Would Seahawks like to kick tires on any of the 2021 draft busts?

2 linebackers on the roster bubble, 4 QB busts, and 1 player from Renton who would be worth a long look: Seaside Joe 1978

I do not doubt that the Seattle Seahawks have three linebackers in training camp who they believe have some combination of physical talent and mental acuity to secure one of those two positions for the foreseeable future. Between Jerome Baker, Tyrel Dodson, and Tyrice Knight, the Seahawks should feel like they can get by with who they have this season and then hope that if Baker is healthy or Dodson excels in an expanded role with a new coaching staff and/or Knight develops in a positive direction, that Seattle can scratch off “linebacker” as their top defensive need in 2025.

But if not, they could kick the tires on Zaven Collins or Jamin Davis.

I want to do something a little bit different at Seaside Joe today, which is peek over at the 2021 first round draft picks who did not have their fifth-year options picked up and therefore are set to become free agents in 2025. Two of those players are rare first round linebackers—Collins and Davis—who were not good fits for the teams or coaching staffs that picked them.

They both also had to move off of linebacker to extend their careers with those organizations.

Allow me a moment today to move off of training camp talk (there will be plenty of time for that and bonus posts like Wednesday’s one about Charles Cross and Kenneth Walker’s breakout campaigns) as I need a little bit more time to finalize the results of “our most interesting Seahawks fan survey yet”. Comparing your answers to that will be coming soon…

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2021 first round “busts”

Any player who his original drafting team doesn’t want to keep—or really if they’re unable to trade him for good draft picks—is probably a “bust”, right? That feels like a very fair way to call someone a bust even though I also think it’s important to clarify if that player was a top-10 pick or a late first round pick because those prospects are not created equal.

The Seahawks do not have a history of drafting players who get the fifth-year option picked up, however they’re also always drafting late in the first round. That now changes with Charles Cross, who I expect will have his fifth-year option picked up in 2025 if his career trajectory continues as it has been going. Even if Cross repeats the season he had in 2023 (without a toe injury, hopefully) that’s plenty good enough to pick up his option.

The same goes for Devon Witherspoon and Jaxon Smith-Njigba in 2026.

Teams have not been that patient with their first round busts. The four quarterbacks drafted after Trevor Lawrence in 2021 have all been traded to new teams. Every other player drafted in the top-15 who wasn’t a quarterback either had his fifth-year option picked up or he has signed an extension.

But nine of the players drafted between 16-32 did not have their fifth-year options picked up (one was released, one was traded) and they will likely be free agents in 2025. However, some of them might not even make it to the end of the season with their original team.

(New Team)

2. QB Zach Wilson (Broncos)

3. QB Trey Lance (Cowboys)

11. QB Justin Fields (Steelers)

15. QB Mac Jones (Jaguars)

16. LB Zaven Collins, Cardinals

17. OT Alex Leatherwood (Chargers)

19. LB Jamin Davis, Moons

20. WR Kadarius Toney (Chiefs)

22. CB Caleb Farley, Titans

24. RB Najee Harris, Steelers

28. DE Payton Turner, Saints

29. CB Eric Stokes, Packers

32. OLB Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, Bucs

What would this tell the Seahawks?

QBs

With four of the five quarterbacks picked in the top-15 already being cited as busts, this is a reminder that 2024’s QB class with six going in the top-12 is NEVER going to look as good as they did before training camp. Actually, the day they were drafted was basically the PEAK OPINION of the 2024 QB class. It’s all downhill from here.

The Seahawks stayed out of it—they didn’t really have any other choice since Seattle was picking 16th—but again, it’s not that big of a deal to me that Michael Penix, Bo Nix, and J.J. McCarthy were all out of their range. One or two or three of them could turn out to be great NFL quarterbacks, I think that would be good for the league, but history isn’t very forgiving when it comes to the usual outcome for players picked high in the draft at that position.

And yet, the NFL seems to be doing this thing now where they will let a great QB prospect come back around again for a second chance: Why is Sam Darnold starting for the Vikings? Why did people start saying in 2022 that Mitchell Trubisky would be a hot commodity on the free agent market to get a starting gig? Coincidentally, after I wrote this paragraph I happened to hear PFF’s Trevor Sikkema cite Darnold as a player who would “make a leap” in 2024.

56 bad starts apparently still isn’t enough to give up on Darnold.

It will not surprise me if one or two of the names you see above (Wilson, Lance, Fields, Jones) is given a mysterious “free agency bump” because he looked good in a couple of spot starts or even just “he had a good attitude about being benched”. Darnold hasn’t actually done anything in actual games to be given all these opportunities, so you never quite know which former bust will all of a sudden be popular in free agency.

I know that many people will say that Fields should be starting for the Steelers and be Pittsburgh’s franchise quarterback, yet his passing numbers are at least as bad as Wilson’s and definitively worse than Mac’s.

Longtime Joe readers know how high of an opinion I had on Zach Wilson, but I’m okay with saying “I was wrong” and letting that go because fans have little reason to expect QB career rebounds.

LBs

The Cardinals moved Collins from off-ball linebacker to pass rusher in 2023, yet his pass rushing numbers didn’t improve that much last season. Collins hasn’t been a good linebacker or a good edge rusher in the NFL, which to me is much more important information than knowing he’s a 25-year-old exceptional athlete. However, if Arizona decides to cut Collins (there are two former Seahawks competing for spots as pass rushers), I wouldn’t be against Mike Macdonald showing interest.

It seems like Jamin Davis is the more likely player to be cut or traded this fall, however. Local media is calling his camp a “struggle” so far:

The Moons hired Dan Quinn as head coach and replaced the front office that drafted Davis, so there’s no real reason to expect Washington to have any attachment to him. Even ownership has changed hands. Quinn has tried moving Davis to edge rusher so far, but that only makes him the team’s worst edge rusher instead of their fourth-best linebacker.

Davis is also 25, also an exceptional athlete (by some testing numbers, a better one than Collins), and he has more NFL experience as a linebacker. However, he wasn’t considered a good linebacker, so nobody should expect him to be an upgrade over Baker or Dodson. If the Moons are just giving him away though, Seattle’s a team that could be willing to swap a sixth for Davis and a seventh.

When we talk about how Jordyn Brooks didn’t get the fifth-year option, don’t put that all on the Seahawks for drafting him. In the same class, Patrick Queen and Kenneth Murray didn’t get the option. Collins and Davis didn’t get the option. Maybe Seattle was a little too overzealous in trying to fill the linebacker role with a first round pick, but it seems like the process was a worse decision than the player.

The best player on this list to consider adding:

Joe Tryon-Shoyinka was born and raised in Renton, played college football at Washington, and has had a little bit better of a career than some of the other players on this list. He seems to be taking it well that he didn’t get the fifth-year option:

“That just is what it is: An opportunity to take it as a challenge. Overcoming adversity is a point in everybody’s life, you gotta do that. When your back’s against the all, trust in what got you here and lean on your teammates, your brotherhood. If I can continue to stack these days, I think I’m going to get to where I want to go, which is the Super Bowl. That’s what I’m looking forward to right now.”

Tryon-Shoyinka has had the somewhat rare experience of more or less having the same defensive coordinator since he was drafted by the Buccaneers. Todd Bowles was the DC in 2021 and he has been the head coach since 2022, so there’s been an unusual amount of continuity for Tryon-Shoyinka but he has yet to establish himself as a starter going into his fourth season.

Though he had 27 pressures in 560 snaps as a rookie, Tryon-Shoyinka had 22 pressures on 843 snaps in 2022, then only 13 pressures on 579 snaps in 2023. As a rookie, Tryon-Shoyinka was arguably the best rookie pass rusher in the NFL who wasn’t named Micah Parsons.

Even though he had a career-high five sacks last season, in some ways it was his worst year as a pass rusher. The Bucs drafted Chris Braswell, also an outside linebacker, in the second round this year. That’s a player who could take Tryon-Shoyinka’s job next year, if not sooner. But Tryon-Shoyinka probably still has some fans with his hometown team.

Though the Seahawks only hired a couple of offensive coaches out of Washington, they surely have the best intel on Tryon-Shoyinka’s time with the Huskies. Offensive line coach Scott Huff was on the staff back then too.

If Tryon-Shoyinka has the type of season he expects he will have, Tampa Bay will do everything in their power to keep him. If he has a really bad season, the Seahawks may need to think twice before trying to add him. But somewhere in between there could be a sweet spot for Seattle to add a talented and level-headed 26-year-old to their pass rushing unit in 2025.

It’s Seaside Joe 1978 day. Yesterday was Star Wars day (1977). Got something to say about the year 1978?

The 2021 draft picks who DID get extended/optioned:

QB Trevor Lawrence (ext), TE Kyle Pitts, WR Ja’Marr Chase, WR Jaylen Waddle (ext), OT Penei Sewell (ext), CB Jaycee Horn, CB Patrick Surtain, WR DeVonta Smith (ext), LB Micah Parsons, LT Rashawn Slater, G Alijah Vera-Tucker, OLB Jaelan Phillips, DE Kwity Paye, LT Christian Darrisaw (ext), RB Travis Etienne, CB Greg Newsome II, WR Rashod Bateman (mini extension), DE Gregory Rousseau, DE Odafe Oweh

Chase, Surtain, Parsons, Slater would all be obvious extension candidates.

Pitts, Horn, Vera-Tucker, Phillips, Paye, Etienne, Newsome, Rousseau, and Oweh would fall in a group of players who are too good to lose but still have something to prove. I would think that not all nine of those players are still with the same team in 2025. Some have injury histories, others just need to play better and more consistently.

The Seahawks just drafted a nose tackle/defensive tackle 16th overall, but there wasn’t any player like him picked in the first round in 2021 so there’s nobody to really compare his starting point to from 2021. In 2022, the first round defensive tackles were Derrick Brown (huge extension) and Javon Kinlaw, a player who didn’t get his option picked up and signed with the Jets on a one-year, $7 million deal.

The 2019 class was historic for defensive tackles, including Quinnen Williams, Ed Oliver, Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence, and Jeffery Simmons. They all had the option picked up and the only one to not be extended by his team was Wilkins, who is now the second-highest paid DT in the NFL.

As for a more immediately available option like Jamin Davis, I’m not sure that he’d help the Seahawks any more than Devin Bush did as 2023’s reclamation salvage project at linebacker. Bush did not play like a starter during his stint with Seattle, but he seems to be more of a cautionary tale with rebounds as he was never the same after returning from a devastating knee injury. Even if Davis might not be a better linebacker than the Seahawks top-three options, he could be someone to kick the tires on if all else fails.