Seahawks will get more, better calls to trade down from nine. Will John Schneider do it?
The only thing more constant and dependable each Seattle spring is rain.
The Seahawks trade down in round one. They just do.
Coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider have traded 10 of the last 11 first-round picks Seattle has had in the NFL draft. That dates to 2012. That’s the draft that brought the Seahawks Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner, Bruce Irvin and, the next year, the franchise’s first and only Super Bowl championship.
The lone exception draft to not trading their first-round pick was 2020. Schneider had yet another trade back, a deal with Green Bay, fall through. Miami gave the Packers a better offer at the last minute, when Seattle was already on the clock. So the Seahawks had to use the 27th overall choice two years ago. They took linebacker Jordyn Brooks.
This stretch of draft dealing down includes Seattle trading back twice in round one in 2019.
Why do they do it?
For the last dozen years, the Seahawks have averaged the 24th of 32 picks in first rounds. They’ve had choice 32, after winning the Super Bowl in February 2014. They’ve had 31, 26 (twice), 25.
Seattle traded its first-round pick for last year and for this year, too. Those went to the New York Jets when the Seahawks acquired All-Pro safety Jamal Adams in the summer of 2020.
Each year, Carroll and Schneider and their scouting staffs have determined the draft has maybe 20-24 players that are first-round quality worthy of the fifth-year contract option that comes with selecting a guy that high. Instead of paying first-round draft prices for players they’ve seen as second-round talent, the Seahawks have traded back. They’ve acquired more picks and often made their initial pick later in round one or in round two.
But then this March Seattle traded Russell Wilson. That massive deal brought the Seahawks a haul of draft picks — including the ninth-overall choice in the 2022 draft that begins Thursday.
Voila!
It took trading away the franchise’s cornerstone and best quarterback Seattle’s ever had to get it, but the Seahawks have a top-10 pick for the first time since 2010. That 2010 draft was months after Carroll and Schneider arrived to reinvent the team.
“It’s going to be different,” Schneider said. “We haven’t experienced it since the first year we were here; we had the two first-round draft picks. So there’s a lot of planning, a lot of thoughts that go through your head, a lot of different scenarios.
“It’s obviously exciting, but it’s not necessarily a place that you want to be drafting.”
In 2010, coming off a 5-11 season which got Jim Mora fired after his only season as their coach, the Seahawks selected Russell Okung at sixth overall and Earl Thomas at 14.
“That was a long time ago,” Carroll said last week.
The coach was 58 then. He’s turning 71 in September.
“There is definitely an excitement about this, because there’s only so many things that can happen,” Carroll said.
“When you’re picking 25th, and 28th, and down, there’s a million scenarios. This is not like that. It’s a little different. So, there’s a different level of excitement about the opportunity.”
The opportunity, that is, to deal. Again.
The argument to pick at nine
It’s one thing to field trade calls when you are picking 26th or 24th. It’s absolutely another when you own pick number nine.
Yet there’s an easy argument fans and followers have already made: If there was ever a Carroll-Schneider year the Seahawks should use their top choice and not trade it, it’s this one.
- The team is coming off a 7-10 season, its most losses since 2009. The Seahawks missed the playoffs in January for only the second time in 10 years.
- For the first time in 10 years they don’t have a set plan at the sport’s most vital position: quarterback.
- Both starting offensive tackles are unknown — though last week Carroll said Seattle is still trying to re-sign Duane Brown, the 36-year-old free-agent left tackle.
- The pass rush remains the team’s weakest spot. It’s the reason Seattle forced a team record-low 18 turnovers in 17 games last season. This draft is loaded with pass rushers.
Thing is, Carroll and Schneider also haven’t had a better hand from which to deal their first-round pick.
Eight other teams have multiple first-round choices. Seven of those clubs have choices in round one after Seattle is scheduled to pick.
That includes New Orleans. Through trades this offseason, the Saints own picks 16 and 19. They are even more desperate for a quarterback than is Seattle. New Orleans is starting over not only at QB with Drew Brees retired, head coach and quarterback guru Sean Payton retired, too.
As sure as 405 will be jammed outside the team’s Renton headquarters when the draft begins Thursday at 5 p.m., the Saints will be calling the Seahawks to ask about a trade of that ninth pick. So will other teams.
Fielding calls
Seattle’s GM implied his best offers aren’t going to come until the Seahawks are on the clock Thursday evening.
“We may pick at nine. We may not. We don’t know yet,” Schneider said.
“We’re going to do whatever we can to help this football team as much as we possibly can.
“People know that we’re very open to moving around,” Schneider said. “We’re pliable.”
In most years, a top-10 pick for a team that just lost its starting quarterback means...picking a quarterback. And quarterbacks usually dictate how first rounds go. When the first team picks one, at whichever spot, the urgency spikes with other QB-desperate clubs. They frantically call with new offers to trade into the next draft spots to pick the next quarterback, for fear of missing out on a top one.
But are there enough top ones in this draft to create that urgency? After the University of Pittsburgh’s Kenny Pickett (“Are his hands too small?”) and Malik Willis (“But he only played at Liberty”), few quarterbacks are regarded as top-of-the-first-round talents who could perhaps start immediately in the NFL.
“You usually experience it towards the back of the round where people have a level of urgency about them, and you can kind of tell when you’re speaking to people and you have on your board where you think certain quarterbacks are going to go,” Schneider said. “So yeah, there is a level of urgency that teams can have.
“When you’re in the top 10, we’re not used to that. So we’ll see how it goes.
“We’ll get through our meetings Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday we’ll be on the horn with everybody trying to figure out where we’re going to go or if we’re going to stay and pick.”
Ridder in round two?
The Seahawks reportedly had quarterback Desmond Ridder from the University of Cincinnati in for one of their 30 pre-draft visits the league allows each team. Ridder seems likely to go in round two Friday. Seattle could trade down yet again and still perhaps get Ridder with one of their two (and, if they trade, possibly three) picks in round two.
That’s what The News Tribune’s Seahawks mock draft projects the team is going to do.
The Seahawks could reasonably expect a pass rusher as the ninth-overall pick to immediately address their big problem of pressuring opposing QBs into turnovers.
That is, if they don’t trade down yet again.
“As John said we’ll be interested to see how other people see it and are they willing to come chasing that spot, too,” Carroll said of another Seattle first-round deal.
“Just everything about it. Just more challenging, more exciting. And we’re looking forward to it.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2022 at 10:05 AM.
