Another pass rusher: Seahawks 5th-round pick Tyreke Smith has hooped with Bobby Wagner
Years ago, Tyreke Smith was living in California playing pickup basketball.
One of his opponents on the court that day: a then-new Seahawks draft choice named Bobby Wagner.
“At a rec center. I used to play basketball with his cousin,” the 22-year-old Smith said Saturday from his home in Florida. “And Bobby Wagner, he had just gotten drafted by Seattle. He had come up to the rec center and played basketball.
“He was good, too!”
The now-former Seahawks All-Pro linebacker is a renowned woofer about his basketball skills, though Smith said he doesn’t remember Wagner’s talk on the court as much as Wagner’s impressive hoops game.
Now Smith is what Wagner was: a Seahawks draft choice.
Seattle selected Smith, an edge rusher from Ohio State, to address one of their most pressing needs in the fifth round of the NFL draft Saturday.
He and his family celebrated — genuinely bashed — at their home in Coral Spring, Florida, when the Seahawks picked him.
That scene is reminder this NFL draft changes lives. Those calls from teams spark genuine joy from families who have spent years into decades supporting a player’s dream.
Smith is 6 feet 3, 254 pounds. He played in primarily a 4-3 defensive scheme at Ohio State, though he said he did some off-the-ball duties off the edge of the Buckeyes’ defense.
The Seahawks are going to more of a 3-4 style in 2022. To do it, coach Pete Carroll has changed coordinators (from Ken Norton Jr. to Clint Hurtt) and much of his defensive coaching staff. They are going to feature faster, athletic edge rushers who are more outside linebacker than defensive end.
Smith said Seahawks coaches have already told him said they intend to use him as outside-linebacker edge rusher.
Asked if as they talked to him before the draft he could envision himself playing in the Seahawks’ changing defense, Smith proclaimed into the phone: “Yeahhhhh!!!
“I could definitely see myself (playing for Seattle),” Smith said. “Just my dominance and my rushing ability...my motor, how dominant I am, and my motor to the ball.
“I fit in great with the defense.”
Like Wagner — and like Seahawks first-round pick and left tackle Charles Cross from Thursday — Smith played basketball into high school.
The Seahawks value line-of-scrimmage players who have the footwork and speed of basketball players.
“I had an offer in eighth grade from Air Force, in basketball. I got my first offer in basketball. I thought I was going to be playing basketball all the way through,” Smith said.
“But once I started locking in on football and gearing my focus toward football, I changed my training on football. I just played basketball mainly to stay in shape.”
Smith is the second edge rusher Seattle selected among its first seven picks in this draft. Friday, the Seahawks chose Boye Mafe from the University of Minnesota.
Carroll has said increasing pressure on opposing quarterbacks was the first priority for his team to improve on its 7-10 season of 2021. Seattle forced just 18 takeaways last season, fewest in team history.
This story was originally published April 30, 2022 at 12:46 PM.
