Surprise of this Seahawks draft? It was so conventional, so directly addressing needs
No out-of-left-field surprises that made fans and followers ask “Who--and why--is THAT?!”
No head-scratching reaches at the top of the draft. No players the rest of the league had as far more distant projects — if draftable, at all.
The Seahawks had clear, urgent needs entering this 2022 NFL draft, coming off a 7-10 season out of the playoffs for only the second time in 10 years.
They exited this draft Saturday having filled those needs.
Double-filled them, in fact.
This was by far the most practical, least why-did-they-pick-that-guy? draft of the Pete Carroll/John Schneider era.
“Wait, what are you saying?” Carroll joked Saturday.
That was after Seattle made the last of its notably utilitarian nine draft picks.
“It fit, yeah. It did,” Carroll said. “The opportunities of the numbers where our positions were, it fit the choice.”
New offensive tackles
The Seahawks need two new starting offensive tackles this coming season. So they made Charles Cross from Mississippi State — “just 21 years old (yet) already the cleanest pass-blocker of this class,” Tacoma-based NFL draft guru Rob Rang of Fox Sports said — the ninth-overall pick in round one Thursday. “Sweet Feet” Cross is likely to replace unsigned 36-year-old Duane Brown as Seattle’s starting left tackle.
Cross is a throwback to how Carroll first rebuilt the Seahawks. The 70-year-old coach’s first pick for Seattle 13 drafts ago was Russell Okung, the sixth-overall choice in 2010.
They drafted Abraham Lucas from Archbishop Mitty High School and Washington State, in round three Friday. He is going to compete with 2021 undrafted rookie surprise Jake Curhan to replace departed Brandon Shell as Seattle’s new right tackle.
Carroll has said improving the team’s pass rush was a top priority. Lack of pressuring opposing quarterbacks into mistakes is largely why Seattle and its 31st-ranked defense produced just 18 takeaways last season, the fewest in team history.
In round two Friday, the Seahawks selected University of Minnesota edge rusher Boye Mafe.
In Saturday’s fifth round, they drafted Ohio State rush end Tyreke Smith.
Carroll will have them both flying off the edges of the Seahawks defense with returning Darryl Taylor and others in search of more pressure in new coordinator Clint Hurtt’s changed defensive schemes.
Chris Carson’s situation
Lead rusher Chris Carson’s unknown return from tricky neck surgery in November plus Rashaad Penny’s contract ending after 2022 made running back a trouble spot. So the Seahawks drafted Michigan State’s game-breaking runner Kenneth Walker in the second round. Walker romped for 190 yards and five touchdowns against a rugged Michigan defense that allowed only six other rushing scores all of last season.
The Seahawks played eight cornerbacks last year. That was because of the departures of 2020 starters Shaquill Griffin and Quinton Dunbar in free agency plus multiple injuries and the failure of Akhello Witherspoon, whom Seattle eventually traded to Pittsburgh.
Tre Brown, a 2021 Seahawks draft pick, impressed coaches but had his rookie season limited by injury. Seattle re-signed former University of Washington cornerback Sidney Jones to potentially start opposite Brown. But Jones is signed only for 2022.
So Carroll and Schneider drafted two cornerbacks this weekend.
Coby Bryant for Kobe Bryant
Coby Bryant from Cincinnati was a fourth-round choice Saturday. He was the Jim Thorpe Award winner last season as the top defensive back in major college football. Schneider said Bryant, named after the late NBA legend, has already asked the Seahawks if he can wear Kobe Bryant’s immortalized jersey number 8 for Seattle.
The most intriguing Seahawks pick of this class may be the other cornerback, Tariq Woolen. The fifth-round pick from Texas-San Antonio is 6 feet 4 and has run a 40-yard dash in 4.26 seconds.
“It was pretty crazy,” Woolen said. “Whenever I got the official time, I was like “dang!”
Carroll said he doesn’t think anyone so tall has run so fast in football.
Woolen is like Richard Sherman, the Carroll prototype for Seahawks cornerbacks. He’s tall with long (33 5/8-inch) arms. He was a former college wide receiver transformed into a cornerback. Seattle took Woolen, like Sherman, in the fifth round, at 153rd overall. One spot from Sherman, in fact.
Woolen said he knows all about Sherman and the All-Pro, Super Bowl-winning cornerback’s Legion of Boom legacy in Seattle.
“I’m just crazy to be in kind of the same footsteps as him,” Woolen said. “Now it’s what I do when I get there. ...
“I went to a team that fits me.”
The depth at wide receiver had thinned over the years with departures of second-liners such as David Moore in free agency to Carolina and Josh Gordon to NFL suspension and eventual free agency. So the Seahawks drafted two of those, too, both in the seventh round: Bo Melton of Rutgers and physical Dareke Young from Division-II Lenoir-Rhyne.
Had needs. Got fills.
“We had a good fit,” Schneider said. “Things kept happening the way they should have.”
What they didn’t do
The one need the Seahawks did not address was off-the-ball linebacker, in the middle to replace Wagner.
Cody Barton impressed coaches in his game and a half replacing the injured Wagner at middle linebacker at the end of last season. Seattle is going to more of a 3-4 defensive style this year, which may move 2020 first-round draft choice Jordyn Brooks from weakside to inside linebacker next to Barton this year. And Carroll said Ben Burr-Kirven, the former Washington Huskies inside linebacker who had knee reconstruction last summer, began running last week, impressing the entire team.
As for the perceived need at quarterback with Wilson now in Denver: The Seahawks didn’t see it as big a one as you may have.
Carroll is keenly interested to see what Drew Lock, the Broncos’ second-round pick from 2019 Seattle got as part of the Wilson trade, becomes in the Seahawks’ system. The team re-signed 31-year-old veteran Geno Smith this month to compete with Lock.
Carroll and Schneider didn’t think there was a quarterback in this weak-QB draft class that could compete with Lock and Smith for the job. Not as a rookie.
Lock and Smith are not signed past 2022. Next year’s draft class is much stronger than this year’s was.
Plus, Cleveland will eventually have to release Baker Mayfield because of his guaranteed contract of $18.85 million for this year and the Browns having traded for Deshaun Watson this offseason.
So the Seahawks may not be done yet adding to the competition at quarterback.
“We’re always competing,” Carroll said — yet again — when asked about new quarterback possibilities.
But that competition wasn’t coming from this draft.
This was such a straightforward Seahawks draft, that the GM and team that had made 84 trades involving picks in their first 12 drafts made only one this weekend. That was a minor move, dropping down 13 spots within the fifth round Saturday and picking up a seventh-round choice from Kansas City. That gave the Seahawks nine choices in this draft.
Seattle used the extra pick to draft the industrious Young. He got his engineering physics bachelor’s degree last spring and played last season at Lenoir-Rhyne while working on his master’s in business administration.
“Yeah, we didn’t move around much. I definitely thought we’d move around more than we did,” Schneider said.
The GM thought he had a trade up in round one, a real Seattle rarity, but “it disappeared” Friday, Schneider said. He thought he had a couple options to trade down from nine in the first round but those also fell through.
So the Seahawks kept uncharacteristically picking on turn and addressing clear needs.
“We grade for our team,” Schneider said. “And it did end up trending to needs.”
They will begin seeing how their draft picks may help with those needs starting Friday with the team’s three-day rookie minicamp.
“We are fired up about it,” Carroll said.
“(Now) it’s time to unwrap the packages and the presents and see what’s in there, so we are looking forward to it.”
SEAHAWKS 2022 DRAFT CLASS
1. Left tackle Charles Cross, Mississippi State
2. Edge rusher Boye Mafe, Minnesota
2. Running back Kenneth Walker, Michigan State
3. Right tackle Abraham Lucas, Washington State
4. Cornerback Coby Bryant, Cincinnati
5. Cornerback Tariq Woolen, Texas-San Antonio
5. Edge rusher Tyreke Smith, Ohio State
7. Wide receiver Bo Melton, Rutgers
7. Wide receiver Dareke Young, Lenoir-Rhyne
This story was originally published April 30, 2022 at 6:36 PM.
