Seahawks draft South Carolina S Nick Emmanwori. Big Kyle Hamilton, Kam Chancellor mems
Mike Macdonald has resumed stockpiling his remade Seahawks defense.
With a big safety that’s already reminded the Seahawks of Kyle Hamilton.
And Kam Chancellor.
General manager John Schneider traded up 17 spots to get Tennessee’s 35th-overall choice three picks into the second round of the NFL draft Friday. It’s the 39th trade involving a pick in the 16 drafts Schneider has been Seattle’s GM.
With that move up, the Seahawks selected Nick Emmanwori, the big, All-American safety from South Carolina.
Seahawks Super Bowl-champion legend Richard Sherman announced the pick of Emmanwori. He joins Sherman’s former Seattle secondary.
Emmanwori said he wants to help recreate the Legion of Boom.
“Honestly, I was excited. Generally, genuinely, I’m happy they came and got me,” Emmanwori said Friday night by telephone from his draft party at a lakeside home he and his family rented in Columbia, South Carolina.
Schneider and the Seahawks sent the Titans Seattle’s second of two choices in Friday’s second round, the 52nd-overall pick, plus the 82nd pick in round three. That latter choice was the first of two selections Seattle had in the third round entering Friday.
The trade leaves the Seahawks with nine total picks in this draft. For now.
As Emmanwori spoke through a speakerphone at Seahawks headquarters, what sounded like corks popping off champagne bottles were going off in the background.
Emmanwori said through his top-30 prospect visit to Seahawks headquarters and pre-draft meetings with Seattle this spring, of all the NFL teams he spoke to he “felt most connection with them.”
“Felt great when I went up there for the visit talk to the coaches and had a great vision,” Emmanwori said.
“So if it was, if it was anybody to do it, I knew it was gonna be them.”
The Seahawks and Coach Macdonald appear to have two visions for Emmanwori: Kam Chancellor, and Kyle Hamilton.
Emmanwori is 6 feet 3, 220 pounds. He was recruited into college as a linebacker. He played a ton near the line of scrimmage, “in the box” as a run-defending and jamming safety for South Carolina.
He ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at the NFL combine this winter. That vaulted him to first- and second-round consideration — and squarely into Macdonald’s thoughts to draft.
When he was the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator in 2022 and ‘23 before the Seahawks hired him, Macdonald drafted then had Hamilton, Baltimore’s 6-4, 220-pound safety, roaming all over Baltimore’s defense. Macdonald turned Hamilton into a first-time Pro Bowl selection in 2023. He’s now an All-Pro playing how Macdonald used him.
Emmanwori said Macdonald has already mentioned Hamilton in talking how the Seahawks want to use him.
“Man, you know, Mike’s got a good track record in NFL. You know, came from the Ravens. Had Kyle Hamilton under him, under his belt. Did a lot with him,” Emmanwori said.
“So him being my head coach, man, means a lot to me, what he thinks about me and what I can do in his system.”
As for Hamilton, Emmanwori said Macdonald and the Seahawks have told him “me and him are very similar.”
“But, no, I can still work on some things to get up, you know, to his even to his All-Pro level as he is.”
Emmanwori can expect the same strategies. The Seahawks would sure love the same results.
Pro Bowl veteran Julian Love and emerging Coby Bryant were Macdonald’s starting safeties last season. Love, 27, is signed through 2027. Bryant’s rookie contract ends with the end of the 2025 season.
Love welcomed Emmanwori to the Seahawks on his social-media account online Friday night.
“LET’S GET TO IT! Congrats @Eman7Nick Time to spin” Love posted on X/Twitter, with a tornado-cloud emoji.
The Kam Chancellor link
The Seahawks also have their own history with big safeties many considered like a linebacker.
Chancellor turned out OK for Seattle.
“Man, honestly, Kam Chancellor!” Emmanwori said of the four-time Pro Bowl safety and Seahawks Super Bowl champion who retired from the NFL and his only pro team because of a neck injury following the 2019 season.
“Kam Chancellor is a crazy connection. My college coach was also his college coach. Coach Torrian Gray. Coach Gray coached him (at Virginia Tech) and he coached me.”
Gray, 51, played at Virginia Tech in the mid-1990s. He was Virginia Tech’s defensive backs coach from 2006-15.
The Seahawks drafted Chancellor from the Hokies in the fifth round in 2010.
“Coach Gray used to tell me all the time that we had a lot of similarities. Used to compare our game a lot,” Emmanwori said.
Like Chancellor, many see Emmanwori as a in-the-box safety only. He also played just three years of college football, a rarity in today’s college football world of unlimited transfers, COVID years and six- and seven-year seniors.
Being three years removed from high school could have been a reason he didn’t get drafted in the first round Thursday.
“I don’t want to put myself in one box. But I think I can do it all,” Emmanwori said. “I can play in the back end. I can play towards the box. I can line up at nickel.
“A lot of people probably have me penciled in as a box safety...I am a little bit more dominant towards the box, but I also can be dominant in the post.”
Indeed, he wasn’t just a thumper at South Carolina. Last season he had four interceptions. He returned two of them for touchdowns.
Emmanwori said he’d consider wearing Chancellor’s number 31 with the Seahawks, but not really.
“I think his number is open or maybe I could talk sweet and get it. But that’s his own legacy,” Emmanwori said. “Kam Chancellor is his own man. It would be cool to put his number on, but I kind of want to make my own legacy in the NFL.
“I don’t want to step behind another man’s legacy. I want to build my own and try to surpass him or be better so the next generation can wear my number.”
He wore 7 last season at South Carolina, 21 before that.
Chancellor sent Emmanwori a direct message on social media during the first round of the draft Thursday night.
It blew Emmanwori away.
“Honestly,” he said, “Kam Chancellor is one of my favorite safeties ever.”
“So it just means a lot going to Seattle. Used to watch him all the time on TV. Used to pull up his highlights before games.
“Like, it’s crazy.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 4:34 PM.
