career, which is the only realistic path onto an NFL roster at his draft slot.
- 05
Big-play radius
20.6 yards per reception as a junior and a 166-yard conference championship game show the vertical and contested-catch value.
- 01
Division II competition
the South Atlantic Conference defensive backs he beat bear no resemblance to NFL corners in speed or technique.
- 02
Undeveloped route tree
his production came on schemed touches and vertical shots rather than a full menu of intermediate routes.
- 03
Injury-shortened final season
a knee injury cut his last fall to five games and cost him the evaluation reps scouts needed.
- 04
Tight-hipped for the position
his build helps through contact but limits the suddenness he needs to separate at the break point.
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Lenoir-Rhyne | 8 | 2 | 18 | 0 |
| 2018 | Lenoir-Rhyne | 14 | 7 | 122 | 2 |
| 2019 | Lenoir-Rhyne | — | 25 | 515 | 8 |
| 2020 | Lenoir-Rhyne | 2 | 14 | 218 | 2 |
| 2021 | Lenoir-Rhyne | 5 | 25 | 303 | 4 |
| Career | — | 43 | 73 | 1176 | 16 |
Season lines come from Lenoir-Rhyne's official player bio and the school's April 30, 2022 draft release; Division II players have no cfbstats or Sports Reference pages, so the school is the only source. Receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns sum exactly to the released career line of 73 catches for 1,176 yards and 16 scores. Rushing is recorded in the school's prose rather than in season tables: the bio enumerates 38 carries for 318 yards in 2018 and 49 for 335 in 2019, while the career release lists 88 carries for 658 yards and eight touchdowns, a gap of one carry and five yards that the school never breaks out, so rushing is left out of the season rows rather than reconstructed. The 2019 game total is likewise unstated and left blank instead of inferred.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Depth receiver who stuck for years as a core special teamer without a real offensive role.
Oversized athlete whose long career was built on return value and gadget touches rather than a route tree.
Late-round Seattle receiver whose career never made it past the practice squad churn.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Seattle found exactly what the pick was for. Young played 13 games as a rookie in 2022, almost entirely on special teams, with two catches for 24 yards plus a playoff reception. He went on injured reserve on September 4, 2023, was activated November 11 and appeared in six games, then played 14 in 2024 in the same coverage-unit role, and the receiving numbers stayed at zero.
The payoff came in 2025. He opened as one of Seattle's auxiliary receivers, took over the kickoff return job with 10 returns for 322 yards, a 32.2-yard average, and added two catches for 48 yards before a quad injury sent him to injured reserve on November 8. Activated on December 18, he recovered Xavier Smith's muffed punt in the NFC Championship Game against the Rams, a play that set up a 31-27 win, then made a tackle in Super Bowl LX as Seattle beat New England 29-13. He signed with Las Vegas on March 13, 2026. Four regular seasons, 42 games, a ring and a championship-game turnover recovery from the 233rd pick out of a Division II program is a return almost nobody drafted around him produced.