NFL awards Seahawks three comp picks in next month’s draft, team promotes two coaches
Three additional draft choices. Plus, two coach promotions.
Now that’s a productive Seahawks Tuesday in March.
The NFL released its 32 compensatory selections for next month’s draft. As expected, the league awarded Seattle three comp picks, one short of the maximum given in a draft.
The Seahawks have additional choices at the end of rounds three (the 101st selection overall), four (144th overall) and six (214th overall) this year.
The additional third-round pick is the highest round of comp choices for top-tier free agents lost from the previous year. Seattle’s third round comp pick is the result of All-Pro safety Earl Thomas signing with Baltimore in free agency before the 2019 season.
The Seahawks now own eight picks in the draft April 23-25. That includes six in the first three rounds: one selection in the first round (27th overall), two in the second (at 59th and 64th), one in the third round (101) and two in the fourth round (133 and 144).
Seattle does not have a seventh-round choice this year. The Seahawks traded it to New England to get back into the end of the seventh round of last year’s draft, so they could select wide receiver John Ursua.
That is, they don’t have a seventh-round pick right now. It’s a near certainty general manager John Schneider will trade to acquire more picks before and during next month’s draft.
The Seahawks have made deals involving their first-round picks in eight consecutive drafts. They trade down from their first-round spot pretty much every year because they have been picking in the late 20s and early 30s—and rarely have more than 24 players graded as first-round talent in any draft.
Last year, Schneider turned a league-low four choices into 11 picks through wheeling and dealing throughout the draft.
The league determines comp picks from a complicated formula of free-agent signings and losses from the previous year. The simplest way to describe it: a team gets comp picks if it has a net loss of unrestricted free agents departing to sign elsewhere versus the number of unrestricted free agents that team added through signings. Three more free agents lost than signed from a previous year generally nets three comp picks in the next draft.
The Seahawks lost in free agency in the spring of 2019 Thomas, defensive back Justin Coleman, defensive tackle Shamar Stephen, backup quarterback Brett Hundley, defensive tackle Shamar Stephen and guard J.R. Sweezy. Seattle signed free-agent kicker Jason Myers and guard Mike Iupati.
Coleman loss in free agency netted a fourth-round comp pick. Shamar leaving netted the sixth-round pick.
Seattle signing Iupati counted against the Seahawks in the comp-pick formula, which is why the Seahawks didn’t get the max four compensatory choices. But they needed a starting left guard.
General manager John Schneider has been playing the maximizing comp-pick game for years.
For instance, the reasons Seattle traded a sixth-round pick to Green Bay for Hundley before the 2018 season with no intention of him playing instead of Russell Wilson were: 1.) he had NFL starting experience, and 2.) he had one year remaining on his contract, and 3.) when Hundley left after that season and signed in free agency, the Seahawks would net a comp pick for it effort.
Hundley indeed never played a snap in Seattle backing up Wilson, then signed with Arizona last offseason. Schneider eventually flipped that sixth-round pick in 2019 (he ended up getting multiple picks in that round anyway through trades) for a third-round pick this year—in order to sign an insurance policy at quarterback the Packers were probably going to cut in 2018, anyway.
That’s how the Seahawks’ GM has done offseason business with an eye on maximizing comp picks.
Coaches promoted
The Seahawks have yet to announce it, but a league source confirmed to The News Tribune Tuesday night Seattle has promoted Dave Canales from quarterbacks coach to passing game coordinator, and Austin Davis to quarterbacks coach.
Davis was Wilson’s backup QB on the Seahawks in 2017. The 30-year-old Davis is six months younger than Wilson, and will now be his position coach—in title.
Day to day, offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer goes deep into the fundamentals of quarterbacking with Wilson.
Canales, 38, has been an assistant to Pete Carroll in Seattle since Carroll arrived before the 2010 season. He worked with the Seahawks’ wide receivers from 2010-17.
