Draft Rules: Know Your Number

How to get the most out of media's draft season

The draft is over four months away, but today is as good of a time as tomorrow or next week to start preparing for a) what the Seahawks might do and b) what the media and fans say the Seahawks might do.

At Seaside Joe, “b” is probably more important to me than “a” because if I’ve learned anything from covering Seattle’s drafts for 15 years it is that it is better to remain agnostic when it comes to predicting their decisions and that I am not a scout. Sadly, a lot of “Internet Scouts” are also not scouts and much of the draft community is usually overreaching when it comes to how valuable their knowledge of prospects and team fits is during mock draft season.

That’s why I’ve decided to lay out some of my personal rules for draft season — mostly covering how I think fans can get the most out of the mock drafts and reports you will read/watch/hear in the next four months — in a series of posts and I’m going to start with the most logical place to start:

Where do the Seahawks pick?

They pick 18th.

When the Seahawks get their draft pick locked in, and not any sooner, that’s when I can start to process for the first time the ideas of what prospects (or trade options) could fall in their laps.

Before anything else happens, I need to know the number. The Seahawks got their number when Week 18 concluded and they have the last pick of all the teams that missed the playoffs.

Seems like most teams would trade that for a higher draft pick or making the playoffs.

The Big 3 Positions Won’t Be On The Board

This is now when we can start to think about projections because finally we can go through the process of elimination, not just by specific prospects but also by the types of positional players that the Seahawks won’t get this year:

• They won’t get an elite QB prospect (and there might not be any of those this year anyway)

• They won’t get one of these highly-rated tackles that often go in the top-10 or top-5 picks

• Same goes for the highly-rated edge rushers

Those are the three positions that should stand above every other position in the first round: QB, OT, and EDGE. The only exception to “EDGE” is that a pass rushing presence at DT is just as valuable, if not more so.

That does not mean you can’t draft those positions at 18

T.J. Watt was picked 30th. All-Pro left tackle Tristan Wirfs was picked 13th. Lamar Jackson was picked 32nd. We know all the stories of players who should have been drafted higher than they were and that’s fine.

The only point being made is that the Seahawks aren’t going to get the top-rated PROSPECTS at those three key positions: Hence they won’t get the next Myles Garrett, Penei Sewell, or Joe Burrow as a prospect.

If the top of the draft goes as expected — it often DOESN’T — we can rule out names like EDGE Abdul Carter, QB Cam Ward, OT Will Campbell.

Then if one of those players is available at 18, you have to stop and ask yourself “WHY?” before you run up to the podium with the pick. If Heisman winner Travis Hunter is available at 18, there would have to be a really important reason for it.

Even without the top prospects, I think the Seahawks still have to have QB, EDGE, and OT as their three highest-priority fits on day one.

Why? Because those are:

• Super valuable positions

• Therefore the best of them go early

• The Seahawks could have openings at all of those positions

At 18 though, maybe Seattle’s hand will be forced to go in another direction, which could include trading down.

18 is too late to accurately mock

2025 is the type of draft that may not have a clear number one until the pick is made — think Travon Walker over Aidan Hutchinson in 2022 or Mario Williams over Reggie Bush and Vince Young in 2006 — but 18 is NEVER projectable.

Maybe only the Steelers are consistently that predictable.

But no matter what anyone says in the next four months, no matter how popular a certain pick becomes for the Seahawks (remember Troy Fautanu last year?), as long they sit at 18 we won’t know what Seattle will do with the pick. Or any team for that matter.

Take this mock draft from Rob Staton for example:

After the top 3 picks, the ones everybody knew would happen, Rob only got one pick right for the entire rest of the first round: Jaguars taking WR Brian Thomas. Rob drastically underestimated how early the tackles would go off the board and had the Seahawks trading down to take interior linemen Graham Barton.

That’s not picking on Rob, that’s how it goes for everybody and yet we do sit back and lap it up anyway.

Most Popular Today: G Tyler Booker

20% of mock drafts to this point have the Seahawks selecting Booker, according to Mock Draft Database.

The Seahawks haven’t drafted a true interior lineman in the first round since center Chris Spencer in 2005 and haven’t picked a guard that high since Steve Hutchinson in 2001. Is Schneider ready to break a 20-year streak because the fans are antsy for a guard?

I don’t know, maybe. I can only tell you this:

Mock Draft Tip: Follow logical deduction, not “biggest needs”

Every year — all of ‘em — Seahawks fans and mock drafters connect Seattle to a guard or center in the first round because it’s “the biggest need” and every year it’s not a guard or center. So if you want to increase your odds of projecting who the Seahawks will pick in the first round, why make it harder on yourself by including guards and centers? It doesn’t make any sense to do that unless your only objective is to project what you want to happen instead of what is more probable to happen.

Because you’re almost certainly going to be wrong anyway, but if you rule out the positions that have the lowest odds based on Seattle’s history (not on what outsiders call “the biggest need”) then your odds of being right will go up.

It could still be Booker - that’s not the point

This week, I wrote that the Seahawks should seek out bigger offensive linemen and bully their opponents like the Eagles do. Booker fits the mold at 352 lbs, stout against the run, and he hasn’t turned 21 yet.

That’s all great, I have nothing against Seattle drafting Tyler Booker, whether that’s a reach or not.

The point is that everybody who tries to project a draft pick is taking their best shot and will be wrong most of the time. Yet if two people pick different prospects and both are wrong, for some reason the person who went with the most popular wrong pick is “better wrong” than the person who took a bigger swing.

Is it because fans just want to see the names they want to see on mock drafts and the accuracy doesn’t matter? Rob Staton has been predicting the Seahawks would draft a quarterback for years and they never do, but at least you’ll get to live that fantasy for a few months because it would be very exciting (for a little while) if they did.

More exciting as predicting Seattle would go with an undersized cornerback instead of Anthony Richardson.

So I can tell you that the Seahawks won’t draft Booker and then they might — I ruled out Charles Cross for not meeting certain physical thresholds — but it’s always a guessing game. Not just for outsiders, but also for the Seahawks as they also usually don’t know who they’re going to pick until they’re on the clock.

The Seahawks go against their tendencies in the draft all the time:

• Charles Cross didn’t test like their usual offensive tackles

• Devon Witherspoon was by far the highest-drafted CB in the Pete Carroll era

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba was the second-highest drafted WR in franchise history

Those are just three examples out of many, so for me to say “the Seahawks 100% won’t draft a guard because they never do”, that would be a reach.

But to INCREASE YOUR ODDS, why not eliminate the lowest-odds players until they give you no other choice? I mocked Witherspoon to the Seahawks in spite of their history with drafting corners because he gave me no other choice.

If a guard or a center does that this year, more power to him because Seattle has definitely been losing some games due to their weakness on the inside.

Recent history in mid-to-late first round

2018: 18th overall

Traded Down to 27 - RB Rashaad Penny

2019: 21st overall

Traded Down to 30 - DE L.J. Collier

2020: 27th overall

LB Jordyn Brooks

2023: 20th overall

WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba

2024: 16th overall

DT Byron Murphy

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