Assessing 2026 draft by the Seahawks’ post-Super Bowl metric: ‘Competitor Scale’
The cigars were just getting lit. The triangled bottles of Don Julio Anejo 1942 tequila were just getting opened.
Players put on Super Bowl 60 champions-branded ski goggles, to protect their eyes from the sweet burn of champagne popping from bottles.
Yet Nick Emmanwori, Leonard Williams, Ernest Jones, Jake Bobo and other veteran Seahawks inside the San Francisco 49ers’ home locker room at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, celebrating their Super Bowl domination of New England minutes earlier were already dreading the upcoming week.
They were sad they weren’t going to be with their teammates more, preparing for another game of the 2025 season.
“The journey and the brotherhood as the year’s gone on, it feels almost surreal,” Emmanwori told The News Tribune amid the music and roars that had yet to fade 90 minutes after the Super Bowl ended Feb. 8. “Like, yeah, we won the Super Bowl. But I’m a little bittersweet.
“This team was SO special. This is the type of team you think about years from now. This is the type of team that was really, truly a brotherhood.”
THAT, above all else, was the challenge John Schneider, Mike Macdonald and their Seahawks leaders had in the 2026 NFL draft.
Evaluate and select 22-, 24-year-old college prospects on how they project to fit into Seattle’s culture of brotherhood in the locker room.
General manager John Schneider’s goal for his 17th draft leading the Seahawks was to avoid what the said the team endured for years starting a decade ago in the wake of Seattle’s only other Super Bowl championship: Rookies and younger players in awe of Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas and the stars they’d watched on TV while as college and high-school kids.
Those years of younger player deferring and awed to veterans resulted in far less competitive practices. That resulted in weaker teams — and an 11-year wait to play in another Super Bowl that ended in February.
That’s why a prospect’s competitiveness and confidence became bigger traits than 40 times and game tape for this year’s Seahawks draft.
Enter Julian Neal.
“We’re going back to back,” the cornerback from Arkansas and Fresno State proclaimed among some of his first words to Seahawks reporters on the phone Friday night, minutes after the team made Neal its third-round pick.
“I’m the most physical corner in this draft class,” Neal also declared.
“I come down, I hit something. I’m going to go up and get the ball. I’m getting interceptions. I’m pressing dudes at the line. I’m locking dudes up at the line.
“It’s box time!”
When Schneider was told of Neal’s comments, the GM shot a look and said: “Julian said that?”
“We’ll talk to him about messages,” Macdonald, seated next to Schneider, said.
“He’s a confident sucker,” Schneider said.
Jadarian Price was the Seahawks’ number-one pick, the 32nd pick to end round one Thursday.
How competitive is the new running back poised to replace departed Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker? Price turned down potentially millions of dollars in NIL money other schools were offering for him to transfer from Notre Dame all his college years. That was because Price remained a backup to Notre Dame superstar back Jeremiyah Love, the third pick in this draft by Arizona.
“I made a challenge to myself to split reps with the best player in college football. And I did that,” Price said. “And I showed that I can do it at the highest level.
“Sitting here now,” he said late Thursday night as a new Seahawk, “it’s the greatest decision I could have made.”
Bud Clark was Seattle’s second-round pick. The first guy the cornerback from Texas Christian likened his game to as a new Seahawk Friday night?
“Bam Bam” Kam Chancellor.
“Yeah, Kam Chancellor, of course,” Clark said. “Because he’s always brought the pop.
“And I feel like he was the hammer, not the nail. That’s what I try to do all the time I play.”
Yeah., Clark’s coming sounding the opposite of awed by a Seattle Super Bowl-champion legend.
Heck, even the last player Seattle drafted, cornerback Michael Dansby, the 255th of 257 players selected across the league this weekend, has bravado. Dansby, from Arizona and San Jose State, said after the Seahawks took him as the last of their three seventh-round picks that he ran an unofficial 4.25 seconds in the 40-yard dash during training for the draft.
Schneider chuckled at that.
“He’s a cornerback. He’s going to tell you that,” the GM said.
“He’s swaggy.”
Seahawks’ ‘Competitor Scale’
How do their GM and coach assess how they’ve addressed the goal of drafting rookies not in awe of the Seahawks’ champions? With a homemade formula they incorporate into their unique draft board.
“I mean, they wouldn’t have been on our board, really (if the team sensed prospects were in awe),” Schneider said. “That’s a big, that’s a huge (discriminator). Like, they weren’t going to be on the board if we felt that way.
“I could talk to you about this for hours.
“We have a competitor scale. What’s their self-efficacy? How are they going to handle competition?”
Macdonald said the Seahawks’ top three picks of Price, Clark and Neal are examples of three very different personalities, yet each with similarly elite competitiveness.
The coach made the point the team’s brash, Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon has a far louder personality than Pro Bowl defensive lineman Leonard Williams.
“But they have those core fundamentals,” Macdonald said.
“They have swag. They have confidence. But they have humility.
“I mean, they play an exciting brand of football,” Macdonald said of this rookie class., “which we feel like we’re excited to work with. I think that’s the common denominator.”
Defense. But not everywhere
A Super Bowl champion with 21 of 22 starters on offense and defense returning doesn’t have a ton of needs.
This Seahawks draft was turnkey in backfilling the few, key departures they had in free agency last month.
Cornerback Riq Woolen signed a $12 million, one-year contract with Philadelphia. The Seahawks drafted three cornerbacks: Neal, plus seventh-round picks Andre Fuller from Toledo and Michael Dansby from Arizona.
Safety Coby Bryant departed Seattle, also at the end of his rookie contact. He got a $40 million, three-year deal from Chicago. The Seahawks drafted safety Clark, whom their scouts found to also be brash and energetic — not exactly a candidate to wilt among Seattle’s veterans.
“Bud is going to be fun, too. He’s a blast,” Schneider said. “Mike and I were talking about the personalities. Throughout the process, if we put Bud and ‘Spoon’ in the same room, what’s going to happen?”
Super Bowl MVP running back Kenneth Walker left to Kansas City on a $43 million, three-year deal. Seattle made Price only its fourth running back drafted in the first round in the 51 years of Seahawks football.
In all, five of the eight players the Schneider and Macdonald selected this weekend will join what was the league’s top-ranked defense last season. Half the class are defensive backs.
Seattle now has seven defensive backs the team has drafted.
“You can never have too many corners,” Macdonald said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a team that’s had this many drafted corners.”
Yet the Seahawks did not backfill the relatively neediest position on a far-from-needy defense: Edge rusher. Boye Mafe left to Cincinnati on a $20 million-per-year deal. Opposite-side edge rusher Derick Hall entering the final year of his rookie contract in 2026. Pro Bowl pass rusher DeMarcus Lawrence turns 34 in three days. This fall will be his 13th NFL season. But the acquisition process continues, into a new, post-draft phase of veteran free agency.
“We’re early right now, relatively speaking, in our process,” Macdonald said Saturday evening.
The Seahawks last week hosted 10-year veteran edge rusher Dante Fowler on a free-agent visit. Fowler, 31, started 11 games and had three sacks last season for Dallas. He had 10 1/2 sacks for Washington in 2024. Before that, he played for the Cowboys when Seahawks defensive coordinator Aden Durde was his defensive line coach in Dallas.
Fowler was Lawrence’s teammate on the Cowboys’ defensive line in 2022 and ‘23.
Monday, unrestricted free agents signed do not count in the league’s formular to determined compensatory draft choice for next year. The Seahawks can, starting Monday, sign a veteran edge rusher and still be on track for what they expect to be 11 picks in a stronger, 2027 draft.
Schneider was asked Saturday following the draft ending about that Monday milestone meaning the team may be in the market to sign a veteran edge rusher.
“Yeah,” the GM said, “we may.”
Seahawks draft picks
Round 1 (32): Jadarian Price, running back Notre Dame
Round 2 (64): Bud Clark, safety, TCU
Round 3 (99): Julian Neal, cornerback, Arkansas
Round 5 (148): Beau Stephens, guard, Iowa
Round 6 (199): Emmanuel Henderson Jr., wide receiver, Kansas
Round 7 (236): Andre Fuller, cornerback, Toledo
Round 7 (242): Deven Eastern, nose tackle, Minnesota
Rounds 7 (255): Michael Dansby, cornerback, Arizona
Rounds 7 (255): Michael Dansby, cornerback, Arizona
