NFL draft day 3: Seahawks address more needs: a wide receiver + a HUGE fullback round 5
It took a minute — then hours — but the Seahawks got to addressing their needs at wide receiver, and their new position, on an eventful third day of their draft.
Seattle selected tall, fast Colorado State wide receiver Tory Horton in the fifth round with the 166th-overall pick. It was the second of the team’s three picks in the NFL draft Saturday.
Then they pick Robbie Ouzts, a tight end from Alabama, to be a fullback.
The 6-foot-2, 196-pound Horton took a top-30, pre-draft visit to Seahawks headquarters this spring—”a great visit, actually,” he said Saturday.
The team brought him in because Seattle’s medical staff had questions about a knee injury in October that cut short his final college season.
“Being on the phone, just getting that call, means everything to me,” Horton said early Saturday afternoon from his childhood house in Fresno, California.
“I love the coaches, just the whole atmosphere and the program they got going there,” he said.
“It’s everything you could really dream of.”
Horton injured the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee and his hamstring in October and had surgery that ended his final college season at Colorado State after 26 catches. Surgeons told him he didn’t tear his LCL or his hamstring.
He returned to running again in February, two weeks before he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds at the league’s scouting combine in Indianapolis.
Horton said Saturday he ran a personal-best 4.35 in training for the combine.
He was known for getting behind defenders on deep and intermediate routs in college. That’s how he had 96 receptions for 1,136 yards and eight touchdowns in his next-to-last college season. He was an All-Mountain West receiver in 2023, pre-injury.
HUGE fullback: Robbie Ouzts
With their third and final pick of the fifth round, the Seahawks selected Ouzts.
The tight end known for his prodigious mustache and his game at Alabama is going to be a fullback in new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak’s Seahawks system.
A huge fullback. Ouzts is 6-3 and 274 pounds.
“We added a 275-pound fullback that runs 19 miles per hour. That’s pretty cool,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said.
Kubiak has said all offseason Seattle will employ a fullback, for the first time in a long while for the team.
Ouzts is the first fullback Seattle has drafted in a decade.
He said he played a few snaps as a fullback in I formations a couple offenses ago at Alabama, early in his college career.
“I’d like to think I’m more natural at it,” he said of fullback, while on the phone from his uncle’s home in Buford, South Carolina, Saturday.
In his final college seasons, including last year with former Washington Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer calling the Crimson Tide’s offense, Alabama had him doing some off-the-ball H-back but primarily tight end.
Asked if he’d rather run with or catch the ball or block, Ouzts said: “I’ll take block. All day.”
He said Seahawks running-backs coach Kennedy Polamalu has already talked to Ouzts about his role:
Plow dudes as a wrecking-ball fullback. The Seahawks see Ouzts in the mold of “Pancake Pat” Ricard, the 311-pound fullback with the Baltimore Ravens.
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald is forming his new team in the image he saw for 10 years as an assistant with the Ravens, ending with Seattle hiring him in January 2024.
“Yeah, he was excited,” Ouzts said of Polamalu, “because they’re making this transition to more of a physical football team that would run the ball, and he thinks my identity as a player correlates perfectly with what how they want to be as an offense this next year.
“So he thinks the transition will be great for me.”
When the Seahawks called him Saturday, Ouzts’ reaction was: “Oh, my goodness! This is a dream come true. I can’t even put it into words.”
“I’ll take block, all day.”
He said only a handful of teams were really interested in him to draft him, and the Seahawks were one of a couple that wanted him exclusively as a fullback.
He was a football player and a swimmer into high school in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The 100-meter freestyle was his favorite race. He once swam 56 seconds in that.
“I think I made the right choice (in sports),” he said, dryly.
Ouzts spent four years as a teammate of Jalen Milroe, the Alabama quarterback Seattle selected in the third round Friday night.
He can’t wait to continue being Milroe’s teammate in Seattle.
“Oh, Jalen Milroe is going to work his ass off,” Ouzts said. “I mean, nobody works harder than that guy. Nobody gets there earlier. Nobody leaves later. And he’s going to make the most of his opportunity.
“I’m just, I’m thrilled to be with my boy, man. We’re rolling in.
“We got chemistry already, and we’re gonna attack this thing.”
This story was originally published April 26, 2025 at 1:35 PM.
