Seahawks keep adding to present, future needs, take Miami tight end Elijah Arroyo 2d round
The Seahawks keep addressing needs in this NFL draft.
The latest: Tight end.
Seattle selected University of Miami tight end Elijah Arroyo with their second of two picks in the second round Friday. Arroyo is the 50th-overall pick in the 2025 draft.
Two of the Seahawks’ first three picks in this draft are to help new quarterback Sam Darnold: first-round pick Grey Zabel, the new starting left guard to protect Darnold, and Arroyo to catch his deep passes down the middle of the field.
“Man, it feels unreal. I’m trying to take it all in,” Arroyo said by telephone Friday evening.
He said he had minimal contact with the Seahawks before the draft. That’s unlike the team’s first two picks this weekend, guard Grey Zabel in the first round Thursday and safety Nick Emmanwori earlier in the second round Friday.
The Seahawks measured Arroyo at 6 feet 5, 254 pounds. After an injury-limited 2023 season, he caught seven touchdown passes from quarterback Cam Ward for the Hurricanes last season.
Ward became the first pick in this draft Thursday, to the Tennessee Titans.
“I feel like he made the game lot easier for us,” Arroyo said. “It slowed the game down for me, as well.”
He was asked for his favorite pass pattern.
“My favorite route?” he said. “Any route I get the ball.”
Like most college tight ends, Arroyo says he is continuing to work on improving his blocking as an in-line tight end. New Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and his outside-zone run scheme will demand Seattle’s tight ends block effectively on the edge.
Arroyo’s family moved from Miami to Mexico when he was 7 years old. He played American football for a youth club in Mexico. His Dad was working in Cancun selling time shares, and his family moved from Miami to see more of him there.
He played football and went to school in Cancun until he was 12.
“I was cool with it,” he said of playing youth football in Mexico.
Then his entire family moved to Frisco, Texas. That’s where Arroyo graduated from Independence High School, and signed with Miami.
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 is a tight end on the roster, but he’s been a special-teams mainstay. Russell has played only 2% and 4% of offensive snaps his first two seasons for Seattle.
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 5:55 PM.
