Jalen Milroe, Nick Emmanwori, draft show again: Seahawks ‘chasing’ Baltimore Ravens model
When Mike Maconald was scouting and meeting with Nick Emmanwori this spring, the coach made it clear to South Carolina’s big safety how the Seahawks envision playing him.
Like Kyle Hamilton.
When Macdonald was scouting and meeting with Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, the coach was thinking about how hard it was in practices to defend one quarterback in particular when he was a defensive coordinator.
Lamar Jackson.
When Seattle selected Robbie Ouzts in the fifth round of the NFL draft last weekend, the former Alabama tight end mentioned one player while talking about how the Seahawks want to use him.
Patrick Ricard.
Hamilton, Jackson, Ricard — Baltimore Ravens pillars.
Macdonald’s players heard it all last season in Seattle, when Macdonald sounded John Harbaugh-like talking often of his Seahawks “chasing.”
“Chasing edges,” Macdonald, a 10-year assistant of Harbaugh’s in Baltimore, says.
“Chasing excellence.”
We all were reminded of it last weekend. The Seahawks got Emmanwori, Milroe and Ouzta during their draft, which continues to get league-wide praise.
Seattle’s draft showed again Macdonald is seeking the Ravens’ model of consistent winning.
This time last year, Macdonald was finishing assembling 21 new assistant coaches for the Seahawks. He and those new assistants were installing playbooks and training plans. They had minimal time for minimal input on offseason player acquisition.
Not this year two.
That, in part, explains why the Seahawks made Milroe just the third quarterback they’ve selected in John Schneider’s 16 drafts as general manager.
“Quarterbacks that extend the play are incredibly difficult to defend,” Macdonald said Friday night, about an hour after Seattle took Milroe in the third round. “The worst feeling in the world is you play the first play of the play perfectly on defense, you defend it. ‘All right, sweet. We did it.’ Then the guy still has the ball.
“You’ve got to defend the next play, sometimes a third play. He can kill you in the first play, the second play, the third play. It’s not a fun existence to live consistently.
“He has that ability.”
Let’s face it: The Seahawks haven’t had a quarterback with the running ability of Milroe, maybe ever. He ran for 32 touchdowns his last two seasons at Alabama. He ran for more than 700 yards with 20 TDs last season.
Russell Wilson ran, wondrously, for the Seahawks in and past their back-to-back Super Bowl seasons a decade ago. But Wilson, another third-round pick (2012), ran to throw. Some of his most memorable, successful plays in his 10 seasons for Seattle were scrambles to completions on extended plays to receivers who broke open on improvisational routes.
Did Macdonald’s experience in Baltimore with Jackson play into the coach’s and the Seahawks’ decision to draft Milroe, though other teams feared his inaccuracy?
“Yeah, is the short answer. Of course. I have so much respect for that organization, obviously,” Macdonald said of the Ravens. “Lamar obviously is a tremendous player.
“But you have to respect their career trajectories as independent. We respect that. We have that vision of it. When you add people to your organization, you want to have a vision for these people. Sometimes it’s bigger than they have for themselves. Our job is to make it come to life over time when you work together on it.
“That’s how we see Jalen.”
Macdonald said he does that for all Seahawks.
“it’s our job as coaches to have that vision for them. That’s what makes it so fun,” he said. “ When you see guys kind of do things that they didn’t necessarily think they had the possibility of doing, now the team is coming together, now we’re rockin’ and rollin’.
“Man, that’s the stuff right there. That’s what you do it for.”
Milroe said talking to Macdonald, his assistants and the Seahawks before the draft convinced him Seattle was the place for him.
“Number one, words of affirmation. Number two, the belief system of everyone there. That’s all it takes,” Milroe said Friday night on the telephone from Houston, near his hometown of Katy, Texas. “You walk differently, you play differently when you have an army behind you. And that’s what I have.”
Asked if he has a message to all the NFL teams that passed on him for 2 1/2 rounds of the draft, Milroe said: “Belt to ass.”
Nick Emmanwori like Kyle Hamilton
When Macdonald was the architect of Baltimore’s defense in 2022 and ‘23, the coach was part of the Ravens’ decision to draft Hamilton 14th overall in ‘22. Macdonald then moved the 6-foot-4, 220-pound safety all over Baltimore’s defense. He had Hamilton near the line against the run. He moved him to deep post safety against the pass. Hamilton covered tight ends inside, wide receivers outside.
Macdonald’s scheme turned Hamilton into a Pro Bowl selection for the first time in his second NFL season, then an All-Pro in his third.
Guess who the 6-3, 220-pound Emmanwori reminds the former Ravens defensive coordinator of.
“I think what we found with Kyle is that the system allows for us to get multiple safeties on the field and also be in the slot, kind of like with enhanced coverage responsibilities,” Macdonald said after Seattle traded up 17 spots in round two, gave Tennessee a third-round pick, then drafted Emmanwori.
“(Hamilton) can affect the game that way kind of at the second level while training at the third level. Gives us some depth at the safety room, guys that we currently love that are on the roster. To be able to affect the game early on in his career, too, as he starts to develop.
“Same story with Nick. ...Buying into the vision we have for him, it’s going to be really fun to work with him when he comes (this) week.”
Oh, yes, Emmanwori knows all about Macdonald’s Ravens roots.
“Mike has a good track record in the NFL. Came from the Ravens. Had Kyle Hamilton under his belt and did a lot with him,” Emmanwori said.
“Him being my head coach means a lot to me. And so is what he thinks about me and what I can do in his system.”
Asked if Macdonald compared him to Hamilton in his top-30 visit and the Seahawks’ other pre-draft meetings with him, Emmanwori said: “Yes. They said me and him are very similar.
“But I can still work on some things to get up to his All-Pro level now.”
A Seahawks fullback
Ouzts was a tight end at Alabama. He’s not a tight end in Seattle.
Macdonald and the Seahawks are going to play him at fullback. A 274-pound fullback.
Ouzts will be competing with converted tight end Brady Russell for the lead role in Seattle’s new position in its new offense.
“I have had a chance to really talk to the (Seahawks) running back coach, Coach (Kennedy) Polamalu about kind of my role as a fullback and the things we’d be doing,” Ouzts said Saturday after Seattle drafted him in the fifth round. “He’s just real excited to get his hands on me and work with me with this transition to the next step.”
Ouzts was asked what NFL fullback he’d like to pattern his new game after.
“A lot of the time, I would look at Patrick Ricard,” Ouzts said, “just based on physical similarities.”
Guess which team Ricard plays for.
A nine-year veteran, Ricard is known in Baltimore as “Pancake Pat.” That’s for his flattening blocks. The Ravens’ fullback weighs 300 pounds.
New Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak has said he will use a fullback with a tailback this year. The fullback has been a cameo actor, and often not even that, for most of last two decades of offenses in Seattle. Since about the time coach Mike Holmgren had Mack Strong at fullback on the early 2000s Seahawks.
Macdonald said to get an idea how the Seahawks are going to use a fullback this year, we can look at Kubiak’s past with the Saints, 49ers, Vikings and Broncos — and to, shocker, the Ravens and their use of a fullback.
“You’ve seen how it’s been deployed in the past,” Macdonald said.
“But yeah, you’re going two backs back there a good bit.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
