Draft prospect Anthony Hill models his game after Bobby Wagner

Seahawks need a linebacker in a sneaky way

If you search “Seahawks” in Dane Brugler’s The Beast draft guide you will get 11 results, and the mention that interested me the most as it relates to Seattle’s future is Texas linebacker Anthony Hill, Jr.:

Hill started playing pee-wee football at age 4. The family relocated to Irving, Texas, when he was 6 and he continued playing little league ball, winning a city championship with the Eagles in 2015. In sixth grade, he played for Michael Huff’s The River Bottoms team and accounted for 70 touchdowns. Hill’s focus shifted more toward linebacker in middle school, and he modeled his game after Bobby Wagner (the Seattle Seahawks were his favorite team growing up). As an eighth grader at Euless Junior High School, he led the team in rushing but was even more impressive on defense.

There’s no explanation as to why a kid born in Kansas and raised in Texas, that his favorite team is the Seahawks, but Hill was 9 when Seattle won the Super Bowl so it stands to reason that the Legion of Boom was “The Beatles of Football” during his formative years.

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Okay, thank you, back to the Seahawks draft.

How to look like Bobby Wagner

It’s one thing to model your game after a Hall of Famer, it’s another thing to end up having genes similar to him. It’s like you can grow up admiring Shaquille O’Neal’s game, but it’s not going to matter because you’re never going to be 7’1, 300 lbs, no matter how many times you break your legs.

If LeBron James ends up growing until he’s 6’4 instead of 6’9, we may never know the name “LeBron James”.

Bobby Wagner missed the 2012 combine drills due to pneumonia, but at his pro day was clocked at a 4.45 40-yard dash, which most people would round down a bit because he’s on his home turf. You might instead clock it at 4.50-4.55.

For example, Rob Staton said at the time that Wagner’s tape was more like a “4.6 guy” and that he should be a fourth round pick, not a second rounder:

He almost seems to fear contact (though not as skittish as Zach Brown) and relies heavily on assisted tackles. If Seattle drafts Wagner to play middle linebacker in their 4-3, he’ll be good in man coverage, decent (but not great) against the run, and nearly non-existent in the pass rush (barring further improvement).

I don’t always see things eye to eye with this front office and prospects, so I can’t predict if they will share this evaluation, but I’d personally grade Wagner as a 4th round guy, especially considering how severely 4-3 linebackers have been devalued recently.

Wagner won’t transform a defense, but he’s a safe, if boring, bet.

Well, I guess you win some, and you “overlook the best linebacker of his generation” some.

Wagner’s superficial knock at the time was that he’s undersized (6’, 233 lbs) and he played against lesser competition at Utah State. Lance Zierlein was a lot less concerned about Wagner than Staton, calling him “stellar” at diagnosing plays and getting in position to make plays:

Wagner is an impressive prospect who is a prototypical NFL middle linebacker in terms of size, tackling ability and instincts. He calls all the plays for Utah State's defense. He's had more than 100 tackles each of the past two years, many of them solo. He is a stellar pre-snap defender in terms of lining up his teammates, recognizing the play, and diagnosing where to run once the ball is snapped. He is a bit short for the position at just over 6 feet tall, but is thick and brings power when he meets running backs in the hole. He projects to be a starter at the next level and be selected late in the second round of the draft.

There were some concerns everyone shared with rushing the passer and while that is not Wagner’s “game” per se, he had nine sacks in his first three seasons and currently sits at 39.5 career sacks.

At his pro day, Wagner also had a 39.5” vertical, 11 foot broad jump, 4.24 short shuttle, 7.03 three-cone, and 24 reps on the bench.

These numbers would emphasize that Wagner’s athleticism eclipses Hill’s, even though Hill has an elite “athleticism” score.

Anthony Hill ‘Bobby Wagner, Jr.’ Jr

• 6’2 over 6’

• 238 compared to 233

• 21 reps vs. 24 reps on the bench

• 4.51 40-yard dash vs. 4.45

• 37” vertical vs. 39.5”

• 10’ broad vs 11’ broad

Hill is taller than Wagner, but by comparison then a little bit more wiry at BMI.

Despite the extra size, Hill didn’t do as many reps (this is perhaps the worst combine/pro day workout, however, because strength can not simply be measured on a bench press), and despite only weighing a little bit more, Hill doesn’t jump as far.

That implies to me that Hill might have a little bit less explosiveness than Wagner?

Where Hill does have an advantage is that he was a star Texas high school player (like Jaxon Smith-Njigba once was) and had the recruiting stardom that Wagner deserved but never got.

Per Dane, Hill won the 5A state championship as a key player on 15-0 Billy Ryan High School as a sophomore, and then as a junior had a career-best game with 18 tackles and a forced fumble against Ashton Jeanty. Hill won district MVP that season, but missed most of his senior campaign with a bone bruise.

Hill was also a track star as a high school senior.

The number three recruit in all of Texas, Hill mulled over offers from every powerhouse until finally flipping his commitment to the Longhorns on signing day. He was basically the defensive version of Arch Manning in the same Texas recruiting class.

Obviously Hill’s star was brighter as a recruit than it is as a draft prospect simply because we’re not talking about him as a top-20 pick, but this is still a guy who in three seasons (including as a TRUE freshman) had 17 sacks, 31.5 tackles for a loss, 8 forced fumbles, three interceptions, and 249 tackles.

It’s like if you looked at John Travolta’s career, his star was very bright after Saturday Night Fever, and then at the end of the eighties he was considered washed, but then he did Pulp Fiction. The heat wasn’t gone, it was just dormant.

As if he manifested it himself since he was 9, Hill got his dream comp when Zierlein compared him to Bobby Wagner:

Three-down linebacker with the playing demeanor and production of a future Pro Bowler. He’s instinctive, athletic and under control, transitioning seamlessly from read to react to finish. He plays with downhill thump to thwart interior blocks and the speed to pursue runners from sideline to sideline. Hill has plus cover talent in man or zone, proven credentials as a blitzer or edge rusher, and finishes plays as a strong, reliable tackler. Consistency and field command make him one of the safer linebackers in the class. His size, speed and versatility allow him to profile as an instant-impact rookie at Mike or Will ‘backer.

Hill was a freshman All-American in 2023, then a second-team All-American in 2024 and 2025.

Sure, Hill is knocked down draft boards a little bit because of positional value. Off-ball linebackers don’t go top-20 unless they’re really, really special, but even so Hill is only Dane’s 5th-ranked at the position and gets a “2nd-3rd round grade”:

An impressive size-speed prospect, Hill brings athletic versatility to the field with his range versus the run, speed as a blitzer and change of direction in coverage. Though he shows a feel for play development around him, he is more of a decisive “see-ball, get-ball” player than a defender who relies on anticipation. His stack-and-shed efficiency must improve, but he plays with the toughness to evade blocks, carom off contact and continue his pursuit. Overall, Hill needs to play with better control in his movements and take-on attempts, but he is a long, rangy athlete with the closing speed to impact the game in different ways. He has three-down starting potential, although volatility should be expected as he continues to develop.

There appears to be a need to wait and develop Hill rather than to throw him into a starting role immediately, which might actually work out perfectly for the Seattle Seahawks.

Forgot about Drake?

I did not forget about Drake Thomas.

Linebacker is not top of mind for most Seahawks fans because Ernest Jones (27) and Thomas (26) held it down last season, with Jones getting second-team All-Pro. Both linebackers are now signed through 2027, with Thomas signing a two-year deal this offseason.

That being said, there’s “Wagner is a little undersized” and then there’s Thomas, who’s listed height of 5’11 and weight of 228 lbs seems generous when you watch the tape.

You can’t not love Thomas when you watch him play, but you should also be able to fantasize the possibilities at hand if Mike Macdonald gets himself arguably the best physical specimen at linebacker in the 2026 draft if it only costs Seattle the last pick of the second round.

Thomas Davis called Hill “the most inconsistent” of all the premier linebackers in the draft class, but also the one who had the most potential and could become a “perennial All-Pro”, which I queued up here:

That’s sort of what happened when the Seahawks landed an elite talent like Bobby Wagner in the second round 14 years ago.

Linebacker was an apparent need for the Seahawks at the time, but Seattle also drafted Jordyn Brooks in the first round when Wagner was in his prime and K.J. Wright wasn’t thought to be leaving any time soon. Brooks spent two seasons playing behind those two before Pete Carroll made him a starter.

Two years is also the timeline at hand if the Seahawks draft a linebacker this month.

Isn’t it reasonable to think that the Seahawks could draft a cornerback or edge in the first round, then come back around in the second and notice “Hey the player with the highest ceiling left on our board by far is a linebacker” and decide this is simply Seattle’s best chance to draft a “dude” and not just attempt to address an immediate need?

We have seen linebackers like Thomas before, maybe the best local example would David Hawthorne, and those players are appreciated and valuable in their own right. They can also find themselves replaced within 1-3 years of starting because they can never get bigger or faster or stronger.

If you could put their instincts and football knowledge into the body of a player like Hill, then that’s why you draft those guys to work together.

Fans would scratch their heads over the Seahawks drafting a linebacker when they already have two really good ones in their mid-20s, but at least with Hill the immediate post-draft stories centered around who is favorite team is and favorite player growing up was and that’s his same draft comp … that would make him “5 stars” again in Seattle.

NFL All-Probst

Just when I didn’t think he could get any better, Leonard Williams randomly shouted out Survivor 50 on twitter this week:

If you’re watching season 50 too, I’m doing a newsletter about Survivor this year.

Football by Chuck Klosterman.

I keep meaning to promote the book “Football” by Chuck Klosterman that just came out this year. I am not getting anything out of promoting it, I enjoyed it and so I figured maybe you would like it too. I bought it at a local bookstore here so rather than put up a link to amazon, I’ll give you the chance to seek it out.

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