Premature comparisons unfair to Seau and Te’o

It apparently isn’t enough that Manti Te’o is still trying to emerge from the shadow of Lennay Kekua, now there is another that looms.

This one, however, is very real and figures to be with Te’o the length of his stay with the San Diego Chargers.

It belongs to the late Junior Seau, a sainted figure in San Diego, where he performed for 13 seasons (1990-2002), 12 of them as a Pro Bowl selection, and it will begin to be felt with the opening of rookie minicamp Friday.

Some references were, of course, inevitable, since both are linebackers of Samoan ancestry, both have their NFL starts in San Diego and Te’o idolized Seau growing up. Te’o has said that, at one point, he wanted to follow Seau’s path to USC.

And with the draft coming just days before the first anniversary of Seau’s tragic death, the memories were refreshed.

But the announcement of Te’o as the Chargers’ second pick had barely been uttered at Radio City Music Hall a week ago when ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. went off the deep end, saying, "I remember what the late, great Junior Seau meant to this football team. Manti Te’o is going to have that similar impact."

Kiper wasn’t the only one speaking along those untethered lines, just the first and most visible. And, at that point, it wasn’t fair to either one of them.

Without placing horizons on the North Shore native before he even dons jersey No. 50 for the first time, the hope is that he will be a good fit in the Chargers’ 3-4 defense and, maybe, even become one of the stellar linebackers to play there.

But could we, please, wait until he’s played a game or two — much less started 243 of them, as Seau did — before diving into declarations of "similar impact?" Could the instant comparisons with somebody who managed 1,524 tackles and 561/2 sacks be held off until at least a handful of both are in the books?

For one thing, they are cut from disparate molds, Seau having been an uber athletic 6-foot-3 250-pounder who fiercely punished people for a remarkable 20-year, 268-game span. Te’o, at 6-1 and 230 pounds, plays an instinctive game.

To be sure, Te’o is respectful of the high standards set by Seau. And who wouldn’t be inspired to strive for excellence by the memory of one of the top linebackers of all time? But, to his credit, Te’o has kept it in well-grounded perspective, telling Chargers.com, "I want to make him (Seau) proud."

When asked what it would be like to join the Chargers’ linebacker tradition, Te’o said, "This team has a history of great linebackers and I want to be part of that tradition."

When Te’o won the Dick Butkus Award twice, once as the top high school linebacker out of Punahou School and again last year at Notre Dame as the leading college linebacker, nobody was firing up Butkus comparisons.

Te’o would seem to have a lot of football in front of him. So, maybe, we can take a deep breath and wait a while to see if he or, indeed, anybody is going to remind us of Seau any time soon.

The shadow of the Lennay hoax is more than enough for now.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.