John Schneider has tendency to trade down into draft trouble
Seaside Joe 1868
I don’t expect John Schneider to know if the Seattle Seahawks will trade their first round pick or not until the draft has actually started and Caleb Williams is a Chicago Bear. Barring an unexpected (and I do mean unexpected) decision to trade one of their stars to get into the top-10, Schneider will probably wait to find out who the first 15 prospects to get drafted are and then weigh options between his top player left on the board and offers to get to 16.
So far we’ve learned that Seattle’s history of trading up in the first round is glittered with former Seahawks stars, but Schneider’s history of trading down is littered with draft mistakes.
It doesn’t mean that the Seahawks should trade up or that they shouldn’t trade down. It only means that if Schneider does take an offer from a team wanting to move up, what can he learn from Seattle’s draft mistakes in the past to make better picks later on in the draft when it happens again?
Given the Seahawks’ probable need to accumulate more draft picks and fill out the 90-man roster with better depth, as well as Seattle’s pre-draft visits and the potential that Schneider will prefer two prospects on day two as opposed to the best prospect left on the board at 16 (could it be recent top-30 visit Jared Verse?), trading down will not only happen again…it could happen in less than two weeks.
Schneider’s history of trading down (1st round)
2012 - Seahawks trade down 12 to 15, select Bruce Irvin (picks added: 4.114, 6.172)
2014 - Seahawks trade 32 to 40 to 45, select Paul Richardson (picks added: 4.108, 4.111, 7.227, lost 5.146)
2017 - Seahawks trade 26 to 31 to 34 to 35, select Malik McDowell (picks added: 3.95, 7.249, 4.111, 6.187)
2018 - Seahawks trade 18 to 27, select Rashaad Penny (picks added: 3.76, 6.186, lost 7.248)
2019 - Seahawks trade 21 to 30 to 37 to 46, select Marquise Blair (picks added: 4.114, 4.118, 4.132, 5.142, 3.77)
Five first round trade downs, two players who did zero-to-little for the Seahawks (McDowell, Blair), and essentially I would see three role players (Irvin, Penny, Richardson) with Irvin being the most valuable. Richardson and Penny had injury issues holding them back as well.
Regardless of the picks added, because we can all agree that the Seahawks would stand to benefit from more picks, something went wrong in Seattle’s evlauation that told them players like McDowell, Blair, Penny, Richardson, and even Irvin were as good or better than the prospects they passed up on to move down. And the Seahawks passed on a lot of really good-to-great players in these five examples.
I will add again that teams rarely trade from the middle of the first round to get additional second round picks, or even third rounders, as you can see in 2019 that the Packers only gave the Seahawks two fourth rounders to go from 30 to 21 and it was only because of Carolina’s massive overpay to go from 47 to 37 (the Panthers gave back pick 3.77 for that) that Seattle added a day two pick from going down 21 to 47.
The Seahawks added five picks in the process, but sometimes five players don’t come close to the value of one: Seattle passed on some really bad picks that year so they had some idea that it wasn’t a strong area of the draft, but they also passed on a few good ones and they allowed L.J. Collier to be their first pick instead of, I don’t know, Montez Sweat.
It’s not my intention to condemn trading down, only to point out that something has to change in the evaluation process and weighing Prospect A at 16 and Prospects B thru Z when they move down 10-15 spots. Perhaps this is why the Seahawks didn’t trade down from 27, 9, 5, or 20 with their most recent four first round picks.
Late first picks
In addition to missing on their trade-down first picks, the Seahawks also have a very spotty record under Schneider (and Pete Carroll) when it comes to late first-mid to late second round picks.
2011 - James Carpenter at 1.25
2013 - Christine Michael at 2.62
2016 - Germain Ifedi at 1.31
2020 - Jordyn Brooks at 1.27
Even if Brooks has been an okay player, surely Seattle would have liked the draft pick to work out well enough to get the fifth-year option and a contract extension to be a lifetime Seahawk. By far the best late-first pick in Schneider’s history is taking Frank Clark at 2.63 in 2015, then trading up for Tyler Lockett at 3.69 right after.
What was Seattle doing “right” that year?
Other good day two picks under Schneider include Golden Tate in 2010, Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson in 2012, Justin Britt (kind of) in 2014, Jarran Reed in 2016, Shaq Griffin in 2017, DK Metcalf in 2019, and Damien Lewis in 2020, setting aside more recent picks who have yet to prove themselves one way or another like Boye Mafe, etc.
So it’s not that the Seahawks are incapable of making good decisions outside of the top-20 picks, but for some reason when that player is Seattle’s first pick it doesn’t work out.
What will Seahawks do?
The only thing that should catch us off guard really is if the Seahawks make a draft trade prior to the first round on April 25th. 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. More likely, Seattle waits until 15 names are called and then decides if they absolutely love a prospect too much to lose him (probably someone who had a great college career against the top competition, blew everyone away with his combine or pro day testing as expected, loves football, is annoyingly obsessed with getting better, and is a mature person unlikely to derail his career by getting in trouble or having a bad attitude) or if they can afford to move down at a good price.
If the Seahawks do trade down, Schneider must know why this year is going to be different than the past five times he traded down and the past nine times Seattle picked outside of the top-20.
I always feel like McDowell should be left out of the discussion unless the argument is the Seahawks should have known he was the type of guy who would get into an ATV accident... before the draft the knock on him was only that he took plays off playing for a baaaad MSU team, but that he had undeniable NFL talent.
But, yeah.
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).