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Marte Mapu Dynasty IDP Rookie Profile – Looking Back
Marte played quarterback, wide receiver, safety, linebacker, and cornerback while in high school at Hawthorne High School in Hawthorne, California. Marte was not a ranked prospect in the 2017 recruiting class. He enrolled at Sacramento State and redshirted in 2017. He only played in five games in 2018,\ and began to start games for the team in 2019.
He attended college for a total of six years and played a variety of positions there, from outside linebacker, to safety, to nickel back. 2022 ended with him as the Big Sky Conference Defensive Player of the Year, was a First-Team All-Big Sky member, and was an AP FCS All-American.
Marte was an under-the-radar name going into the 2023 NFL Draft but started to gain steam as a prospect at the 2023 Senior Bowl in February. Most places had him as a Day 3 pick, but he ended up going at Pick 76 to the New England Patriots in Round 3.
Marte clocks in at 6’2 1/2″, 215lbs, with 33 3/8″ arm length. While the height and weight are not ideal for an NFL linebacker, the length is great. After six years at college, Marte will turn 24 this coming November, which is older than most rookies. While this can be seen as a negative, and the step up in competition from the Big Sky Conference to the NFL, Marte looks like an NFL-ready prospect.
Marte Mapu Dynasty IDP Rookie Profile – Looking Forward
When you watch Marte play you see an intelligent player with NFL speed and explosiveness, and you can hear it when he tackles someone. He reads plays well, has a knack for big plays, and is a more than adequate tackler.
The big question for him comes down to how will he be used in the NFL. With having played mainly safety and linebacker in college, it seems clear that this mix will continue at the NFL level.
We have seen many players like Deone Bucannon, Isaiah Simmons, Jeremy Chinn, Divine Deablo, and Mark Barron (to name a few) play a hybrid role of the two, and this is becoming more prevalent as the NFL moves more and more to a pass-heavy game.
The Patriots are no stranger to players like this, as they already have Kyle Dugger on the roster who does some of this, and Adrian Phillips has done it as well. Dugger played 58% of his 2023 snaps in the box or lined up on the defensive line, while Phillips played 48% of his 2023 snaps in a similar fashion. Dugger however is a free agent after this year, while Phillips is 31 and a free agent after 2024.
Marte has the size, physical prowess, and smarts to end up as the next successful safety/linebacker hybrid for the Patriots, and this can be a boom for IDP leagues. Some sites like Sleeper and MFL have him listed as a safety or defensive back. Similar to Jeremy Chinn in recent years, if we can get a player slotted in as a defensive back that players half or more of their snaps as a linebacker, that will increase our tackle chances and IDP production.
He is currently 29th overall, and safety six, in our IDP rookies for the 2023 class in Dynasty IDP Rookie Rankings and Rookie PPR and IDP Combo Rankings over at RotoHeat. It may not happen in year one for him, but I expect Marte to be a diamond in the rough player for fantasy teams wise enough to grab him in drafts.
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