Investigating Seahawks head to NFL combine in a familiar spot, after an unfamiliar season
Once again, the NFL is flocking to Indiana for the NFL scouting combine.
The top prospects in the upcoming draft get most of the attention. They get the podiums with cameras and questioners five deep below them across the floor of the Indiana Convention Center. Those blue-chippers get the national-television broadcasts of their 40-yard dashes. They get their hand-sizes debated endlessly, as if that actually means something.
Pete Carroll and John Schneider? They and their Seahawks staffs are in Indianapolis this week with no first-round pick in the upcoming draft.
Again.
Because of Schneider’s penchant for trading choice up, down and all around each draft — 30 draft deals in 12 years — Seattle has gone without a first-round pick the last two drafts. The Seahawks haven’t had a first-round choice in six of the last 10 years.
Seahawks fans don’t appreciate the reminder that their team would have the 10th-overall pick in next month’s draft, but Seattle traded its first-round picks in 2021 and ‘22 to the New York Jets to acquire safety Jamal Adams. Carroll and Schneider like to say Adams is their first-round pick, that he’s better and more polished than any top rookie would have been from the last two drafts, anyway.
The Seahawks have six choices this year, twice what they had in 2021. The first pick is scheduled to be a 41st overall, in the second round. The only round in which Seattle has multiple picks is round four.
As of now.
While the top prospects get the attention in Indianapolis, Carroll, Schneider and their Seahawks staffs seek the draft’s depth — and its intel. The Seahawks will spend this combine week gathering intelligence from around the league on teams to trade with before and during the draft. That’s in addition to evaluations by Seattle’s medical staff plus 15-minute interview sessions the Seahawks will spend with players most figure will go in the later rounds.
Seattle is coming off a 7-10 season, its most losses since 2009. That was the final season before late owner Paul Allen hired Carroll from USC then made Schneider a first-time NFL GM in January 2010.
The Seahawks’ primary needs in this upcoming draft are similar to the needs of most teams that didn’t make the playoffs last season, and even many that did:
- Pass rushers
- Offensive tackles
- Cornerbacks
Carroll is scheduled to speak to the media at the combine Wednesday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. Schneider is scheduled to talk at 1 p.m. Pacific Time Wednesday. The News Tribune will be there in Indianapolis for their comments.
Pass rushers
Many draft analysts see this year as a strong, deep class for pass rushers.
The Seahawks tend to see every year as a strong, deep class for pass rushers.
Carroll and Schneider have selected 15 sack men in their 12 drafts, seven of them since 2016. They have used a first- or second-round pick on a pass rusher three times in the last five years: Malik McDowell in 2017, L.J. Collier in 2019 and Darrell Taylor in 2020.
Four times, Carroll’s and Schneider’s first pick in a Seahawks draft has been a pass rusher: McDowell, Collier, Frank Clark in 2015 and Bruce Irvin in 2012.
They have largely failed at this key spot recently.
McDowell never played a game for Seattle. He had a mysterious ATV accident with serious head injuries before his rookie training camp in the summer of 2017.
Collier has yet to be anything close to a first-round pick in his first three seasons as a backup defensive end/hybrid tackle deep in Seattle’s line rotation.
Taylor, the team’s second-round pick in 2020, missed all of his rookie season following leg surgery. His speed often overwhelmed opposing offensive tackles off the edge last season. He had 6-1/2 sacks. He showed why the Seahawks drafted him despite a stress fracture in his leg at the University of Tennessee.
Carlos Dunlap had 8-1/2 sacks despite Carroll and since-fired defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. mothballing the now-33-year-old veteran end in November and December. He and Taylor were the only threats to pressure quarterbacks semi-consistently out of Seattle’s front seven defenders.
That’s why the Seahawks created just 18 turnovers in 17 games in 2021. It was the fewest takeaways in a season in team history.
New coordinator Clint Hurtt made it clear last month his team needs more Taylors.
“One thing that is going to be significantly different this year, we are going to be aggressive,” Hurtt said.
“The aggressiveness is going to have to come from our guys up front getting after the passer.”
Many draft analysts have three of the top 12 players in this class overall as edge rushers. A half-dozen pass rushers, or more, could go in the first round this spring.
Because of that, and the premium value on pressuring quarterbacks in today’s NFL, what many see as a pass rusher ranked in the top 50 of this draft may not be available to Seattle at 41st overall. One example could be Drake Jackson from USC.
Long, fast Myjai Sanders from Cincinnati, 6 feet 4-3/8 inches tall, could be available to Seattle within the first 10 picks of the second round.
The Seahawks’ shopping won’t end there. Nine of the 15 pass rushers Carroll and Schneider have drafted for Seattle came in the fourth round or later.
Offensive tackles
The Seahawks’ top three tackles from 2020 and ‘21 are no longer under contract.
The team would like to — might have to — re-sign Duane Brown. He’s said wants to stay and even retire with Seattle. Brown said in January he’d consider staying on a one-year deal.
“I’m not opposed to it,” the four-time Pro Bowl and 2012 All-Pro selection said at the end of his 14th season in the league, the last 4-1/2 with the Seahawks.
He turns 37 before next season begins.
The market for proven offensive tackles in free agency is like for pass rushers on defense: hot, and rich. Even at his advanced age, another team may offer Brown a multi-year deal that the Seahawks may not want to do.
Even if they retain Brown, the Seahawks need more and better offensive tackles. Brandon Shell, the starter on the right side the last two seasons, also is going to explore free agency when the market opens officially March 16. Jamarco Jones, Seattle’s “swing” reserve who’s played both left and right tackle, is also a free agent.
The Seahawks last year made Stone Forsythe the 10th offensive tackle they’ve drafted under Carroll and Schneider. The idea was the sixth-round pick would be Brown’s understudy for 2021, then perhaps his replacement. But the 6-8 Forsythe has not shown coaches he is ready to take the left-tackle job now.
Last year, four offensive tackles went in round one of the draft. At least that many likely will go in the first round this year.
Russell Okung, the first pick of the Carroll-Schneider era in 2010, and Germain Ifedi in 2016 are the only times in 12 drafts Seattle has used its top pick on an offensive tackle.
Six of the 10 tackles Carroll and Schneider have drafted have been in round four or later.
Cornerback
Much has been made of the failures Carroll has had importing veteran free agents as cornerbacks: Cary Williams, Quinton Dunbar, Jamar Taylor, Antonie Winfield back in the day, et al.
Most know Carroll likes his cornerbacks “home-grown” in his unique, Seahawks “step-kick” technique: Byron Maxwell (Seattle’s sixth-round pick in 2011), Jeremy Lane (sixth round, 2012), Shaquill Griffin (third round, 2017), Tre Flowers (fourth round, 2018) and most famously Richard Sherman (fifth round, 2011).
Yet Carroll and Schneider have not drafted a single cornerback in the first or second round for Seattle. Eight of their nine corners picked were in rounds four through seven. Griffin, an instant Seahawks starter who signed last year in free agency with Jacksonville, is the exception.
The Seahawks used one of their franchise record-low three picks in last year’s draft on Brown. Brown missed much of his rookie season injured, but the coaches love him. He could be the 2022 starter opposite D.J. Reed. The starting right cornerback is, with safety Quandre Diggs, the team’s top priority free agents to re-sign this month.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 1:02 PM.
