How long does it take to develop a good player?
The Seahawks don't want to replace a young player too soon
If the Seahawks are able to even draft two players this year who can help the team in a significant way, that would be a huge win in itself. It doesn’t matter if Seattle picks five players in the top-100 and 10 or more overall, it’s rare that anyone enters the league and plays at the level of an above-average starter.
Unfortunately and fortunately on the way to making this point, I was reminded of just how damn lucky the Seahawks were during the first three drafts of the Pete Carroll era, as they landed at least five or six guys in that time who were immediate or almost-immediate stars.
Don’t miss: The 10 names I’m circling for the Seahawks in the first round this year, will any of them have a high impact as a rookie?
Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner, Richard Sherman, K.J. Wright, and more…players weren’t supposed to be that good that soon, let alone day two and day three picks.
In one sense, we should always want the Seahawks to draft special talents who can help the team immediately. In more recent seasons, the likes of Abe Lucas, Tariq Woolen, Devon Witherspoon, Kenneth Walker, Charles Cross, and maybe to a slightly lesser degree Boye Mafe, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Tyrice Knight, and Byron Murphy have filled these roles.
Special players usually do not hide in the shadows for several years.
But there are those cases that take several years to prove their worth, like Max Unger, Golden Tate, Russell Okung, and so on.
I thought maybe the waits for these players would be a little more dramatic, but then I got to Wilson and it was only a reminder of how LUCKY the Seahawks were to have those players available to them and drafted by them in the 2010-2012 era. And then I stopped writing.
We can cover more in the future, but let’s look at the waits for these notable Seahawks from 2009-2012:
iOL Max Unger
Draft Year: 2009
Breakout Year: 2012
If Unger represents a “dream pick” for Seahawks fans in 2025, then are you prepared to wait 3-4 years until the fantasy actually hits? Coming out of Oregon, Unger was praised for versatility (although surprisingly one writer said he could be a tackle or a center, but wasn’t strong enough to be a guard) going into the draft and Seattle took him 49th overall.
Unger started 16 games at right guard as a rookie for offensive coordinator Greg Knapp, then he missed virtually the entire 2010 season with a toe injury. He was finally able to start his career as a center for Darrell Bevell in 2011 and I believe at that point it was clear that the Seahawks were set at the position for awhile. We could call 2011 his “breakout”, but there was no doubt in 2012 when he was named a first-team All-Pro.
If there are indisputible facts about Unger’s timeline:
If you were hoping the Seahawks drafted their center of the future in 2009, that obviously did not happen until his third season.
T Russell Okung
Draft Year: 2010
Healthy Year: 2012
It’s hard to quantify the value of a tackle, especially given Seattle’s many changes around that time with regards to the coaching staff, the quarterback, the running back, and the supporting offensive linemen. What we do know is that Okung missed six games as a rookie and four more in year two. He played most of 2012, then missed half of 2013 but was able to return for the playoffs.
Okung never truly put it together for an entire season, but “the payoff” of a top-10 pick at left tackle took a few years. Today we can apply this same logic to Charles Cross, and to a degree Abe Lucas.
FS Earl Thomas
Draft Year: 2010
Breakout Year: 2011
Though Thomas intercepted 5 passes as a rookie, Pete Carroll also threatened to bench him that season if he didn’t stop freelancing. Thomas is one of the most special defensive football players of all-time, so his timeline for success was shorter than most.
WR Golden Tate
Draft Year: 2010
Breakout Year: 2012 or 2014
Statistically speaking, there’s no question that Tate didn’t become a star until he left Seattle for Detroit in 2014, but he certainly became valuable for the first time in 2012. Prior to then, Tate was just a liability over his first two seasons.
SS Kam Chancellor
Draft Year: 2010
Breakout Year: 2011
He may have taken Kam even longer than a year to become the player we really remember him for being, but he wasn’t even really a part of the defense during his rookie season. He made the Pro Bowl in 2011 and I think matured into the leader of the defense by 2012-2013. Mostly leading by example because Kam doesn’t talk much.
LG James Carpenter
Draft Year: 2011
Breakout Year: 2014 or Never?
You can’t tell me that Seahawks fans don’t want to draft James Carpenter again because almost all of the pleas I hear are to pick a first round player who essentially profiles as the next James Carpenter: A physically gifted tackle who could move over to left guard.
Well, Carpenter never started more than 13 games for the Seahawks. He started nine games at right tackle as a rookie, seven games at left guard in year two, 10 games in year three, and 13 games in year four.
Yes, you want a prospect like Carpenter who actually works out well for the team, I get it. But Carpenter is actually kind of an above-average player for a late first round pick.
LB K.J. Wright
Draft Year: 2011
Breakout Year: Maybe 2011?
CB Richard Sherman
Draft Year: 2011
Breakout Year: 2011
We may not see two day three picks like this again, guys who impacted the team immediately as rookies in such a positive way. Wright definitely got better and played a bigger role as the years went on, but he was a pretty good addition to the defense in 2011 and started 12 games. Sherman was one of the best corners in the NFL as a rookie, starting by the sixth game, and he also got better by 2012 and 2013.
Truly “breaking out” we’d probably say 2012 or 2013 for these players, but I’ll give them credit for helping the defense tremendously in 2011.
EDGE Bruce Irvin
Draft Year: 2012
Breakout Year: 2014 or Never?
I don’t really know what to do with Irvin. His most sacks actually came as a rookie (8) but I don’t think that’s when he played his best football. Irvin was never the guy that Seattle hoped he would become, so maybe the lesson here — as it is with Carpenter — is that sometimes the results don’t justify the process.
LB Bobby Wagner
Draft Year: 2012
Breakout Year: 2012
In Wagner and the next guy, we get rookies who impact their teams in ways that are rarely seen, which was a clue back then that both of these picks should be in the Hall of Fame. Same for Richard Sherman.
Wagner finished second in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting (the start of an ongoing battle with fellow linebacker Luke Kuechly) and just continued to get better from there. He’s now going into his 14th season.
QB Russell Wilson
Draft Year: 2012
Breakout Year: 2012
We can say that Wilson didn’t develop into a confident, top-10, “Hall of Fame caliber” starter until his fourth or fifth season — after winning the Super Bowl and going to another — but I don’t want to sell short his rookie campaign accomplishments either because those were AMAZING:
16 starts, 26 TD, 10 INT, 100 passer rating, almost 500 rushing yards
A rocky start that almost had him benched, Wilson pulled out of the nosedive to become, in my opinion, a better rookie QB than Andrew Luck and RGIII.
These examples for this post were all great Seahawks draft picks — except maybe Carpenter and Irvin, but they are what we should expect from at least half of the team’s first round choices - and most of them took at least a year or two to actually find their stride. Even if others were actually way better than the norm as rookies.
I expect a year two breakout from Murphy (similar to the year two breakout for JSN), an even better third season by Witherspoon, and potentially the best seasons we’ve ever seen by Cross, Lucas, Mafe, Walker, Hall, Coby Bryant, and Woolen — or at least half of those guys. I’ll gladly take HALF.
I’m not intentionally leaving any names off (Zach Charbonnet, Olu Oluwatimi, Tyrice Knight) and I do hope that Christian Haynes, Anthony Bradford, Kenny McIntosh, A.J. Barner — some of the lesser talked about players — also solidify their names as part of the roster for more years to come:
The Seahawks had five trying years with Ethan Pocic and then suddenly after he left he became “the rock” in the center of the Browns offensive line that Seattle could never get him to become with them. How soon is too soon to give up on Haynes or Oluwatimi?
I guess we’ll find out when I write this article again in 2032.
Seaside Joe 2229
Is there a draft pick from the 2010-2012 era that you cheered the most when it actually happened? Like "that was my guy!" and the Seahawks got him?
Is it a drafting win to draft a guy in the first round and then have to wait two years for him to become valuable if he is let go after his rookie contract? Does it matter if he goes on to have a good career? The Seahawks seemingly don't miss on picks quite as often as the average team, but we then fail to keep them. Counted together is seems like a failure of process.
A first round pick, to be deemed a success, needs to start in year one and hold his own if not excelling. Sort of like Cross. If we fail to retain Cross that will seem like more of the same.