Seahawks draft results: Amara Darboh talks about becoming a U.S. Citizen in 2015

The Seahawks added to their receiving corps again on Friday, selecting Michigan receiver Amara Darboh with the 106th pick of the draft. That’s a fairly high selection for a wideout — only Golden Tate, Paul Richardson, and Tyler Lockett have gone higher in the Pete Carroll era — but Darboh has unique size and athleticism to warrant such a move. He has an enormous wingspan of nearly 80”, more than almost any receiver in the NFL and basically at the size of most tight ends. Darboh also has a 10’4 broad jump, 36” vertical, and runs a 4.45.

But his backstory is even more unique than his frame.

It was 16 years ago that Darboh arrived in America, his family escaping Civil War in Sierra Leone that killed over 50,000 people. They finally arrived in Des Moines, Iowa a few years later, and Darboh was taken in by a family there in the sixth grade. An attempt to become a citizen during high school was thwarted by lost paperwork, but in 2015, Darboh finally took the oath that made him an official U.S. citizen. Here he is talking about it last November:

Darboh’s comparison on NFL.com is Mohamed Sanu, whose family is also from Sierra Leone, and where Sanu lived for a bit as a child. I want to say that this is a lazy comparison because of their roots, but then you look at their size and measurables and damn if it’s still not an accurate comp.