TNT’s Seahawks seven-round mock NFL draft: Blockers, pass rushers, runners--and trades
The Seahawks own seven choices entering this unprecedented NFL draft.
Count on them ending up with more.
As sure as John Schneider will have his cell-phone battery fully charged Thursday night, the Seahawks general manager is going to trade picks. It’s just what he does—72 times in the last 10 years, in fact. He’s traded his original first-round choice in each of the last eight drafts.
He’s about to make it nine in a row.
That’s what I’ve got in the News Tribune’s annual seven-round Seahawks mock draft.
Something to consider: coach Pete Carroll mentioned on a pre-draft Zoom call this week how different it will be for this year’s draftees to get ready to contribute as much right away in 2020 compared to other year. The coronavirus pandemic wiping out all minicamps, OTAs and the normal on-field learning for a kid in the NFL.
“It’s going to be much different,” Carroll said. “There are some aspects to it that need to be addressed and we really, hopefully, we are going to draft guys and pick up guys in free agency that can adapt quickly and they are going to going to have to be able to make sense of stuff in a lot shorter time frame.
“There’s a lot of this that’s going to be unique and we don’t know what the runway time is going to be once we get them. We won’t know how much time we will have to prepare them.”
That could mean more chance of Seattle trading down at the top of this draft—and perhaps of drafting proven performers at bigger-time college programs over smaller-school projects.
We’ll see:
TNT’s 2020 SEAHAWKS MOCK DRAFT
Round 1 (choice 27 overall): Trade, to Indianapolis.
Schneider does it yet again. Because he and Carroll do not have more than 20 guys rated as first-round talent in this draft. So Seattle trades down, out of the first round.
The Seahawks receive the Colts’ second-round pick (34th overall, the second pick on Friday), plus a fourth-round choice (122) and sixth-round selection (197). Schneider turns seven picks into nine without selecting anyone Thursday.
Round 2 (34) (from Indianapolis): Austin Jackson, OT, USC: I went into why Jackson at length in my first-round mock draft and last week in previewing offensive tackles in this class.
Germain Ifedi is gone, to Chicago. George Fant is gone, too, to the Jets. Duane Brown is 35 coming off surgery. His contract ends after 2021. The nose dive in quality of edge pass rushers in this draft means the Seahawks will get one later in round two, and perhaps more after that.
Jackson was an All-Pac-12 tackle last season—after missing a month of training to donate bone marrow to change his younger sister’s life.
Yes, please.
And then there’s this: “We love our quarterback. We want to keep him,” Schneider said Tuesday of $140 million man Russell Wilson. “We want to have as many grown men in front of him as we possibly can.”
The GM was answering a question for free agency, and Seattle currently having 18 offensive linemen on the roster.
None are like Jackson.
He is 6 feet 5, 322 pounds. And he’s only 20 years old. He gets to grow into an even-more-grown man protecting Wilson for years.
There is late draft buzz Jackson will move up to being taken late in the first round. Late draft sometimes indicates which prospects have the most proactive agents, trying to create added interest move their clients up the board.
Round 2 (59): Jonathan Taylor, RB, Wisconsin: A major coup for Carroll. For months it did not appear the 2,000-yard rusher from the rugged Big Ten would be available deep in round two. But this shows how devalued running back is in the NFL.
In every precinct but Seattle, that is.
Chris Carson and Rashaad Penny are coming off season-ending injuries. Carson is entering the last year of his contract. The Seahawks don’t know when Penny will be back on a field after his complete knee reconstruction this past winter. The only healthy running back Seattle has with NFL experience: Travis Homer, one career start, as a rookie sixth-round pick last year.
Taylor has the size at 226 pounds, speed (4.39 seconds in the 40-yard dash) and power Carroll wants in his runners. Taylor just runs through guys. He averaged more than 1,300 yards after contact per season in his college career for Wisconsin. He set an NCAA record in November with his 12th 200-yard rushing game.
Round 2 (64): Trade, to Miami: The Seahawks send the last pick of the second round they got in the Frank Clark trade last spring to the Dolphins. Miami has a league-high 14 picks entering the draft.
Seattle gets Miami’s third-round choice, 70th overall, and gets the fifth-round pick it doesn’t current have (at 154). With two trades Schneider has turned seven picks into 10. The Seahawks now have two picks in round three, three in round four, one in round five and two in round six.
Oh, and a stud left tackle plus a 2,000-yard rusher. That’ll work.
This all assumes his in-house comms he’s been concerned about are working smoothly for him by this point.
Round 3 (70) (from Miami): Marlon Davidson, DL, Auburn: This would approach DK Metcalf still being around at the end of round two before the disbelieving Seahawks traded up to take him in last year’s draft, if Davidson is still on the board at the top of round three for Seattle here.
He’s a 6-4, 303-pound line-wrecker who has starred at tackle. Many around the NFL feel he can be a 4-3 defensive end. That’s what Seattle runs. Carroll’s been trying to find inside-outside pass rushers since he sent Michael Bennett away and Malik McDowell failed out of the league without ever playing for the Seahawks as their top pick. That was three years ago.
Some thought Davidson would enter the NFL after his junior season. But he stayed at Auburn, to make good on his promise to his mother, Cynthia Carter, when Davidson was in the seventh grade. His mom passed away suddenly five years ago, at the age of 47.
Round 3 (101): Jabari Zuniga, DE, Florida: Finally, the edge pass rusher they desperately need, while they continue to keep the door open for Jadeveon Clowney to re-sign. Zuniga is 6-3, 264. Cliff Avril was 6-3, 260 starring as Carroll’s LEO defensive end rushing off the edge for Seahawks Super Bowl teams.
This is a Carroll-kind of guy. A former basketball player. Played just one season of high-school football. Grew four inches in that one, senior year of high school. Tacoma’s Rob Rang, veteran national NFL draft guru, thinks if not for a high-ankle sprain in 2019 Zuniga might be a first-round pick.
“Zuniga is a coiled-up stick of dynamite, challenging blockers with speed and power, alike, in a way that suggests he should be able to continue playing up and down the defensive line, just as he did at Florida,” Rang recently wrote for Sports Illustrated.
Shhhh! The Seahawks need to keep this tantalizing prospect to fix what was the NFL’s second-worst pass rush last year to themselves.
Round 4 (122) (from Indianapolis): Antonio Gandy-Golden, WR, Liberty: Carroll said last year after the draft his primary goal was to get bigger at wide receiver, post-Doug Baldwin. After the team released undrafted Jazz Ferguson last summer, Metcalf is the only new, big receiver to stick with the Seahawks so far.
Golden is 6-4, about as tall as Metcalf, and 223 pounds, six pounds lighter than Seattle’s bright star. The only reason a wide receiver this big is under the radar in this draft is many radars don’t track Liberty University.
After 71 catches for more than 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns in his final college season at his evangelical Christian college in Lynchburg, Va., Gandy-Goldman got some attention at the Senior Bowl in January. But he ran a 4.6-second 40-yard dash at the league’s scouting combine. That and a historic draft class at wide receiver have some believing Gandy-Golden will drop into the fifth round, despite his tempting size.
Round 4 (133): Saahdiq Charles, OT, LSU: Did I mention Schneider and Carroll’s (re)emphasis on getting more “grown men” to protect Wilson better than he’s been as the NFL’s most pressured quarterback the last few seasons?
Charles is another grown man: 6-4, 321 pounds grown. He’s reputed for his quick feet, especially for his size. That’s something Ifedi lacked trying to get outside on edge rushers as Seattle’s right tackle the last three years.
Charles probably wouldn’t be still on the board here on day three if not for a six-game suspension LSU coach Ed Orgeron gave him for the first half of the Tigers’ national-title season last fall. His exact screw-up remains undisclosed; Charles called it a “selfish and stupid mistake” when he was asked about it at the NFL scouting combine.
Round 4 (144): McTelvin Agim, DT, Arkansas: Another Carroll favorite: a quick defensive tackle who has also played end.
Agim is 6-3, 309. He had 18 1/2 tackles for loss and 9 1/2 sacks in his last two college seasons combined. The second of those seasons, last year, was his first at tackle inside after years on the end. He has end-like quickness off the ball.
One of Carroll’s axioms in Seattle for young players to get on the field is “the more you can do.” Agim can do multiple things for a defensive line that needs more depth inside and out.
Round 5 (154) (from Miami): Michael Ojemudia, CB, Iowa: You didn’t really think the Seahawks would pass on drafting a cornerback, did you? Schneider and Carroll have drafted 10 corners in their first 10 drafts leading Seattle.
They’ve got 2019 Pro Bowl selection Shaquill Griffin with his contract ending, and Schneider on Tuesday refusing to answer a question on Griffin’s future. Seattle’s other likely starting cornerback is Quinton Dunbar, for whom they traded a fifth-round pick to Washington this offseason. Dunbar’s contract ends after the 2020 season, too.
Ojemudia is 6-1, 200 with, yes, 32 (and 1/4)-inch arms, Carroll’s prerequisite for drafting cornerbacks. Assessments of Ojemedia have a common description: long and lean. He started games in all four of his seasons at Iowa.
Because of a belief he lacks NFL skills to go get passes in the air, some see him as a third-day draftee, perhaps in round five. That’s the round the Seahawks drafted Sherman in 2011.
That worked out OK for Seattle.
Round 6 (197) (from Indianapolis): Brian Cole, S, Mississippi State: Carroll wants competition for Ugo Amadi at nickel defensive back inside. Aaron Rodgers exploited Seattle’s 2019 draft pick for big plays late in Green Bay’s playoff win over the Seahawks in January.
Cole has the potential to be that competition for Amadi, and in the varying type Carroll wants. Namely, bigger.
Cole is 6-2 and 213 pounds. Many regard him as a big nickel back for the NFL. He is uniquely older than most draft prospects. He was rated by some as the number-eight recruit in the country as a wide receiver—in 2015. He caught one pass as a true freshman in his only season for Michigan that year. Then he transferred to East Mississippi Community College. He redshirted a year there, then signed with Mississippi State for the 2018 season.
Cole was something of a cornerback/safety hybrid in the Southeastern Conference. Part of the reason he’s expected to be a late-round pick is lack of plays on the ball. He knocked down just passes and had two interceptions in his major-college career, which spanned 17 games over the 2018 and ‘19 seasons.
Round 6 (214): Michael Warren, RB, Cincinnati: Carroll wants depth at running back. This is big depth.
Warren is 226 pounds. His nickname in college was “The Truck.” His thighs are as wide as mudflaps. His 1,000-yard seasons for Cincinnati came from making defenders roadkill. He also showed pass-catching ability with 21 receptions and two for touchdowns last season.
“The Truck,” the first UC player to enter the NFL draft early, is projected to be a third-day pick because of his lack of speed, elusiveness and substandard pass protection. That latter knock is a particular minus for Carroll with young running backs—and, again, for the Seahawks’ offense in general right now.
But if Seattle is using a 226-pound rookie running back to protect Wilson on third downs this season, the pass protection is an even bigger concern than it already is. Like, bigger-than-the-pass-rush concern.
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 3:56 PM.
