Seahawks against NFL trend--but with their new coach--on 1st-round draft pick Byron Murphy
Byron Murphy was with his heroes. His mother and father.
“They sacrificed so much for me and my (three) brothers,” Murphy said Thursday night of Byron Sr. and Seneca Murphy.
Byron Murphy, the elite, run-stopping, pass-rushing defensive tackle from the University of Texas, was speaking from his hometown of Dallas, on the evening his dreams came true.
“They always found ways to make ends meet,” he said of his parents, “no matter what.”
The Murphys were with their friends Thursday night — 300-400 of them. That’s how many folks gathered at the historic Statler Hotel in downtown Dallas for his mega draft party.
Sixteen picks into the NFL draft Thursday, Seahawks general manager John Schneider broke up the party. He called Murphy on his smart phone — to tell the elite, run-stopping, pass-rushing defensive tackle from the University of Texas he was Seattle’s choice in round one.
“When I got that call I was happy. I was excited,” Murphy said by phone from Dallas.
“It was like a dream come true. ...I was thinking Minnesota (at 11, or at 17, right behind Seattle), because Minnesota was on me, hard.”
Ultimately, not as hard as the Seahawks were.
They didn’t trade down.
Then again, they didn’t expect every defensive player in this draft but one to be available to them.
Four trade offers declined
Schneider and new Seahawks defense-first head coach Mike Macdonald were ecstatic at how the league drafted all offense across the first 14 picks Thursday. That included six quarterbacks in the first 12 selections. The unprecedented run of offense to begin round one meant just about the entire draft on defense was available to Seattle at 16.
“Yeah,” Schneider said with a scoff late Thursday night. “I mean, to sit here and think at the start of it that we’d be able to acquire him? We’d be lying to ya.
“We’ve never ever seen that. Six quarterbacks. All the offensive linemen...yeah, it was pretty rare.”
Schneider said he had four opportunities to trade down with other teams to gain a second-round pick the Seahawks don’t have Friday (because of their trade for defensive tackle Leonard Williams last fall). But Murphy was a game-changing force at a position of need on the weakest part of what was a bad defense in 2023.
So, no trade.
“We were just super-blessed,” Schneider said. “So we just stayed and picked.”
Seattle chose Murphy — over available Alabama edge rusher Dallas Turner. Turner was widely predicted to be the first defensive player drafted this year
Why Murphy over Turner? Because of run defense.
Murphy was considered the best player in this draft class at stopping the run and rushing the passer from defensive tackle, a position of huge need for Seattle. The team had the 31st-ranked run defense in the league last season. Macdonald is here to replace fired coach Pete Carroll to fix that, first and foremost.
“I’m very aggressive. Just a very dominant player,” Murphy said. “Stop the run and rush the passer; I’m a three-down guy.
“I fit perfectly in their scheme.”
Turner went with the next pick after Seattle took Murphy, to the Minnesota Vikings at 17th overall.
Murphy is 6 feet 1 and 305 pounds. He’s not a massive, bulldozer nose tackle. He is an ultra-athletic, strong, one-gap tackle He beats opposing guards through that gap with quickness.
He attributes his speed and agility inside to being a running back and linebacker into ninth grade growing up in Texas.
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He spent much of last season in the backfields of college offenses playing against his Longhorns. The Washington Huskies had troubles blocking Murphy Jan. 1 in the Sugar Bowl national semifinals. Michael Penix Jr.’s ability to deftly get away from Murphy that night was why UW’s quarterback had an astounding performance leading the Huskies to the win over Texas and into the national championship game.
‘The steal of the draft’
Jake Butt, college football analyst for the Big Ten Network posted on social media as round one of the draft was ending Thursday night: “Right now Byron Murphy is the steal of the draft.”
While many projected the Seahawks picking Washington Huskies offensive tackle Troy Fautanu or others at 16, Schneider, his Seattle scouts and the team’s new coaching staff focused on Murphy.
“Man, I met with them at the combine (in Indianapolis) in early March,” Murphy said. “What stood out to me was they welcomed me with open arms. It felt like family right away.”
Inside of a top-30 prospect visit to team headquarters, new Seahawks defensive line coach Justin Hinds had an online video call with Murphy this spring. Seattle’s coaches did not attend the combine; they stayed back at team headquarters to finish their new playbooks with Macdonald.
So Murphy still hasn’t been to Seattle.
“I heard it rains a lot, though,” he said.
Hinds told Murphy he will be a “three-technique” tackle on Seattle’s defensive line. That is, the “B” gap between the offense’s guard and tackle. That’s where he made big plays for Texas, though he also played some nose tackle over the center for the Longhorns.
Murphy joins Seattle’s group of defensive linemen that includes veteran Williams, the tackle who turns 30 in June. The team re-signed Williams this offseason as its top priority for free agency to a contact worth up to $64 million. The Seahawks have nose tackle Jarran Reed, 31, heading into the final year of his contract. Seattle drafted defensive linemen Cam Young for the inside and Mike Morris more as an outside end last year. Both played only 18% and 32% of defensive snaps as rookies.
“They told me — we had a Zoom meeting — and the D-line coach said that’s where I’ll be playing,” Murphy said. “They see me as a three-tech.”
He sees his job with the Seahawks to be “turnovers, get sacks and stop that run.”
Macdonald said the beauty of Murphy in Seattle’s new defensive scheme is similar to why the team made Williams its top priority to retain this offseason. The new coach said Murphy and Williams can play multiple spots along the defensive line for the Seahawks, sometimes over the guard, sometimes out by the offensive tackles, at times over the center.
Murphy impressively played some nose tackle for Texas while weighing less than 300 pounds.
“Both guys have position flexibility,” Macdonald said of Murphy and Williams. “I mean, Leonard can play all across the line. So can Byron.
“That’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about it, is you’re not going to know where guys are going to necessarily be all the time. We’ll have some really sweet ways to move guys around and have ‘em in different spots based on the teams we’re going to play. A lot of flexibility going in. A lot of pass-rush opportunities, match-ups, things we can manipulate. All that’s on the table.
“It will be fun to see how that shakes out.”
Macdonald’s defense he coordinated last season with the Baltimore Ravens used disguised looks and players in interchangeable places and roles to confuse offenses — and become the first in league history to lead it in fewest points allowed, turnovers and sacks.
Though he grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Murphy said he was a fan of the Seahawks’ Super Bowl teams of the early 2010s. He rattled off the names of native Texan Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Michael Bennett, Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch, Jermaine Kearse and others who led Seattle into consecutive Super Bowls in the 2013 and ‘14 seasons.
“Michael Bennett that was the guy on that D-line,” Murphy said of another fellow Texan, who went to Texas rival Texas A&M.
The first round of the draft
The Seahawks had every defensive player in this draft available to them, except Laiatu Latu. The defensive end from UCLA, and formerly the University of Washington before a career-threatening neck injury, went 15th overall. The Indianapolis Colts made Latu the first defensive player selected in this draft.
Seattle also had the opportunity to select Fautanu; the offensive tackle from UW was available to the Seahawks. General manager John Schneider conspicuously talked, at length, from the middle of the Dempsey Indoor field with Fauntanu in front of personnel from 29 other NFL teams at the Huskies’ Pro Day last month. Schneider was front and center for Fautanu’s drills that day.
Fautanu may be able to play guard in addition to tackle in the NFL. The Seahawks’ guard spot is perhaps their weakest position.
Yet Macdonald’s first job is fixing the defense, specifically run defense. And Seattle still hasn’t used its first pick in a draft on a true college guard since Steve August in 1977.
The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Fautanu at 20th overall Thursday.
Any thought of the Seahawks with new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, the UW play caller until three months ago, selecting Penix ended earlier in the evening.
The Atlanta Falcons surprised the league by drafting Penix eighth overall. They did that one month after they signed veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins to a contract with $100 million guaranteed.
But the six quarterbacks in the first dozen picks, ending with Oregon’s Bo Nix to Denver at 12th overall, did not surprise Schneider and the Seahawks. The GM said that’s how the team had mocked the first half of the first round going.
It was the offensive tackles going with them among the first 14 selections that surprised Seattle. That is what pushed Murphy down, unexpectedly, to the Seahawks.
“We did think there were going to be a lot more trades,” Schneider said of round one, in which there were two. “We were afraid some teams would trade up to get Byron.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2024 at 7:12 PM.
