36 Comments

Re the late firsts:

* Carpenter had a 10-year career and started for two SB teams

* Ifedi…so Schneider missed out on Chris Jones. So what?

* Penny’s ability was obvious but he just couldn’t stay on the field. It’s not like Schneider drafted a guy who had an injury history—I don’t think that Penny missed a game in college. One of those that just didn’t work out but that I can’t chalk up as a busted pick

* Collier…nice guy, tried hard, couldn’t play. Easily Schneider’s worst first-round pick

* Brooks seems to me about what you’d expect out of a #27. He has signed a second contract

If I had to assign grades, I’d give Carpenter a B, Cs to Ifedi and Brooks, an F to Collier, and an INC to Penny. My guess is that plenty of GMs have done worse.

Re Bruce Irvin…no Fletcher Cox but he was a good player who had a long career. Dave Wyman was often complimentary of Irvin’s technique. The Seahawks never have replaced him.

BTW, in 2013 Christine Michael was the last pick of the second round. Travis Kelce was the first pick of the third round.

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Predicting what JS will do is like doing a mock draft before free agency: not enough information on the table yet. Mitigating factors include:

- what everyone ELSE does from #1-15

- what anyone else is willing to pay to move up

The only way to circumvent this is to take charge and move up. I think we would all be shocked if he did that. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.

Many of us want to see a trade down due to the number of missing pieces we need: IOL, off-ball LB, S, DL, EDGE, TE, depth at WR and RB. More picks will also help us to - we hope - understand MM’s philosophy, a glimpse of Oz behind the war room curtain.

What will be, will be. And it will be fun.

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I wonder if there is a fanbase of any NFL team that thinks their GM is a wizard over a decade for always drafting the right guys? I doubt it.

Draft picks have declining "value" because the pool of availabie athletes declines but also the probability of a player "making it" (to even start, be good, be pro-bowl good, be HOF good) declines with every pick. So trading down will usually decrease the odds of finding a player who makes it, while trading up has the opposite result.

I also think we cannot account for the impact of the draft itself on the personality/make up/future performance of a player. A guy who has "can't miss" all over his college career and testing stats leaves the college environment, has an entourage of agent/lawyer/family/hangers on around the draft itself, and the aftermath of disappointment or excitement depending on who drafted them in what round/place ("Cleveland... crap") and THEN they sign a contract that often makes them wealthy overnight and they have to process THAT. Some guys can't handle the experience and others thrive but how will you know in advance?

For all of the analysis, every "re-draft" three years later shows how many errors were made--but should they even be called errors? The draft is hghly entertaining but slightly better than a crap shoot.

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Throw out "JS did X before". There are distinct periods of the JS/PC era, with the key there being 50% of that is PC. The 'Hawks were very much a collaboration with 50% of the decision making input (arguably more, we'll get to that) coming from Pete.

We have the 2010-~13 era, the "Legion of Boom". Coming out of CFB Pete knows a ton of whats happening. You have an excited partnership with a newly minted GM, and a team that needed something new. A fair chunk of roster moves and taking swings, based on exciting new ideas and knowledge of the players coming through. Paired with coaching who could actually improve players, and players that wanted to play hard.

Then we hit the 2014-21 era, the "always compete". Too many second guesses and reaches to try and keep the team in reach of the superbowl, despite obviously getting further away every year. Pete has established himself the 'the man' in Seattle and i'd put forther is the primary driver on draft and roster moves. Excpet he's not seeing the changes to the NFL, regressing as a coach, and no longer has an accurate insight on players coming up.

Finally we have the 2022-2023 era, the "fuck it lets try going back to what did work". A re-evaluation of the draft process and roster construction. We see changes, and they almost all work. The glaring issues being the contracts and retention of 'Pete's guys' which kind of reinfornces my idea that Pete had a lot of control on the roster before, and we had a bit of behind the scenes wrestle so when results continued to flail because Pete was a bit cooked as a coach, it all came to a head and he was gone.

So the notes to take from this? Coaches who know the recent/next grop of CFB players can have an advantage (MM has a little, Grubb a lot, Peetz a bit, Hill a good amount, Partridge a lot, Harbaugh a lot). When going back to character focus and more defined BPA draft we have success. And when using those, a trade down can work out but equally so does holding in place.

In conclusion: If it's a trend from the last two years, it counts. If it's a trend from 2010-~2013 take some notes from it. Anything else is irrelevant. It's a new time in Seattle and i'm willing to give JS/MM a clean slate. They're already bucking trends of the last years under JS/PC which tells me it is different and we should be thinking different. (Thus i can argue we're making moves to set-up for 2025 where we trade up/pick high to get Ewers and be the first team to win the Superbowl with a rookie).

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You’re referencing the “good” years, which were when Scot McGlaughan was consulting with them. The bad yrs were when he was no longer with the Hawks

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Agree 100%. With the caveat being that, unless someone here worked at VMAC or in the organization, we are all using educated speculation/detective work to some degree. In your analysis here, though, IMHO you are about as Holmesian (not Holmgrensian) as you could be. I should expect nothing less than an "elementary" in response.

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Not going to quit with they should draft center Jackson Powers- Johnson, IMHO!

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That's the beauty of this community, I feel. We can all have our own desires for our team, and can all read the situation differently with polite discourse and nobody is going to shout you down or be toxic, unless we're clearly just busting your balls.

That beauty, and SSJ is a uniting force with reasonable processes, info and opinions.

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I can’t help but see a trade down as just another form of drafting for need. It doesn’t seem to produce particularly noteworthy results, in fact, to the contrary. Yea, you can pick out some nuggets over the years but your odds are not good. Mostly you just get so-so guys. And as much as I admire JS, he doesn’t seem to have the Midas touch anyway. I’m for getting the great ones when you can and build your team that way.

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Signed another IOL. Laken looks to be starting at a guard spot

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Hope this doesn’t jinx anything but “former first-round pick has not missed a game since Week 1 of the 2017 season”

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Yep cap/performance casualty of the Jets. They cut him to save 8 million and then signed another guard for 8 million per year. So it wasn’t really much of a cap thing. Gave up 7 sacks - same as Lewis, PFF rating of 55 which is meh but only 4 points lower than Lewis last year which was Lewis worst since his rookie year. He was better when he played next to Trent Williams. Now he is potentially the best offensive lineman on the Seahawks.

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Yes aware of his 2023 PFF rankings. Disagree he is best OLine for Hawks but will see. Truly hope new coaches can enhance the players we have. But yep, not best ranks.

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Abraham Lucas PFF 51/ Bradford PFF 53, Charles Cross PFF 67 but has yet to break 70.

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I don’t know if there’s a standard strength of draft metric but that might be a useful data point to add to this discussion. The chatter says this is an unusually strong draft class, which is why I keep hoping for more day two picks.

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I am hearing that same chatter but my fear is that it will be harder to get teams to trade. My feeling is IHL and the transfer portal is changing the draft. Staying in college is starting to make more financial sense. The result is the top 100 to 150 are better but the next 150 which often had gems from small schools and players under financial pressure to come out early are not there. I would not be surprised to see the draft cut back to six rounds in the next collective bargaining agreement.

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I know this is ridiculous but went to sleep imagining a fan's metric for a successful draft. To be clear, this is not in my wheelhouse. But by way of making my brain work on some other problem, I'm going to type it out here and try to forget the whole thing. At the end of the fourth season (I realize first-round picks are controlled for five, but), going team by team and then aggregating for the league...each player who is still on the drafting team's roster is worth one point (but not the practice squad); if that draft choice is a rotational with, say, a minimum of 100 non-special team snaps, that's worth a second point; if that player is an NFL starter that's worth a third point; for every season the player leads the NFL in a positive category (receptions, yards gained, tackles for loss...all the stuff that's charted but not ALL the stuff that's charted), add a point, and should your draft choice be top-3 in any of those years add .5 in value. So because we're "grading" in this theoretical construct, 4 points rates an A. Is successful. But it's possible for a player to count for more. I'm not proposing weighing by round drafted, though I suspect once the data is assembled one might. And that, too, might be interesting. This would produce a number for each team, for each draft year, and for the league.

I'm not going to do this. I don't have the time nor access to the data. But some of y'all...maybe it's a stupid idea. Probably some other metric exists. But now I can go back to my morning coffee in peace.

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Honestly I would rather see them trade up and come out with 2-3 potential PPF 70’or above players vs a bunch of depth players.

They need a guard and and a QB. I’d rather trade next years 1 and 2 and get the guy they want if they have identified a QB that is the guy.

If they don’t pull the trigger this year they will have to next with worse group of prospects.

I find it odd JS has no problem trading picks for a WR, TE and a SS that were older and $$$. It’s better to trade picks for you to and cheap.

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" I think Schneider’s connections to Patriots GM Eliot Wolf are relevant with the Patriots potentially wanting to trade down from three, but no I don’t expect anything to happen there."

One possibility could be that the Hawks could be part of a 3 team trade where the Pats get our 1st along with the other team's 1st+ while we get a couple of 2nds+.

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Three team trades are tough to pull off in the time frame. Whether a team wants to go to three depends on what the Moons do. Then you have 15 minutes to put it together. If they end getting two second round picks then it is likely to require two trades. One of those trades could easily involve the Pats though. Eg Hawks trade down with Packers and then down again with Pats and package gained picks in the third/fourth round for late second.

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You don't mention the evaluation process they went through two years ago when they decided to go Best Player Available rather than pick for needs. It is too bad that we don't have a second round pick, and many people suggest trading down based upon the history, and ignoring that evaluation process which caused them to change course.

Any history seems to be useless if it doesn't start two years ago. BPA means you don't have too many holes on the team to start with. Check. They have filled the roster with starters in every position with the exception of guard which could be covered with third or even fourth round picks in this draft as well as cheap veterans still on the market, which includes Phil Haynes who has won the job before but never stays healthy.

The sweet spot results when needs, value (positional as well as others) and the best player on the board all come together. That is why many of us fans and analysts suggest someone like Fautana would meet that criteria, if he is still available. There are possible others to consider that are pure guards, and so don't meet the criteria.

Still, I expect them to stay put because it is almost mathematically impossible for all of the blue chippers to be gone at 16 unless only 3 QB's are taken ahead of us. And even then there is likely to be more than one blue chipper still available. Especially if they are willing to consider safeties and CB's. Cooper DeJean is popping up more and more on my radar. As well as some CB's. WR seems the least likely position to be considered, in my opinion. If all of these articles are intended to mush all together in your brain as you attempt to predict the pick, or tade down or up, then I suggest you not forget about taking the best player available at 16 as the most likely target.

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He has mentioned that process before, but I do think it's worth bringing up each time we talk about his history or evaluation of players. Glad you said something. I usually bring it up. 👍

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Under John our first round picks have been consistently bad until 2023. Cross is still an undecided for me. We need all pros not John’s and Joe’s. More players like Spoon get to be the norm in the first round. Guys that are starters and great players from jump. Anything less than that in the first round is a fail at 16 with the talent available this year.

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Jared Verse, when looking at combine testing and college stats, is ALMOST as good as Derrick Hall while playing against weaker comp.

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Pete has a history of giving up on rookies as soon as they make a mistake, choosing to play aging vets instead of investing in younger players. Bruce Irvin was given way to much play, then when he was gone Mafe "figured it out" in his 2nd year. More like he was given a chance. Same with Frank Clark last year instead of letting Derrick Hall play through any kind of learning curve. Clark didn't play any better than Hall (see team defence stats) but slowed Hall's development. Hoping Hall has a 'breakout' similar to Mafe with Clark gone.

(Pete did the same thing to Marquise Blair and Jake Bobo. Blair chose to come up on a scrambling quarterback instead of staying back and got burned for a touchdown. Blair basically disappeared from the lineup after that one mistake. Bobo was a sensation with a couple impossible TD catches. Then he failed to relay a shift to Lockette, and disappeared - for practically the entire 2nd half of the season.)

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If you draft Fletcher Cox instead of trading down for Bruce Irvin, you probably have 2 superbowls instead of one, John.

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If, if, if…..

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Seattle needs to start an ass-kicking legacy among our offensive line. A good start to doing this will be the Coaching showing them an absolute commitment to this by uncharacteristically focusing this Draft on the Need to do this. Our Veterans will finally have a reason to put their pants on for every Game this season. Their experience is invaluable in helping build a Name for themselves that they can look back on. ("I helped build that!") A Region of Boom. Our RBs have their Heyday. Geno's passing lanes open up. So yeah, trade off #16 pick for numerous down-ballot selections of huge men. Serious Men. People JS knows when he meets them. Every one of the guys in this Draft are college All-stars. Grouped up and serious, they can kick ass on anyone any day. It's a commitment thing.

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I see Seattle sticking and picking for a select groups of players. This would be a quarterback they love who slips to 16 - JJ McCarthy or Penix maybe. WR Rome Odunze, OT Joe Alt or Troy Fautanu, TE Brock Bowers, Edge Dallas Turner or Jared Verse. I left out some players sure to be gone by 16. If all the players above are not there, I expect a trade down. I would expect them to trade down into the 20s to add picks and then target a defensive player like DT Murphy or Newton, Edge Chop Robinson or Laitu or maybe Darius Robinson, or perhaps Cooper DeJean. If they don't see any of these players as 1st rounders, I would expect another trade down to the early 2nd round to add a second third rounder or 4th rounder in addition to the added 2nd round pick in the first trade down.

Who do you see as the absolute stickers for the Seahawks at pick 16?

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