Seahawks’ possible targets on day 2 of the NFL draft. And why/how a trade comes into play
The first night, first round of the NFL draft gets all the attention.
The second day? This year, it has all the depth in talent.
“Still some damn good players up there,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said before rounds two and three Friday.
“We’re excited to keep rockin’.”
Seattle has the firepower to rock.
After trading quarterback Geno Smith to the Raiders and wide receiver DK Metcalf to the Steelers within days last month, the Seahawks have four picks in rounds two and three. That’s capital to trade and move around the draft board, perhaps up from the 50th- and 52nd-overall spots they have in the second round.
Late Thursday night, Schneider was already looking ahead to Friday, when he is scheduled to pick late in round two.
“(Friday), we wait forever to pick,” he said.
As of now, the GM also has to wait until late in the third round Friday night, to the 82nd- then 92nd-overall picks.
Schneider hates waiting through rounds. That’s partly why he’s made 38 trades involving draft choices in his previous 15 drafts as Seattle’s GM.
He sought another deal Thursday night. Schneider said he and his staff had “discussions” about trading down from 18th in the first round. But no other team gave him a real offer to move up to Seattle.
So the Seahawks chose North Dakota State’s Grey Zabel to be their new starting guard. Uncharacteristically, Schneider went obvious and filled the Seahawks’ most urgent need first.
That’s why The News Tribune is predicting he will make a trade Friday, but down. The TNT projects Seattle trading one of its third-round choices, the 82nd pick, to the New York Giants, which will have already had the first selection of the third round. Seattle would move down 17 spots, get the Giants’ 99th-overall choice later in round three, plus New York’s pick at the top of round four Saturday.
Before that, this draft’s strength and depth of talent is in the second and third rounds.
These are the players who didn’t get drafted in the first round Thursday the Seahawks are likely to be targeting Friday:
Jayden Higgins, wide receiver, Iowa State
The 6-foot-4, 214-pound Higgins is a big, productive and smooth route runner. Those are Seahawks needs. They traded the big and productive Metcalf and released the smooth, productive, older Tyler Lockett this offseason.
Higgins is the same height and five pounds lighter than Tetairoa McMillan, the eighth pick in this draft by Carolina Thursday. Higgins has a wingspan more than 6 feet, 7 inches. He specializes in catching jump-ball passes over defenders. The Seahawks would love his competitiveness to seize the ball.
Schneider has taken a wide receiver in the first or second round five times in 15 drafts. This is the year to do it again.
Jalen Milroe, quarterback, Alabama
The TNT asked Schneider at the NFL scouting combine in late February what the TNT also asked him following the 2024 draft.
What is your long-term plan at quarterback?
“Well, hopefully, the (draft) board talks to us, right?” Schneider said Feb. 25 in Indianapolis. “It just hasn’t gone that way.”
It could go the Seahawks’ way this time. It would be only the third time in 16 drafts Schneider selects a quarterback. If Milroe doesn’t go at the top of the second round to QB-needy Cleveland and New Orleans, Schneider could use the pick he got from the Steelers in trading Metcalf to get a quarterback to develop for the future.
Or he could use his four picks Friday to trade up in round two to get him. Then the huge-game-tested Milroe would join Russell Wilson and Alex McGough as the answer to a Seahawks trivia question.
Milroe recently was at team headquarters in Renton for a pre-draft visit. In recent years roughly one in five visits become Seahawks draft picks.
At 6-2, 217 pounds, Milroe has a powerful throwing arm. Yet it’s his explosiveness running outside the pocket, particularly on bootlegs, that fits what Kubiak wants to do with the Seahawks offense, maybe better than new starter Sam Darnold. Milroe’s inaccuracy at times throwing and his 16 touchdowns against 11 interceptions in Alabama’s last season are concerns.
Seattle coaches would have at least two years to address them. That’s essentially how long the 27-year-old Darnold’s new Seahawks contract is. Darnold’s heavily back-loaded three-year deal has so much money in the last year the team will have to decide then whether he earns a second contract.
Tate Ratledge, guard, Georgia
Thursday was the first time since Schneider became GM the Seahawks drafted an interior offensive linemen before the third round.
Will he do it again Friday?
Adding a three-year starter at right guard from a national power would be an emphatic way for Schneider and coach Mike Macdonald to double down on addressing their team’s biggest problem area.
Ratledge is like Zabel. He’s 6 feet, 6 1/2 inches; Zabel is 6-6. Scouts have labeled Ratledge a Zabel-like “dirt dog” for his gruff mentality and physical, mashing blocking. He was all Southeastern Conference each of the last two seasons.
But there is an injury concern. He missed four games last season after a left-ankle injury required Ratledge to have a “tightrope” surgery. Surgeons inserted into his leg a flexible cord or suture-button construct to hold the bones together.
Will Johnson, cornerback, Michigan
Another injury concern. The two-time All-America cornerback was at the draft in Green Bay Thursday night, expecting to be selected in the first round. A widely reported but unspecified knee issue apparently scared off all 32 teams. So he begins Friday still available.
No head coach in the NFL (except Chargers and former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh) has a better inside track to Johnson than Seattle’s Macdonald. The Seahawks’ coach was Michigan’s defensive coordinator for Harbaugh in 2021, the year the Wolverines recruited Johnson to Ann Arbor. Macdonald, Seahawks special-teams coach Jay Harbaugh (also from Michigan) and more Seattle staffers from that Wolverines program have the connections to get to the bottom of all medical information on Johnson.
If Macdonald isn’t deterred, he’d love a 6-2, 194-pound Michigan All-American to join Devon Witherspoon and Tariq Woolen as the Seahawks’ cornerbacks in the coach’s varied defensive looks. That would free the dynamic Witherspoon to do even more — blitzing, nickel, roving — than Macdonald had the star fifth pick in the 2023 draft doing on his defense last season.
Would Macdonald and Schneider use their four picks Friday to trade up in round two to get Johnson?
Harbaugh’s Chargers, by the way, have the 55th pick in round two — five and three spots behind Seattle.
Oluwafemi Oladejo, edge rusher, UCLA
Macdonald has said he will never have enough pass rushers, or too many versatile players who have produced at multiple positions, for his Seahawks defense.
The 6-4, 259-pound Oladejo is both.
He was a college inside linebacker until UCLA moved him outside to edge in 2024. Then he had 14 tackles for losses last season. That was the fourth-most in the Big Ten. His experience inside makes him an asset reading running plays and blocks.
Last year Macdonald drafted another inside-outside linebacker who had 15 tackles for losses his final college season. Tyrice Knight, a fourth round pick, was starting for the Seahawks by September of his rookie season. The next month Seattle traded veteran linebacker Jerome Baker to help get jolting middle linebacker Ernest Jones.
Oladejo could become the third-round pick the Seahawks got from the Raiders in the trade of Smith to Las Vegas last month. But he’s become a trendy name around the league as a second-day pick, so he could be gone by then.
Harold Fannin Jr., tight end, Bowling Green
Kubiak’s system features tight ends in multiple ways: as receivers, H-backs, fullbacks, in-line blockers. That’s more than recent Seahawks offenses.
Fannin knows versatility. The 6-3, 241-pound former safety and wide receiver broke out in 2024. He led the nation with 117 receptions and 1,555 receiving yards. He had 10 touchdowns receiving, and another score as a rusher. He is the first tight end to be the Mid-American Conference player of the year.
The Seahawks’ tight ends are Noah Fant, back for the final year of his contract, and impressive 2024 rookie AJ Barner. And that’s about it.
Brady Russell used to be a tight end on the roster, but this week the team changed the special-teams mainstay’s listing to fullback. And Russell has played only 2% and 4% of offensive snaps his first two seasons at tight end for Seattle.
Schneider sent scouts to Northwest Ohio in 2023 into ‘24 to study Mike Jerrell, the offensive tackle Seattle ultimately drafted in 2024. Jerrell played at Division-II Findlay. He was starting for the Seahawks by last October. Findlay is 25 minutes from Bowling Green.
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 8:51 AM.
