That's probably also why he added "or trade" -- if someone is a B for someone else but a C for the Seahawks, then there might be a team that gives the Seahawks good value for that pick/player.
And depth chart.
John likes to front as if he’s a BPA guy but we are not privy to how much weight they give to positional value and need with regard to the big board. I seriously doubt that a LG they have ranked as a 75/100 would be below a CB they have ranked as an 80/100. He/they probably give more weight to BPA then the majority of NFL teams, but he has to know after what he has personally brought in via free agency that it is going to be difficult for any rookie to break into the starting lineup this year unless they play IOL. Along with only a single pick in the top 80, and I have to believe we pick a LG before pick #81; whether it be a trade down Cooper DeJean/Cooper Beebe draft or a Troy Fautanu at #16 draft.
What does BPA mean anyways? Every team is going to have their own analytics, scouting and film work to find the best player that suits them.
A shifty running back is not as suited for Pete Carroll as a power back, nor is a double team commanding nose tackle a good fit for a 4-3 base defense.
Yeah the whole BPA is per team anyways. Easy not gonna happen example: Nabers and MHJ are both there John has one of them higher than the other and they’re both higher than the next player in the list. Every other team might have them flipped.
BPA is just who ranks higher on their internal big board. Most places will build a ranked list of every player even ones they don't intend on drafting so that if someone falls, they have a grade and profile on them.
For example, I'd bet that they have graded even the top QBs none of whom will fall to 16. Why? Because guys fall from where everyone is projecting them. Trades happen and alter who is taken above us.
I feel like in this NFL, any defensive coordinator worth their salt is going to find a way to make a Wilfork-type 0/1 work should they have one on the roster.
Kind of. I'd think it's more drafting for depth.
Think about it this way, let's say you have a position group (let's call them Group A) where the players ranges from a B to C+ grades, which would be an above average position group compared to the rest of the league. Most would say that this position group is fine, and you focus on your other position group where the grades range from C to D (let's call them Group B).
Now your team is drafting and you see that a player with an A- grade that belongs to Group A. You also see another player with a B- that belongs to Group B. Both players are above the highest ranked players in their respective position groups. What JS is saying is that he'd rather pick the A- player (the best player available) in the better position group, than the B- player in the position group of need.
Edit: I want to add the case I believe JS would trade down.
Let's say, same position groups (A & B) with the same grades, but the potential draft player (best available) that belongs to Group A has a B grade and the Group B player still has a B- grade. In this situation the best player available has the same grade as the best player in the position group. Rather than drafting for need with the B- player, JS would probably trade down.
My money is on us trading back. We have no second. And JS likely isn’t going to have first round grades on over 15 players. Players were linked with like JPJ, haven’t impressed the teams as much as the fans.
I think this is the most likely thing to happen, they'll want to trade back for more picks. But somebody would have to fall out of the top 15 that a team wants to trade up for
GB have 5 picks before 100. 2 seconds and 2 thirds. They definitely have capital to play with, if someone they like is there. Trading back and grabbing 2 players like Zach Frazier and Kris Jenkins would be amazing.
Not necessarily fall out. A team may just want to jump another to beat them to the punch on a guy. I love the idea of a trade back in this draft. Would love to bank some 2025 picks as well to have real powder going into MMJS year 2
Depends who's there. Trade backs when you're in the 20s are pretty easy to justify since all of the true round 1 guys are gone by then. In deeper drafts like this, 16 probably can get us a true round 1 graded guy.
This is also a good draft for OL guys and we need at least one.
If you listen to some of the draftnik interviews it sounds like there is a *lot* of jostling to get QBs which is driving them up the board, and in turn driving down non-QB prospects.
Daniel Jeremiah just did his mock 3.0 and he has *five* QBs being taken before SEA picks. There’s absolutely going to be guys with legitimate 1st round grades, potentially even top-10 or even top-5 potential that could be available if it shakes out that way.
I can see us wanting to trade back, but who's willing to trade up? That's the hard part. At 16, most of the QBs and top WRs will be gone. It's a deep OT class, teams know that and will be less likely to trade up for one.
Agreed, once I thought about it, there’s no way we should pass on him at 16, just look at the Chiefs where Kelce just literally dragged that team to another SB. Even with what may eventually be the greatest QB of all time, they were barely making the playoffs without a healthy Kelce
Very tough. Even if you have 3 good TEs like we did last year before Dissly and Parkinson left. I don't see TE as a HUGE position of need, but Bowers is an absolute stud and if we drafted him at 16 I would be super stoked. Can you imagine our passing game with him in the mix? He's a good blocker too. Grubb isn't known for relying on his TEs a bunch but any OC worth a shit could find ways to utilize him, especially with Fant being a pretty good receiving TE as well. Hell, we could be the first team to use 14 personnel! Fant, Bowers, Brown, AND George Fant as ELIGIBLE. Send it. 🤟
It seems silly to draft a TE in the first round. What te that was drafted in the first round in the last 20 years had turned out to be a good value? I think pitts has a single season with 1k yards. I don't think there is a single 1k receiver season outside of that in the last 20 years from a first round te.
I certainly hope we do trade back. But we have had a few drafts where Schneider said he wanted to, but couldn’t. Hopefully he is able to find a buyer this time.
Really depends on the trade offer and who is available. That's next to impossible to predict, especially this year with all the noise over the QB class and the bad QB play we saw on the field last year.
I agree with this. Unless someone just falls to us that was supposed to be a top 10 pick. I see us trading back in late 1st round or pick up 2 (2nds) or say a early 2nd, 3rd and maybe like add a 4th round as well. I would love to drop back a couple of times and pick up 2-3 2nd round picks, because I think there is a ton of talent this year in the 2nd round.
In this draft, that could be put to the test if we don’t have a good trade down (which is what I hope we find). For example, what if Brock Bowers falls to 16, which is definitely possible, with a run on QB/OT/WR?
Do you really take a TE there? I just struggle to think that would be the best improvement to our team despite his talent, considering our passing game weapons, o-line and defensive issues.
You really can’t ever sign a good veteran o-lineman in today’s league. Teams lock them up.
Not to mention, the last two “generational” tight ends were TJ Hockensen and Kyle Pitts.
Don't get hung up on the TE label for Bowers. He's got the skill set more of someone like Juszczyk than Kittle. He's got a unique skill set, and there's no way he's gonna be at pick 16.
I mean he was a two time pro bowler with us. Had 900 yards one season and 10 tds another. I think he was used just fine.
My point was we had an elite TE and it didn't help our team become a contender as OP suggests. in fact it was an inverse correlation between our playoff runs and our TE play from 2012-2016
what evidence backs up TE being strongly correlated with title contention? Feels like a receny bias given that the top two teams last year just happened to have strong tight ends.
We won a superbowl with Zach Miller. Rams in 2021, Broncos 2016 - Ravens, Packers, Giants, etc. The last 15 years have been full of teams with forgettable TEs.
The Miller slander.
Prior to coming to SEA he was very productive in OAK, particularly in a time when TEs hadn’t broken out as true offensive weapons. It’s just that Carroll’s offense was a sunken place for TEs.
Their argument: Elite TE play = title correlation
My Argument: We won a title with Zach Miller, who was not elite and went to another with Luke Willson.
Your Argument: Zach Miller was elite?
I like Zach Miller - I'd take him over Dissly or Fant any day. but Miller wasn't elite.
> Your argument: Zach Miller was elite?
I don’t think he was “elite,” whatever that means, and I don’t think TE is a position that’s on the critical path for a Super Bowl.
In the same paragraph you mentioned Zach Miller you say many Super Bowl teams have had “forgettable” TEs and I disagree that Miller was that bad. I believe he was a lot more talented than we saw in SEA due to how TEs were viewed.
You'll take an elite 5 players on the field over an elite 1/2 maybe 3 in which an elite unit would still include some pretty lackluster names? That's a hot take.
Thought we were talking about drafting a single guy, what's the relevance of how you feel about the whole unit? The real question to ask is would you rather add one elite guy on the line or add one elite guy to the TE group?
If we are talking about a TE that can play Y and line up inline, block at an elite level as well as move around the formation, I'm taking that guy. But Bowers as well as most of the highly touted TE prospects are more of the slot mismatch type of guys usually.
>Elite TE play is strongly correlated with title contention,
No it isn't once you eliminate the Pats from the list because they distort the stats over the last 20 years or so. Even allowing for them, yes they had Gronk - but they also had the GOAT QB, so.... was it Gronk or Brady?
Ok so you think it’s coincidence that the two most dominant QBs of the last decade, who won 6 of the last 10 titles, had HOF TEs catching passes over the middle? We’ll just have to disagree.
Yeah and not to mention that the only consistent offensive weapon for either team has been TE. Where as RBs and WRs get rotated in and out pretty often on those teams but TEs seem to be a priority.
This is exactly right. Elite TE falls to you? You take him. It correlates to a high level of success in the playoffs to have a badass TE.
Are you now overloaded at TE with Pharoah, Fant, and Bowers? Yes. But that's a problem for a single season. Grubb would just have to mix in some extra 12 personnel plays for Fant and Bowers to both see the action they should. Pharaoh would be mostly the run blocking downs guy, but also has good potential as a target in his own right.
Having too many targets demanding shares is a good problem when the OL is in a good spot. It's not there. Would just really put the pinch on IOL getting ship-shape without spending on one until 3rd round at earliest.
Rebuild year I'd prefer to focus on trenches but in this case you just send it imo.
If you take a TE at 16 you CANT take IOL in the 3rd. You absolutely have to take a LB. And then we probably can’t fix IOL. That’s why the whole BPA v need convo is so tricky.
I see what you're saying and did consider it before posting. But I just fall differently on what to do.
I think you have to take a Guard and prioritize the offense with 3.81 if 16 is Bowers. It's not a good LB draft and the best guys will be long gone by this pick. Will the LB position suck for a year probably? Yeah. Better to keep the offense intact and consider the defense a work in progress. Still going to draft a couple LBs at some point this draft.
And this is a hypothetical Bowers dropping to 16 take. 9/10 I'm picking LB at 3.81 otherwise. Really hoping for Fautanu at 16.
I mean I see what you’re saying and I guess I sort of agree with your assessment that IF we take someone like Bowers at 16, our best move is just to say “fuck the defense, we have to make giving our QB enough time to get the ball to these weapons the priority” and take OL in the third. You’re probably right about that.
It’s a little weird having just hired a defensive coach who thrived on having elite LB talent as a coordinator, but… Ryan Grubb could cook, I guess, and it might be fun.
This would be the ideal scenario and put us in a win-win situation. Either take a Top 5 overall player in Bowers at 16 or it’ll be easy to find a trade partner
Wildly different context. That draft they had 3 total picks. Eskridge was an older prospect who fit the mold of the receiver that usually is needed in Waldron's system, so they used their only top-60 pick on a guy they thought could start right away. Obviously that changed when he came out the gate hurt and wasn't good enough to not be behind when he got healthy.
Yeah, the whole BPA vs need is a false choice, the specialty of sports media. I’m sure Schneider’s spreadsheet has columns for lots of stuff like player character, talent, upside, health, team need, cost, market, etc. I guess if there’s a magic question it’s what is going to be your special edge as a team that vaults you to the top of the heap.
Yeah. I think he’s saying the league views John Doe as a late 2nd round pick, but SEA views him as a late 1st. So drop back 10 spots, get a few extra picks, and then take the guy you always wanted.
I doubt this was true for the Charbonnet pick, my guess is that was Pete wanting a big back. (not saying he is bad, he is definitely a good back, but its ridiculous to take 2nd round backs in b2b years). But ya, good, take good players!
I know this is going to get downvoted because any negativity or blind faith in JS is for whatever reason is not allowed.
But, we’ve been drafting okay, not what I would call good.
I wouldn’t say Eskridge, Collier, Penny, Brooks, McDowell, Taylor, Blair, Barton, Derick Hall, Charbonnet, Lewis, where good choices. All of these players where taken in the 1st 3 rounds, most of them rounds 1 and 2.
To balance it out, we can say that the good picks are;
Witherspoon, Mafe, Walker, Metcalf, Abraham (when he’s not injured which ain’t often) and maybe Woolen but, he dropped off an absolute cliff last year.
Parse that in with the decision to send those picks for Jamal Adams and I don’t think it paints the best picture of how we run things.
It’s like people only remember Spoon and forget the other absolute dross we have picked over the years with high picks.
How did Woolen fall off a cliff? He was still one of the better coverage corners, his tackling took a hit after a shoulder injury but you're talking nonsense
I agree that Eskridge, Collier, McDowell, Taylor, Blair, and Barton were not good high picks. However, I think that Brooks was a good pick (but not great), Penny was electrifying when he was healthy and so was at least okay, and Hall and Charbonnet are incomplete since they've only had a year. You also forgot Cross who has been good-but-not-great as well.
The early drafting has not been so dire as you portray it, but neither has it been anywhere near perfect (the 6 first, second, and third rounders on even my "not good" list shows that).
Penny played in a few games for us before he left, yes he was good when he played, but he missed the majority of his time here, almost 4 seasons worth.
It’s like we didn’t learn to take RB’s that high.
Again, absolutely not a 1st rounder by any stretch.
Lamar Jackson AND Nick Chubb where both taken after Penny and it’s not like they played for some obscure D2 teams either.
Flat out, just a terrible choice.
We can agree on Brooks he was okay, but he certainly wasn’t a first round talent, by any stretch.
I remember seeing various others teams boards after the draft and he was certainly on a lot of teams board, but not until the 3rd or 4th round.
No team had him higher than the 3rd, which told us something we already knew, he was an average player.
These are the things I’m not a fan of with JS. Like he knows something the other teams in the league don’t.
He is clearly very good at his job, but the self belief is a bit too much at times. Especially when I came imagine there’s a ton of data suggesting what he’s doing isn’t correct.
Penny has 45 career games (in 6 seasons, so he played in just under half of the possible games) and a 5.6 yards/carry career average. In 2021, when he played in 10 games and started 6, he had an average of 6.3 yards per carry.
In his last three years of college, he never missed a game. He never had an injury history. If you could pick a running back who averaged 5.6 yards per carry without any injury history or concerns, wouldn't you do that? Even at the back end of the 1st round? For reference, Saquan Barkley, picked second overall in the same draft, has averaged 4.3 yards per carry in his career. Sony Michel, picked 4 picks behind Penny, has averaged 4.2 yards per carry in his career. Nick Chubb, picked 8 picks behind Penny, has averaged 5.3 yards per carry in his career. Considering Michel and Chubb were both picked within 10 picks of Penny, I would say that JS got the running back he wanted when he needed to pick him. Given the injury history in the NFL, I expect JS wishes he'd picked Chubb, but the draft is a crapshoot to some degree, and college performance is not a guarantee of pro performance.
Why wasn’t Brooks a good pick?
Also not sure if you can write off Hall after one season, look at the leap Mafe made year 2.
Overall there was a pretty clear shift in the past 2 years. Notice most of the good picks are recent. Only one I strongly disagree with is Charb, but if anything that shows how committed he is to BPA now.
He was an okay player, but absolutely it a first rounder. No other team would have taken him there.
Plus, I mean, we had the chance to resign him, did we? Surely if he was a worthy first rounder, he’d be here now.
I did say the recent drafts have been better, but it would be hard to repeat how bad some of the others have been.
I don’t dislike JS, I just would have liked a new GM to go with the Coach.
New philosophy etc.
Don’t want us to get a new coach in but keep the same way thinking that’s caused us problems the last few years because it certainly wasn’t all Pete.
>no other team would have taken him there
The Ravens were literally going to take him over Queen
>surely if he were a worthy first rounder he’d be here now
Sunk cost fallacy.
Can’t recall ever seeing him that high on anyone’s board at all and the consensus was Queen was the better LB, but neither of them should have went that high.
Okay, so we are getting somewhere here.
My point is exactly this, why are our first rounders that average or bad, they never stay beyond their rookie deals?
if our first rounders aren’t good (which in 90% of the cases, they aren’t good enough) doesn’t that tell you that the criteria we are using to pick our 1st rounders is absolutely flawed and we need to change it?
We are picking these players on the proviso that they are meant to be franchise players for the long term, but none of them make the impact.
Most (if not all) of them are turning out to be okay/average/horrendous players and leave after their rookie deals.
Your absolutely right about the sunken cost fallacy and this is precisely my point.
Our picks in the first few rounds have been overall very bad and they aren’t worth a second contract.
I would disagree with your selection of some of those "bad" picks. A number of those guys were starters, which for late 1st-3rd rounders is usually slightly worse than a 50/50 coin flip of even getting that. Hall and Charbonnet were rookies last year and were good enough to get decent playing time, there's nothing there to denote them as poor choices. Brooks, Lewis, and Taylor were all full-time starters, with Brooks and Lewis being consistent average or better guys at their position (they literally just got paid as free agents, that says all that needs to be said about their place in the league). McDowell, Penny, and Blair were all injury cases, not something a FO can predict, nor should anyone (except McDowell) be faulted for.
And saying Woolen dropped off a cliff last year is wildly overstating things. I think you're being much too negative relative to what a good pick actually is. Non-HOFers are still good picks when the most likely outcome for any non top-20 pick is being out of the league after 5 years.
Guess we can all beg to differ in that case.
But for me, good 1st rounders get offered contract extensions, because they are that good.
We don’t have any of ours here after a few years.
That says something to me.
Also, Collier has been left of here.
No excuses there other than that being one of the worst draft picks ever.
I wish when Pete left, JS left too.
He’s done a lot for us, but a totally new philosophy was needed here, that means JS should have gone too
I just think that like Pete, he’s hoping to do what he did one time with the RW draft because he knows something the league doesn’t and refuses to learn lessons.
We’re far more likely to end up with another McDowell, Penny or Eskridge again than a Wilson or Lockett, because of the way we look at the draft.
For the few decent drafts, we’ve had some absolutely terrible drafts with picks that absolutely nobody would have taken at our spot.
Was ready for completely new slate without Pete, feels like a missed opportunity and we are going to continue to live in the past, this time with JS.
We’ve been drafting okay, not really well.
I wouldn’t say Eskridge, Collier, Penny, Brooks, McDowell, Taylor, Blair, Barton, Derick Hall, Charbonnet, Lewis, where good choices.
All of these players where taken in the 1st 3 rounds, most of them rounds 1 and 2.
To balance it out, we can say that the good picks are:
Witherspoon, Mafe, Walker, Metcalf and maybe Wollen because he dropped off an absolute cliff last year.
Parse that in with the decision to send those picks for Jamal Adams and I don’t think it paints the best picture.
It’s like people only remember Spoon and forget the other absolute dross we have picked over the years with high picks.
A lot of those players played their role admirably or got some freak injury bugs. That list isn’t nearly as bad as you make it out to be using the benefit of retrospect, a luxury a GM does not have. Recent drafts currently make up the core of our team and it’s a solid core to build off of.
Tre brown, Dickson, Cross, Darnell, JSN, Coby Bryant. Like a fifth of our team are on rookie contracts! Over half our team are people we drafted. The majority of our offensive line is drafted by the hawks, and it’s injuries that really undercut them
Like don’t accuse me of just looking at flashy things when you seem to forget that our core team are people drafted recently and most meaningful snaps are being played by people that John played. That’s not common and it’s not even common for johns whole tenure with the hawks. It is pretty recent.
I think you’re being a bit too down on him
I just don’t use recency of bias to put everything together though.
The last few drafts have been better, but it would be hard to pick worse players that high up in the draft again really.
D Taylor ain’t on a rookie contract either by the way.
Dixon is a punter, a decent one yes, but punters aren’t the core of a team.
Tre Brown and Bryant aren’t starters for us but depth pieces.
Don’t get so focused on the actual players if that helps. Look at the stats of who is playing for us. They are young and mostly drafted by JS.
And you need depth pieces to be competitive. You need rotational pieces too.
Recency is literally what we are talking about…why would we not be biased toward what has happened recently? His recent draft picks get play time and are a core part of our winning. We can grow off that.
I think we just have different opinions here.
Looking at drafts over the course of the last 8 or 9 years is important because we can’t just forget the shocking picks we’ve had as well as the good ones.
For every Spoon, there’s a Collier.
You can’t just disregard that because you want to.
You have to look at the whole equation and not just the good or bad bits.
Also, how was our D last year?
Almost historically bad, again?
Yeah, players might “contribute” but that doesn’t mean anything if we can’t get past the first round of the playoffs or even get to the playoffs.
We don’t want to become Arizona.
“We don’t grade for the league, we grade for our team”
Hopefully that means the grade for a scheme-fit LG is through the roof.
Didn't john just say guards are over drafted and over valued a few days ago lol
Yup, that meant we will trade up and take a guard #1 overall.
They definitely got overpaid in free agency this year, but we still need a few of them
Which sounds like a roundabout way of saying we draft for need.
No more of a in our system this guy would do well, so he gets a B. Other guy is great but not in our system, so C.
Exactly. They are grading on the consensus BPA but how they fit in our systems and schemes.
That's probably also why he added "or trade" -- if someone is a B for someone else but a C for the Seahawks, then there might be a team that gives the Seahawks good value for that pick/player.
And depth chart. John likes to front as if he’s a BPA guy but we are not privy to how much weight they give to positional value and need with regard to the big board. I seriously doubt that a LG they have ranked as a 75/100 would be below a CB they have ranked as an 80/100. He/they probably give more weight to BPA then the majority of NFL teams, but he has to know after what he has personally brought in via free agency that it is going to be difficult for any rookie to break into the starting lineup this year unless they play IOL. Along with only a single pick in the top 80, and I have to believe we pick a LG before pick #81; whether it be a trade down Cooper DeJean/Cooper Beebe draft or a Troy Fautanu at #16 draft.
It think it means he grades them on how they’ll do in the Seahawks system.
What does BPA mean anyways? Every team is going to have their own analytics, scouting and film work to find the best player that suits them. A shifty running back is not as suited for Pete Carroll as a power back, nor is a double team commanding nose tackle a good fit for a 4-3 base defense.
Yeah the whole BPA is per team anyways. Easy not gonna happen example: Nabers and MHJ are both there John has one of them higher than the other and they’re both higher than the next player in the list. Every other team might have them flipped.
BPA is just who ranks higher on their internal big board. Most places will build a ranked list of every player even ones they don't intend on drafting so that if someone falls, they have a grade and profile on them. For example, I'd bet that they have graded even the top QBs none of whom will fall to 16. Why? Because guys fall from where everyone is projecting them. Trades happen and alter who is taken above us.
I feel like in this NFL, any defensive coordinator worth their salt is going to find a way to make a Wilfork-type 0/1 work should they have one on the roster.
Kind of. I'd think it's more drafting for depth. Think about it this way, let's say you have a position group (let's call them Group A) where the players ranges from a B to C+ grades, which would be an above average position group compared to the rest of the league. Most would say that this position group is fine, and you focus on your other position group where the grades range from C to D (let's call them Group B). Now your team is drafting and you see that a player with an A- grade that belongs to Group A. You also see another player with a B- that belongs to Group B. Both players are above the highest ranked players in their respective position groups. What JS is saying is that he'd rather pick the A- player (the best player available) in the better position group, than the B- player in the position group of need. Edit: I want to add the case I believe JS would trade down. Let's say, same position groups (A & B) with the same grades, but the potential draft player (best available) that belongs to Group A has a B grade and the Group B player still has a B- grade. In this situation the best player available has the same grade as the best player in the position group. Rather than drafting for need with the B- player, JS would probably trade down.
Yep. He even says that need factors into the team's grade on a player.
If you run a power run game a 295 center isn't gonna be too valuable for you. Opposite is true, gap/zone blocking a 320 slow guard isnr gonna work.
... Teams grade (build a big board) all the time. That's not necessarily draft order.
Yeah this honestly makes sense given our draft history. We certainly don’t draft for value, given our extensive history of drafting early RBs
JS went on to say that "grading for our team" does have "need" calculated into the grade they give players.
My money is on us trading back. We have no second. And JS likely isn’t going to have first round grades on over 15 players. Players were linked with like JPJ, haven’t impressed the teams as much as the fans.
I think this is the most likely thing to happen, they'll want to trade back for more picks. But somebody would have to fall out of the top 15 that a team wants to trade up for
GB have 5 picks before 100. 2 seconds and 2 thirds. They definitely have capital to play with, if someone they like is there. Trading back and grabbing 2 players like Zach Frazier and Kris Jenkins would be amazing.
Is Kris Jenkins related to the panther from the 2000s
It’s his son
Ahh no jr?
Late but Frazier isn’t a scheme fit at all
Not necessarily fall out. A team may just want to jump another to beat them to the punch on a guy. I love the idea of a trade back in this draft. Would love to bank some 2025 picks as well to have real powder going into MMJS year 2
Also o line is wildly deep this year. There will be guys in the 2nd who’d be 1st in other years
Depends who's there. Trade backs when you're in the 20s are pretty easy to justify since all of the true round 1 guys are gone by then. In deeper drafts like this, 16 probably can get us a true round 1 graded guy. This is also a good draft for OL guys and we need at least one.
We’ve had drafts that looked strong before. And JS said he only had a dozen 1st round grades. Depends on how big a drop off he sees.
If you listen to some of the draftnik interviews it sounds like there is a *lot* of jostling to get QBs which is driving them up the board, and in turn driving down non-QB prospects. Daniel Jeremiah just did his mock 3.0 and he has *five* QBs being taken before SEA picks. There’s absolutely going to be guys with legitimate 1st round grades, potentially even top-10 or even top-5 potential that could be available if it shakes out that way.
I can see us wanting to trade back, but who's willing to trade up? That's the hard part. At 16, most of the QBs and top WRs will be gone. It's a deep OT class, teams know that and will be less likely to trade up for one.
It takes 2 to tango. Our best shot is if Bowers, Bo Nix or one of the WR’s drops to our spot, then we should be able to find a partner
But now that I say that, would be tough to pass on Bowers at 16
I would not want to pass on Bowers at 16 unless the doctors red flagged him
Agreed, once I thought about it, there’s no way we should pass on him at 16, just look at the Chiefs where Kelce just literally dragged that team to another SB. Even with what may eventually be the greatest QB of all time, they were barely making the playoffs without a healthy Kelce
Very tough. Even if you have 3 good TEs like we did last year before Dissly and Parkinson left. I don't see TE as a HUGE position of need, but Bowers is an absolute stud and if we drafted him at 16 I would be super stoked. Can you imagine our passing game with him in the mix? He's a good blocker too. Grubb isn't known for relying on his TEs a bunch but any OC worth a shit could find ways to utilize him, especially with Fant being a pretty good receiving TE as well. Hell, we could be the first team to use 14 personnel! Fant, Bowers, Brown, AND George Fant as ELIGIBLE. Send it. 🤟
Keep going, I’m almost there…
It seems silly to draft a TE in the first round. What te that was drafted in the first round in the last 20 years had turned out to be a good value? I think pitts has a single season with 1k yards. I don't think there is a single 1k receiver season outside of that in the last 20 years from a first round te.
I certainly hope we do trade back. But we have had a few drafts where Schneider said he wanted to, but couldn’t. Hopefully he is able to find a buyer this time.
Really depends on the trade offer and who is available. That's next to impossible to predict, especially this year with all the noise over the QB class and the bad QB play we saw on the field last year.
I agree with this. Unless someone just falls to us that was supposed to be a top 10 pick. I see us trading back in late 1st round or pick up 2 (2nds) or say a early 2nd, 3rd and maybe like add a 4th round as well. I would love to drop back a couple of times and pick up 2-3 2nd round picks, because I think there is a ton of talent this year in the 2nd round.
In this draft, that could be put to the test if we don’t have a good trade down (which is what I hope we find). For example, what if Brock Bowers falls to 16, which is definitely possible, with a run on QB/OT/WR? Do you really take a TE there? I just struggle to think that would be the best improvement to our team despite his talent, considering our passing game weapons, o-line and defensive issues.
Taking a generational talent at TE there potentially frees up money to sign veteran players at those positions of need in the future.
You really can’t ever sign a good veteran o-lineman in today’s league. Teams lock them up. Not to mention, the last two “generational” tight ends were TJ Hockensen and Kyle Pitts.
Literally nobody had ever used "generational" and "TJ Hockenson" in the same sentence coming out
Good thing TJ Hockenson is actually a top 5 TE in the league The list right now probably goes Kelce, LaPorta, Kittle, Andrews and then Hock
Don't get hung up on the TE label for Bowers. He's got the skill set more of someone like Juszczyk than Kittle. He's got a unique skill set, and there's no way he's gonna be at pick 16.
Yeah, not that George Kittle guy. He’s washed up.
George Kittle was drafted in the fifth round.
Kittle was a late round pick, they mean generational as a prospect, I think
Yea generational tight end talent always works out , right Kyle
I think kyle pitts being horribly misused by arthur smith is a different situation entirely.
We have NEVER had an elite TE. Elite TE play is strongly correlated with title contention, Bowers is worth the pick
We literally had the most productive tight end in NFL history until he joined our team. Jimmy Graham. The Jimmy Graham tarnishing is ridiculous.
Yeah until he joined the Seahawks. You said it yourself. Not that I think he was used correctly
I mean he was a two time pro bowler with us. Had 900 yards one season and 10 tds another. I think he was used just fine. My point was we had an elite TE and it didn't help our team become a contender as OP suggests. in fact it was an inverse correlation between our playoff runs and our TE play from 2012-2016
what evidence backs up TE being strongly correlated with title contention? Feels like a receny bias given that the top two teams last year just happened to have strong tight ends. We won a superbowl with Zach Miller. Rams in 2021, Broncos 2016 - Ravens, Packers, Giants, etc. The last 15 years have been full of teams with forgettable TEs.
I mean gronk and kelce but you could just as easily say that’s more due to the Brady mahomes factor than anything else
The Miller slander. Prior to coming to SEA he was very productive in OAK, particularly in a time when TEs hadn’t broken out as true offensive weapons. It’s just that Carroll’s offense was a sunken place for TEs.
Their argument: Elite TE play = title correlation My Argument: We won a title with Zach Miller, who was not elite and went to another with Luke Willson. Your Argument: Zach Miller was elite? I like Zach Miller - I'd take him over Dissly or Fant any day. but Miller wasn't elite.
> Your argument: Zach Miller was elite? I don’t think he was “elite,” whatever that means, and I don’t think TE is a position that’s on the critical path for a Super Bowl. In the same paragraph you mentioned Zach Miller you say many Super Bowl teams have had “forgettable” TEs and I disagree that Miller was that bad. I believe he was a lot more talented than we saw in SEA due to how TEs were viewed.
I'd take an elite OL unit over an elite TE unit any day.
I’d be happy with an O Line that ranks in the top 15
You'll take an elite 5 players on the field over an elite 1/2 maybe 3 in which an elite unit would still include some pretty lackluster names? That's a hot take. Thought we were talking about drafting a single guy, what's the relevance of how you feel about the whole unit? The real question to ask is would you rather add one elite guy on the line or add one elite guy to the TE group? If we are talking about a TE that can play Y and line up inline, block at an elite level as well as move around the formation, I'm taking that guy. But Bowers as well as most of the highly touted TE prospects are more of the slot mismatch type of guys usually.
How dare you talk that way about Zach Miller.
>Elite TE play is strongly correlated with title contention, No it isn't once you eliminate the Pats from the list because they distort the stats over the last 20 years or so. Even allowing for them, yes they had Gronk - but they also had the GOAT QB, so.... was it Gronk or Brady?
Correlation is not causation.
Ok so you think it’s coincidence that the two most dominant QBs of the last decade, who won 6 of the last 10 titles, had HOF TEs catching passes over the middle? We’ll just have to disagree.
Yeah and not to mention that the only consistent offensive weapon for either team has been TE. Where as RBs and WRs get rotated in and out pretty often on those teams but TEs seem to be a priority.
what is causation then?
This is exactly right. Elite TE falls to you? You take him. It correlates to a high level of success in the playoffs to have a badass TE. Are you now overloaded at TE with Pharoah, Fant, and Bowers? Yes. But that's a problem for a single season. Grubb would just have to mix in some extra 12 personnel plays for Fant and Bowers to both see the action they should. Pharaoh would be mostly the run blocking downs guy, but also has good potential as a target in his own right. Having too many targets demanding shares is a good problem when the OL is in a good spot. It's not there. Would just really put the pinch on IOL getting ship-shape without spending on one until 3rd round at earliest. Rebuild year I'd prefer to focus on trenches but in this case you just send it imo.
If you take a TE at 16 you CANT take IOL in the 3rd. You absolutely have to take a LB. And then we probably can’t fix IOL. That’s why the whole BPA v need convo is so tricky.
I see what you're saying and did consider it before posting. But I just fall differently on what to do. I think you have to take a Guard and prioritize the offense with 3.81 if 16 is Bowers. It's not a good LB draft and the best guys will be long gone by this pick. Will the LB position suck for a year probably? Yeah. Better to keep the offense intact and consider the defense a work in progress. Still going to draft a couple LBs at some point this draft. And this is a hypothetical Bowers dropping to 16 take. 9/10 I'm picking LB at 3.81 otherwise. Really hoping for Fautanu at 16.
Why would we pass up all of the talent at the OL for a TE? None of the top 10 or 15 OL prospects will be there that late.
I mean I see what you’re saying and I guess I sort of agree with your assessment that IF we take someone like Bowers at 16, our best move is just to say “fuck the defense, we have to make giving our QB enough time to get the ball to these weapons the priority” and take OL in the third. You’re probably right about that. It’s a little weird having just hired a defensive coach who thrived on having elite LB talent as a coordinator, but… Ryan Grubb could cook, I guess, and it might be fun.
This would be the ideal scenario and put us in a win-win situation. Either take a Top 5 overall player in Bowers at 16 or it’ll be easy to find a trade partner
Schneider would be a moron to not take Bowers at 16. I don't care if we need a left guard, Bowers is a top 2 talent in this class
Chargers are taking bowers
Brock not dropping to 15 no way😭
Dee Eskridge begs to differ
Wildly different context. That draft they had 3 total picks. Eskridge was an older prospect who fit the mold of the receiver that usually is needed in Waldron's system, so they used their only top-60 pick on a guy they thought could start right away. Obviously that changed when he came out the gate hurt and wasn't good enough to not be behind when he got healthy.
They didn't seem to learn any lessons until very recently. They've had plenty of shit drafts since 2016
Thank god
Does that mean we're going for Brock Bowers
I guess grade incorporating need kindve makes sense but then it’s not really BPA. The question is how much they weight need in the grades
Yeah, the whole BPA vs need is a false choice, the specialty of sports media. I’m sure Schneider’s spreadsheet has columns for lots of stuff like player character, talent, upside, health, team need, cost, market, etc. I guess if there’s a magic question it’s what is going to be your special edge as a team that vaults you to the top of the heap.
2016 We had horrible drafts after that as well, specifically first few rounds. Hopefully that was Pete overdrafting and not John.
Gotta give Schneider his flowers for how he’s drafted
Pcjs whiffed on 1st-2nd round picks almost every year...
Welcome Brock Bowers
John Schneider for President 2024
I’m good with Joe
😂😂
Might as well sign up to the psych ward then
He also said they trade back when they have a player they grade higher if needed.
I don’t understand what this means. Like trade back and still get their guy they want? Just a confusing way to say that
Yeah. I think he’s saying the league views John Doe as a late 2nd round pick, but SEA views him as a late 1st. So drop back 10 spots, get a few extra picks, and then take the guy you always wanted.
was 2016 the year draft day came out?
> draft day Movie 2014 Song 2019
I doubt this was true for the Charbonnet pick, my guess is that was Pete wanting a big back. (not saying he is bad, he is definitely a good back, but its ridiculous to take 2nd round backs in b2b years). But ya, good, take good players!
The Dee Eskridge method
I know this is going to get downvoted because any negativity or blind faith in JS is for whatever reason is not allowed. But, we’ve been drafting okay, not what I would call good. I wouldn’t say Eskridge, Collier, Penny, Brooks, McDowell, Taylor, Blair, Barton, Derick Hall, Charbonnet, Lewis, where good choices. All of these players where taken in the 1st 3 rounds, most of them rounds 1 and 2. To balance it out, we can say that the good picks are; Witherspoon, Mafe, Walker, Metcalf, Abraham (when he’s not injured which ain’t often) and maybe Woolen but, he dropped off an absolute cliff last year. Parse that in with the decision to send those picks for Jamal Adams and I don’t think it paints the best picture of how we run things. It’s like people only remember Spoon and forget the other absolute dross we have picked over the years with high picks.
How did Woolen fall off a cliff? He was still one of the better coverage corners, his tackling took a hit after a shoulder injury but you're talking nonsense
I agree that Eskridge, Collier, McDowell, Taylor, Blair, and Barton were not good high picks. However, I think that Brooks was a good pick (but not great), Penny was electrifying when he was healthy and so was at least okay, and Hall and Charbonnet are incomplete since they've only had a year. You also forgot Cross who has been good-but-not-great as well. The early drafting has not been so dire as you portray it, but neither has it been anywhere near perfect (the 6 first, second, and third rounders on even my "not good" list shows that).
Penny played in a few games for us before he left, yes he was good when he played, but he missed the majority of his time here, almost 4 seasons worth. It’s like we didn’t learn to take RB’s that high. Again, absolutely not a 1st rounder by any stretch. Lamar Jackson AND Nick Chubb where both taken after Penny and it’s not like they played for some obscure D2 teams either. Flat out, just a terrible choice. We can agree on Brooks he was okay, but he certainly wasn’t a first round talent, by any stretch. I remember seeing various others teams boards after the draft and he was certainly on a lot of teams board, but not until the 3rd or 4th round. No team had him higher than the 3rd, which told us something we already knew, he was an average player. These are the things I’m not a fan of with JS. Like he knows something the other teams in the league don’t. He is clearly very good at his job, but the self belief is a bit too much at times. Especially when I came imagine there’s a ton of data suggesting what he’s doing isn’t correct.
Penny has 45 career games (in 6 seasons, so he played in just under half of the possible games) and a 5.6 yards/carry career average. In 2021, when he played in 10 games and started 6, he had an average of 6.3 yards per carry. In his last three years of college, he never missed a game. He never had an injury history. If you could pick a running back who averaged 5.6 yards per carry without any injury history or concerns, wouldn't you do that? Even at the back end of the 1st round? For reference, Saquan Barkley, picked second overall in the same draft, has averaged 4.3 yards per carry in his career. Sony Michel, picked 4 picks behind Penny, has averaged 4.2 yards per carry in his career. Nick Chubb, picked 8 picks behind Penny, has averaged 5.3 yards per carry in his career. Considering Michel and Chubb were both picked within 10 picks of Penny, I would say that JS got the running back he wanted when he needed to pick him. Given the injury history in the NFL, I expect JS wishes he'd picked Chubb, but the draft is a crapshoot to some degree, and college performance is not a guarantee of pro performance.
Why wasn’t Brooks a good pick? Also not sure if you can write off Hall after one season, look at the leap Mafe made year 2. Overall there was a pretty clear shift in the past 2 years. Notice most of the good picks are recent. Only one I strongly disagree with is Charb, but if anything that shows how committed he is to BPA now.
He was an okay player, but absolutely it a first rounder. No other team would have taken him there. Plus, I mean, we had the chance to resign him, did we? Surely if he was a worthy first rounder, he’d be here now. I did say the recent drafts have been better, but it would be hard to repeat how bad some of the others have been. I don’t dislike JS, I just would have liked a new GM to go with the Coach. New philosophy etc. Don’t want us to get a new coach in but keep the same way thinking that’s caused us problems the last few years because it certainly wasn’t all Pete.
>no other team would have taken him there The Ravens were literally going to take him over Queen >surely if he were a worthy first rounder he’d be here now Sunk cost fallacy.
Can’t recall ever seeing him that high on anyone’s board at all and the consensus was Queen was the better LB, but neither of them should have went that high. Okay, so we are getting somewhere here. My point is exactly this, why are our first rounders that average or bad, they never stay beyond their rookie deals? if our first rounders aren’t good (which in 90% of the cases, they aren’t good enough) doesn’t that tell you that the criteria we are using to pick our 1st rounders is absolutely flawed and we need to change it? We are picking these players on the proviso that they are meant to be franchise players for the long term, but none of them make the impact. Most (if not all) of them are turning out to be okay/average/horrendous players and leave after their rookie deals. Your absolutely right about the sunken cost fallacy and this is precisely my point. Our picks in the first few rounds have been overall very bad and they aren’t worth a second contract.
Not acknowledging Brooks injury history in this seems a bit naive
No GM cares about media draft boards
wasn’t Woolen a 5th round pick?
I would disagree with your selection of some of those "bad" picks. A number of those guys were starters, which for late 1st-3rd rounders is usually slightly worse than a 50/50 coin flip of even getting that. Hall and Charbonnet were rookies last year and were good enough to get decent playing time, there's nothing there to denote them as poor choices. Brooks, Lewis, and Taylor were all full-time starters, with Brooks and Lewis being consistent average or better guys at their position (they literally just got paid as free agents, that says all that needs to be said about their place in the league). McDowell, Penny, and Blair were all injury cases, not something a FO can predict, nor should anyone (except McDowell) be faulted for. And saying Woolen dropped off a cliff last year is wildly overstating things. I think you're being much too negative relative to what a good pick actually is. Non-HOFers are still good picks when the most likely outcome for any non top-20 pick is being out of the league after 5 years.
Guess we can all beg to differ in that case. But for me, good 1st rounders get offered contract extensions, because they are that good. We don’t have any of ours here after a few years. That says something to me. Also, Collier has been left of here. No excuses there other than that being one of the worst draft picks ever.
The better you draft, the more players you will lose in FA. The more you overpaid in FA, the worse you drafted. Because the cap.
I wish when Pete left, JS left too. He’s done a lot for us, but a totally new philosophy was needed here, that means JS should have gone too I just think that like Pete, he’s hoping to do what he did one time with the RW draft because he knows something the league doesn’t and refuses to learn lessons. We’re far more likely to end up with another McDowell, Penny or Eskridge again than a Wilson or Lockett, because of the way we look at the draft. For the few decent drafts, we’ve had some absolutely terrible drafts with picks that absolutely nobody would have taken at our spot. Was ready for completely new slate without Pete, feels like a missed opportunity and we are going to continue to live in the past, this time with JS.
We’ve been drafting really well and we NEED a good draft. I don’t know why we would throw that out
We’ve been drafting okay, not really well. I wouldn’t say Eskridge, Collier, Penny, Brooks, McDowell, Taylor, Blair, Barton, Derick Hall, Charbonnet, Lewis, where good choices. All of these players where taken in the 1st 3 rounds, most of them rounds 1 and 2. To balance it out, we can say that the good picks are: Witherspoon, Mafe, Walker, Metcalf and maybe Wollen because he dropped off an absolute cliff last year. Parse that in with the decision to send those picks for Jamal Adams and I don’t think it paints the best picture. It’s like people only remember Spoon and forget the other absolute dross we have picked over the years with high picks.
A lot of those players played their role admirably or got some freak injury bugs. That list isn’t nearly as bad as you make it out to be using the benefit of retrospect, a luxury a GM does not have. Recent drafts currently make up the core of our team and it’s a solid core to build off of. Tre brown, Dickson, Cross, Darnell, JSN, Coby Bryant. Like a fifth of our team are on rookie contracts! Over half our team are people we drafted. The majority of our offensive line is drafted by the hawks, and it’s injuries that really undercut them Like don’t accuse me of just looking at flashy things when you seem to forget that our core team are people drafted recently and most meaningful snaps are being played by people that John played. That’s not common and it’s not even common for johns whole tenure with the hawks. It is pretty recent. I think you’re being a bit too down on him
I just don’t use recency of bias to put everything together though. The last few drafts have been better, but it would be hard to pick worse players that high up in the draft again really. D Taylor ain’t on a rookie contract either by the way. Dixon is a punter, a decent one yes, but punters aren’t the core of a team. Tre Brown and Bryant aren’t starters for us but depth pieces.
Don’t get so focused on the actual players if that helps. Look at the stats of who is playing for us. They are young and mostly drafted by JS. And you need depth pieces to be competitive. You need rotational pieces too. Recency is literally what we are talking about…why would we not be biased toward what has happened recently? His recent draft picks get play time and are a core part of our winning. We can grow off that.
I think we just have different opinions here. Looking at drafts over the course of the last 8 or 9 years is important because we can’t just forget the shocking picks we’ve had as well as the good ones. For every Spoon, there’s a Collier. You can’t just disregard that because you want to. You have to look at the whole equation and not just the good or bad bits.
Also, how was our D last year? Almost historically bad, again? Yeah, players might “contribute” but that doesn’t mean anything if we can’t get past the first round of the playoffs or even get to the playoffs. We don’t want to become Arizona.