Grey Zabel makes Seahawks draft call to Mason Richman. 7th-rd pick thought it was a prank
The Seahawks put their top rookie draft choice to work on his first hours touring their building.
Grey Zabel was inside the Virginia Mason Athletic Center for the first time Saturday afternoon. He was with his parents. Mark and Tanna Zabel travelled from the family home in Pierre, South Dakota, to be with their son as Seattle’s first-round pick Thursday night arrived at the team facility to meet his new bosses.
Those bosses put him right to work.
General manager John Schneider and coach Mike Macdonald had been yielding their calls to drafted players over Seattle’s first 10 picks this weekend to the team’s area scouts. It was a reward for them working personally and intensely with the players for a year or more.
For the team’s 11th and final pick, just before the draft ended Saturday, Schneider had Zabel pick up the Seahawks’ phone in the draft room.
Zabel called Mason Richman, to tell the Iowa offensive lineman he was the 234th pick of the 2025 NFL, by Seattle.
Macdonald didn’t know the Seahawks haven’t been flying in their first-round picks right after they get drafted, to meet folks and get the lay of their new NFL land. So he asked Schneider to fly in Zabel and his parents from South Dakota this year.
The Seahawks did.
“I met him. We were talkin’. We were dappin’ it up or whatever. And I was like, ‘We’re picking in like 2 minutes,’” Schneider said. “He basically was there and I was like, ‘That’d be kinda cool if we (did this). The Rams did it last year, with Jared Verse (their 2024 first pick).”
Richman picked up the call, even though it was from an unknown (to him) number. He noticed his phone displayed it was coming from Washington state. And, well, you never know.
“I pick up any number in this process,” he said.
When he heard the low voice on the other end, Richman thought it was some college kid pranking him with the call.
“This was, like, this deep voice...’This is Grey Zabel. I’m here to tell you I’m excited that you are a Seahawk,’” Richman said later Saturday.
Richman knew who Zabel was. But Richman also has his bachelor’s and already his master’s degrees from Iowa, in sports and recreation management. He’s smart enough to be skeptical.
After all, he’s said through 233 picks so far without getting called by anyone in the NFL all weekend. And now a player, a fellow draft prospect for 2025, is calling the native Kansan to be the first one to inform him he was getting drafted? To Seattle?
“I didn’t know,” Richman said later, on the same phone from his family home in Leawood, Kansas. “I didn’t know if they were signing me (as an undrafted free agent), or something.
“He goes, ‘We’re going to pick you 234.’
“I was like, ‘OK. I’ll watch for it.’”
And that was it.
But...
“As I’m on the phone, it’s slowly becoming more and more real,” Richman said.
Indeed, Zabel was real. The Seahawks had just made Richman’s life dream come true. He was in the NFL, onto a Seattle offensive line that needs him and others to help.
“Just so awesome,” he said.
Later, Schneider was told Richman thought Zabel’s was a prank call.
“Oh, he did?” the GM said. “That’s funny.”
Zabel made the entire Seahawks building laugh Thursday night when his answer to The News Tribune’s question about he was going to do that night after Seattle picked him number one was: “I’m probably going to start diving into these Busch Lights.”
Richman the seventh-round pick thinks he one-upped his new teammate and first-round choice Saturday night.
He said he wasn’t going Busch Light. He was going for an upgrade.
“Miller Lights,” Richman said.
“I didn’t drink any Miller Lights before. I was only going to have one if I got drafted.”
This story was originally published April 26, 2025 at 6:05 PM.
