Seahawks ‘not proud’ of drafting just 2 QBs in 14 years. This seems the year to change it
John Schneider has crisscrossed the country to watch them.
He’s conspicuously gone to their Pro Days. Doing that one spring unsettled his team’s Super Bowl-winning starter.
Schneider just interviewed another elite one, a Heisman Trophy-winning one this week at the NFL scouting combine.
The general manager who went to Wyoming to watch Josh Allen’s Pro Day and rankled Russell Wilson six years ago met with LSU’s Heisman winner Jayden Daniels at the combine this week. Yet in his 14 years running Seahawks drafts, Schneider still has selected just two quarterbacks.
Wilson, Wisconsin, third round, 2012. Alex McGough — who? — Florida International, seventh round, 2018.
And that’s it.
Schneider has been talking about this for more than six years. It’s gotten to the point Seattle’s GM now brings it up himself, unsolicited.
He did it again Tuesday at the Indiana Convention Center, while answering a question about his assessment of the quarterbacks in this year’s draft.
“I’ve told you guys in the past,” Schneider said at this week’s combine. “And having grown up in the Packer organization for (1990s Green Bay GM) Ron Wolf, 14 drafts and only drafting two quarterbacks is not something that we’re necessarily proud of.
“It’s just happened that way. Every year it’s a goal to acquire a quarterback, whether that’s draft free agency, whatever it looks like.”
Will Schneider be more proud of his quarterback draft picks this April?
The time is draft a QB is now. Again.
Geno Smith is the Seahawks’ quarterback of the present.
Schneider re-confirmed that this week. He did it with a much-deconstructed comment, saying his team’s Pro Bowl selection in each of the past two seasons is “the starter until he’s not.”
That statement did nothing to dampen speculation about Smith’s future, beyond right now. Yet it is rooted in fact. Smith will turn 34 during the 2024 season. He has only one year after this one remaining on the three-year, $75 million contract he signed to return to the Seahawks before last season. As of now, Smith’s “not” in Seattle is after the 2025 season.
He is not the Seahawks’ quarterback of the future. They don’t have one. Smith is the only QB under contract in Seattle.
Schneider said the Seahawks are talking this week in Indianapolis to the agent for Drew Lock, Smith’s backup the last two seasons. Lock’s contract has ended. He is two weeks from entering free agency.
Schneider and new head coach Mike Macdonald just hired former Washington Huskies play caller Ryan Grubb to be Seattle’s new offensive coordinator. Grubb is where he is, and Michael Penix Jr. is where he is — throwing at the combine Saturday as one of the coveted ones in a draft class deep in QBs — because of each other. Grubb called Penix’s deep-strike pass plays for more than 9,500 yards with 67 touchdowns the last two college seasons at UW.
Grubb is one of 22 new assistants on Macdonald’s new coaching staff. They are back at team headquarters in Renton instead of at the combine this week, to install their new playbooks and ways.
This year’s class of quarterbacks is perceived to be the deepest in NFL-ready talent in many drafts. Many think the first three picks of the draft will be a combination of quarterbacks Caleb Williams from USC, Daniels and Drake Maye from North Carolina. Penix and Oregon’s Bo Nix are viewed by most to be in the next tier of first QBs drafted in April.
“Yeah, this year’s draft class is a cool group,” Schneider said of the college quarterbacks. “A lot of variances in there.”
For all those reasons and more, The News Tribune asked Schneider Tuesday in Indianapolis: Isn’t it true that if there was ever a year for the Seahawks to finally draft a quarterback, this is it?
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter. No,” Seattle’s GM said.
“I understand the question. But no. It’s every year. If you guys sat in there (in our draft room) with us, it’s literally like, ‘OK, this one’s coming (to us),’ and then it doesn’t happen. ‘That one’s coming’ — and it doesn’t happen.”
The Seahawks aren’t minding talk at the combine this week that Seattle may be drafting a quarterback for its future this spring. The more leaders of other teams think that, the more offers for potential trades Schneider will receive about the Seahawks’ first-round pick.
The crop of quarterbacks who were to have NFL teams’ medical checks plus media interviews Friday then on-field workouts Saturday in Lucas Oil Stadium at the combine is better than last year’s. That was when three of the first four selections were QBs: Bryce Young at one to Carolina, C.J. Stroud at two to Houston and Anthony Richardson at four to Indianapolis.
At last year’s combine, Schneider openly talked about his team considering taking a QB with one of his two first-round picks. He told rolling cameras from behind a podium in Indianapolis in early 2023 he was getting phone calls from NFL teams wanting to trade up to Seattle’s draft spot to get one.
When the Colts drafted Richardson, the Florida quarterback Schneider had scouted at his Pro Day and was keenly interested in this time last year, Seattle’s GM ultimately drafted cornerback Devon Witherspoon fifth and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba 20th.
And the legacy of only Wilson and McGough lived on with Seahawks drafts.
The intrigue on Michael Penix Jr.
The Seahawks seem likely to have Penix available to them when they are scheduled to pick 16th in the first round this year.
Seattle doesn’t have a second-round pick. Schneider traded it to the New York Giants to acquire top veteran defensive tackle Leonard Williams last October.
Schneider has traded his original first-round pick in 10 of his last 12 Seahawks drafts. If he makes it 11 of 13 between now and when it’s Seattle turn at 16th on April 25, it will likely to be to move down and recoup a second-round pick.
Penix could still be available to the Seahawks there.
As wondrous as his two seasons at Washington were leading the country in passing during UW’s 21-game winning streak and march into the national championship game in January, Penix’s medical history is getting scrutiny at the combine. He’s had two torn ACLs in his knee. He had four season-ending injuries in four seasons at Indiana before he transferred to UW. He got banged around while playing in pain last season for the Huskies. He turns 24 in May.
All that is why, no matter how impressive he was at the Senior Bowl showcase for NFL scouts in January or is Saturday as one of the few top QBs throwing at this combine, Penix is no sure-fire first-round pick.
The Seahawks’ offensive coordinator knows him better than anybody in pro, or college, football.
“I think that play-action pass in the NFL is honestly where we got a lot of our concepts, and so when we would base some of the things that we did, it was off of the NFL model,” Grubb said of Penix and his UW offense. “And so I think that some of those high-read plays and flood concepts and things like that that most people run certainly translate really well to the NFL.”
Yet Grubb, and Macdonald, said in recent weeks they are looking forward to coaching Smith. And Lock.
“He’s a competitor,” Grubb said of Smith. “He wants to be coached. He wants to be the best. It means a lot to him. And just hearing his story and his growth as a player and a person is inspiring honestly.
“So, I’m really fired up and looking forward to coaching him and Drew, both. They’re both wonderful guys and they’re competitors.”
This story was originally published February 29, 2024 at 1:51 PM.
