Seattle seemed to base a lot of their draft choices on the college bowl games (seniors) and some in the combine. I think the real tale of the tape is free agency and what positions they don't address as far as draft strategy. The decision on Geno will reveal their poker hand a bit more. KC showed what a talented OL can do against a team leading defensive front 7. That matters, whether Geno stay or not. Seattle need to bolster that area (OL) as well as find another RB gem in the later rounds. TE WR yes. But Seattle needs defensive help both in FA and the draft on the line and at LB (urgent). Neal is a must re-sign with Adams injury history at Safety. We know Seattle will draft a corner in later rounds. I still think Young and Blout could be important pieces on both sides of the ball next year. Resign Penny for low ball contract and find a back in round 3 perhaps. Reid and SF sure have done well with later round RB's. The TE scenario just makes good sense Ken. Lock is still an unknown commodity and a gamble. Maybe with a better line and running game he could be tenable. I wonder what the new QB coach is thinking?
- these are just hypotheticals, not what I think is going to happen. A mock draft can never be wrong because a mock draft can never be right.
- when I say “weak class” it’s all relative. It’s taking the last 10 first round draft classes and ranking them 1-10 as prospects. And I’m only speaking to the Seahawks pick at 5 more than I’m talking about their pick at 20 and especially not days 2 and 3. I am only referring to that meaty juicy part of the draft every year that gets the most attention.
I would like to see NO trades (well maybe after the third round). I think , pre-combine, that a realistic draft for the Hawks may be something like this: 1. Will Levis, 1a. Bryan Bresee, 2. Will McDonald IV, 2a. Dawand Jones, 3. Andre Carter II, 4. Moro Ojomo, 5. Michael Wilson, 5a. DeWayne McBride, 6. Juice Scruggs. A top QB; 2 D Line ; 1 Edge; 1 LB; A huge tackle to move inside; A big, fast wideout ; A running back with a "Hawk Porfile" ; and an underrated center. I know you dislike mock drafts, but boy are they fun to fool around with.
It seems to me that every year when we get close to the draft, we hear that the upcoming draft is weak and next year’s is strong.
I think it’s more of a case of weakness at certain positions, like QB is last year’s draft (with the exception of Purdy).
Frankly, I’m ok with whatever PCJS do in the draft. It’s not like I know the draftable players as well as they and the scouting department do. Nor do I know what agents are saying/doing in regards to free agency.
I just pray they end up with a draft class that is orders of magnitude better than the 2021 class. Although that’s a low bar to clear.
Not going to speak to what “it seems” like, because I respect that it may seem like that generally. I can only trust myself and hope you trust me when I say that in my 20 or so years of following closely some classes I am stoked on like 2021 and some years i can take a pass like 2022 and 2023. And usually that is reflected in how the NFL behaves in March and April.
You can only trade with whoever wants to trade with you. So many fans want to trade down from #5, cool, only works if someone wants to come up. It's why, especially pre-Combine, Mock Trades are always to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt, and why as fans we should primarly focus on predictions based on current picks.
If the Combine goes badly for the QB's, the value of #5 drops. In fact with the perceived lack of top end talent overall in this draft, a bad QB Combine will make trading down from #5 really hard and dissapointing. Yet another reason taking Bijan at #5 makes sense. But it's still #5 and some team will still see a player on the board that's worthy of the #5 be it reaching for QB, CB, Edge, WR whatever, at #5 the best positional talent at most positions will be on the board! And we could use pretty much any and all of those players ourselves. Therefore the #5 shouldn't be traded lightly, even if it seems potentially against pattern for PC/JS and a lack of internal belief in the options available.
#20 this year I wouldn't expect a huge return on a trade. By now the blue-chip talents should be gone so whoevers coming up needs to really really love someone and be working hard to jump the Chargers (so i'd guess at OLine). But with the depth in this draft on OLine, DLine and TE only getting a 3rd or couple of Day 3's is not a bad trade at all.
I just don't want to see PC/JS reverting to pre-2022 type. Get in there and draft BPA where they can, and really make teams work for a trade up. Be strong in your draft board and scouting, because a genuinely good coaching team and front office will make it work and make players better.
My only points of reference for trade values are the chart and what the PFF mock draft machine allows me to do. I fleece everybody in PFF mocks and I’ve never used the “force trade” option. No matter who is there at 5, #6 will trade you that and a 3rd rounder and so on. Their assumption is that some teams are absolutely desperate to move up. And in spite of trying to mix up where selections fall, they consistently have some really good players going super late. Bijan and Mayer are there at #20 100% of the time. Schmitz is there at our second 2nd and Nio Mafi lasts until our 5th round pick. If I believed that kind of drafting was possible, I’d be very sad on draft day.
I try almost everything. Sometimes, in a trade I will intentionally make the trade more attractive then it needs to be just to make it more realistic. But sometimes it is the other team calling you, and then you very well might get the Jimmy Johnson chart value for the pick. I think PFF is based upon something like the JJ chart.
I try no trade drafts plenty of times and with our draft haul this year, we still end up with some potentially great players.
- "The S2 isn’t an intelligence test like the 50-question Wonderlic exam but rather measures how quickly and accurately athletes process information. It’s like the 40-yard dash for the brain."
-"Ally says the results are predictive. He couldn’t give out (Brock)Purdy’s exact score because it’s privileged information but said it was in the “mid 90s.” That’s about where Brees, the former Saints quarterback famous for lightning-fast decision-making, scored and where two of the top passers in the league now, the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Bills’ Josh Allen, also landed. The Bengals’ Joe Burrow took the test while at LSU and agreed to allow S2 to disclose the information. Of course he did — he scored in the 97th percentile."
-"The company recently looked at 27 starting quarterbacks. 13 had a career passer rating above 90. The average S2 score of those players was the 91st percentile. Those with passer ratings below 90 had much lower test results. “Those 14 guys, the average score was in the low 60s,” Ally said."
- "The highest S2 score in last year’s draft class, in fact, was turned in by a cornerback, Trent McDuffie, who started 15 games for the Chiefs, including the Super Bowl."
- HERE'S THE BIG ONE "“We’ve been doing the NFL draft for seven years,” Ally said. “From an S2 Cognitive perspective, last year was the worst year we’ve ever had score-wise. And this year is by far and away the best we’ve ever had, score-wise, at the quarterback position.”
Why there might be fewer taken:
Next year's top three are Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Michael Penix with McCall, Hartman, Leary and other also on the board. It looks like another banner year for QBs.
I agree with you Dale, I don’t think this is a weak draft class. My takes is that it is not particularly strong class for prospective wideouts and until I read your post not particularly strong for QBs but strong for tight ends edge rushers, slot receivers and corners. If the first round of the draft is perceived as weak it is because the generational prospects are at defensive tackle and running back, which are not positions drafted in the top ten much less the top five. But they are very valuable pieces for a team that wants to run the ball and stop the run above all other things. One of those two players will be available at 5 and I think both maybe because neither are traditional top 4 picks. I also doubt we will trade out of 5. When we had the 6th we didn’t trade out. When we had the 9th pick we did not trade out, and we had more holes to fill then we do now. No matter how the top 4 picks play-out there will be a player there that we want who not only starts but also makes us better so I don’t think we are very likely to trade out unless it is with Carolina and we are confident Detroit is not taking the player we want.
I also think it is unlikely we trade out of 20 because we need a strarting interior lineman/ slot receiver/ lLB and
DTs and 1 of those players is going to be there and may very well be best player available.
But you raise an interesting prospect maybe Stroud or Richardson has unworldly processing speed. I have trouble believing Levitt does because with his tools and elite processing ability he should be better. Likewise It is almost certain that Young does because even before I read your post his play reminded me of Drew Breeze.
I had presumed we were going to draft a Qb but I figured it would be in the second round where I thought we likely to target Hooker in the second round. There is an outside possibility that we potentially trade up with KC or Philly (Denver second rounder 36 and our third rounder 84 to have a fifth year as Hooker is going to essentially have a redshirt year because of his ACL. But if you are correct and the class is promising then we could actually be moving up from 5 to get the QB we want, as It is a hell of a risk to sit at 5 with two maybe three teams that have a need at QB above you. What we do with Geno is going to be a heck of a tell at any rate
Thanks for the summary. Sounds cool if it is predictive, and that could mean we might take a QB this year and that if we do it might not be a huge mistake. The way I see it is that Levis is the wild card. If he is available at #5 it might not be the disaster I fear. Rob Staton keeps saying Levis is already familiar with our system and is basically pro ready, or more pro ready than anyone else except maybe Young. But thanks for the information and hopefully, JS likes one or hopefully ALL of these QB's and one of them almost certainly, and if one counts Anthony Richardson then probably two, of the top 4 QB's will be available at #5. You give me hope.
Interesting article (or snippet, I no longer subscribe to the Athletic) and I am surprised to just hearing about this. Now I want to take it! Interesting that they keep the player results private. I feel like people’s Wonderlic scores were always brought up, whether low or high.
That's a fascinating article. I've never heard of this test, but testing info processing speed makes so much sense for QBs. I am sure JS is looking at these scores. It's clear the 49ers were weighting it heavily. Until all teams weigh this heavily - if it's as predictive as the article says - it could be a new NFL moneyball metric that gives a team an arbitrage advantage against other teams.
Yes, I adjust my trades based upon two criteria. One, did the other team call us, or did we call them? Second, are there any QB's a team might be interested in. The truth is (what a loaded phrase, usually the hair on the back of my neck stands up when I read that phrase, so I use it advisedly) we don't know what another team is thinking, and so we can only go by what has gone before, as Joe pointed out. Joe's trades are very conservative, but I will assume, we called them, and they needed some incentive to accept the trade. Historically, there are not lots of trades, but the Seahawks are involved more often than the average team.
I have also noticed it is easy to trade down and end up with too many rookies, which is an argument in favor of taking quality over quantity. In an interview on this years' draft, JS said this was a "deep draft" but what he didn't say is that it is thin at the top. I believe I could hear him say it to himself, but stopped before he blurted it out. I don't think 12 rookies this year is too much, but some might wash out and that would be normal.
I have noticed that two groups have so much depth that good players or players with exceptional traits are being pushed into the last round of the draft. CB's and Defensive Tackles. Tight Ends are also deep, but fizzle out in the last couple of rounds. I hear people say the RB group is also deep. Last year was deep in CB's and that is why we got two starters out of the 4th and 5th rounds.
Success in the draft depends on the quality of the draft and figuring out where it is so deep there are gems to be found. I believe it is interior defensive players. I hope we draft at least two. PFF has shaken up the draft order again, and it pushes DI's and CB's down even further, but I have my eye on taking a CB at 153 out of superstition and/or tradition. My eye has been drawn to Riley Moss our of Iowa or Starling Thomas V out of UAB, who has speed traits, but not long arms.
Are you going to post an article about possibly trading up? As I have said before, when Schneider trades up it is usually for a good reason
Seattle seemed to base a lot of their draft choices on the college bowl games (seniors) and some in the combine. I think the real tale of the tape is free agency and what positions they don't address as far as draft strategy. The decision on Geno will reveal their poker hand a bit more. KC showed what a talented OL can do against a team leading defensive front 7. That matters, whether Geno stay or not. Seattle need to bolster that area (OL) as well as find another RB gem in the later rounds. TE WR yes. But Seattle needs defensive help both in FA and the draft on the line and at LB (urgent). Neal is a must re-sign with Adams injury history at Safety. We know Seattle will draft a corner in later rounds. I still think Young and Blout could be important pieces on both sides of the ball next year. Resign Penny for low ball contract and find a back in round 3 perhaps. Reid and SF sure have done well with later round RB's. The TE scenario just makes good sense Ken. Lock is still an unknown commodity and a gamble. Maybe with a better line and running game he could be tenable. I wonder what the new QB coach is thinking?
Just two notes to add:
- these are just hypotheticals, not what I think is going to happen. A mock draft can never be wrong because a mock draft can never be right.
- when I say “weak class” it’s all relative. It’s taking the last 10 first round draft classes and ranking them 1-10 as prospects. And I’m only speaking to the Seahawks pick at 5 more than I’m talking about their pick at 20 and especially not days 2 and 3. I am only referring to that meaty juicy part of the draft every year that gets the most attention.
I would like to see NO trades (well maybe after the third round). I think , pre-combine, that a realistic draft for the Hawks may be something like this: 1. Will Levis, 1a. Bryan Bresee, 2. Will McDonald IV, 2a. Dawand Jones, 3. Andre Carter II, 4. Moro Ojomo, 5. Michael Wilson, 5a. DeWayne McBride, 6. Juice Scruggs. A top QB; 2 D Line ; 1 Edge; 1 LB; A huge tackle to move inside; A big, fast wideout ; A running back with a "Hawk Porfile" ; and an underrated center. I know you dislike mock drafts, but boy are they fun to fool around with.
It seems to me that every year when we get close to the draft, we hear that the upcoming draft is weak and next year’s is strong.
I think it’s more of a case of weakness at certain positions, like QB is last year’s draft (with the exception of Purdy).
Frankly, I’m ok with whatever PCJS do in the draft. It’s not like I know the draftable players as well as they and the scouting department do. Nor do I know what agents are saying/doing in regards to free agency.
I just pray they end up with a draft class that is orders of magnitude better than the 2021 class. Although that’s a low bar to clear.
Not going to speak to what “it seems” like, because I respect that it may seem like that generally. I can only trust myself and hope you trust me when I say that in my 20 or so years of following closely some classes I am stoked on like 2021 and some years i can take a pass like 2022 and 2023. And usually that is reflected in how the NFL behaves in March and April.
You can only trade with whoever wants to trade with you. So many fans want to trade down from #5, cool, only works if someone wants to come up. It's why, especially pre-Combine, Mock Trades are always to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt, and why as fans we should primarly focus on predictions based on current picks.
If the Combine goes badly for the QB's, the value of #5 drops. In fact with the perceived lack of top end talent overall in this draft, a bad QB Combine will make trading down from #5 really hard and dissapointing. Yet another reason taking Bijan at #5 makes sense. But it's still #5 and some team will still see a player on the board that's worthy of the #5 be it reaching for QB, CB, Edge, WR whatever, at #5 the best positional talent at most positions will be on the board! And we could use pretty much any and all of those players ourselves. Therefore the #5 shouldn't be traded lightly, even if it seems potentially against pattern for PC/JS and a lack of internal belief in the options available.
#20 this year I wouldn't expect a huge return on a trade. By now the blue-chip talents should be gone so whoevers coming up needs to really really love someone and be working hard to jump the Chargers (so i'd guess at OLine). But with the depth in this draft on OLine, DLine and TE only getting a 3rd or couple of Day 3's is not a bad trade at all.
I just don't want to see PC/JS reverting to pre-2022 type. Get in there and draft BPA where they can, and really make teams work for a trade up. Be strong in your draft board and scouting, because a genuinely good coaching team and front office will make it work and make players better.
It works the same when people go “Oh geez why didn’t you sign that guy! So stupid!!”
Well, how do you even know that guy would have ever agreed to sign here? Did you ask him?
My only points of reference for trade values are the chart and what the PFF mock draft machine allows me to do. I fleece everybody in PFF mocks and I’ve never used the “force trade” option. No matter who is there at 5, #6 will trade you that and a 3rd rounder and so on. Their assumption is that some teams are absolutely desperate to move up. And in spite of trying to mix up where selections fall, they consistently have some really good players going super late. Bijan and Mayer are there at #20 100% of the time. Schmitz is there at our second 2nd and Nio Mafi lasts until our 5th round pick. If I believed that kind of drafting was possible, I’d be very sad on draft day.
I try almost everything. Sometimes, in a trade I will intentionally make the trade more attractive then it needs to be just to make it more realistic. But sometimes it is the other team calling you, and then you very well might get the Jimmy Johnson chart value for the pick. I think PFF is based upon something like the JJ chart.
I try no trade drafts plenty of times and with our draft haul this year, we still end up with some potentially great players.
I'll disagree with Joe. I believe this is a deep draft but not a strong first round.
Why there will be multiple QBs taken in the first round of the 2023 draft:
I ran across a facinating article about the S2 Cognition test, the replacement for the ineffective Wonderlic. Here's the link but it's The Athletic so you may hit a paywall. https://theathletic.com/4226466/2023/02/24/nfl-quarterbacks-s2-cognition-test/
I'll give you some key quotes.
- "The S2 isn’t an intelligence test like the 50-question Wonderlic exam but rather measures how quickly and accurately athletes process information. It’s like the 40-yard dash for the brain."
-"Ally says the results are predictive. He couldn’t give out (Brock)Purdy’s exact score because it’s privileged information but said it was in the “mid 90s.” That’s about where Brees, the former Saints quarterback famous for lightning-fast decision-making, scored and where two of the top passers in the league now, the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Bills’ Josh Allen, also landed. The Bengals’ Joe Burrow took the test while at LSU and agreed to allow S2 to disclose the information. Of course he did — he scored in the 97th percentile."
-"The company recently looked at 27 starting quarterbacks. 13 had a career passer rating above 90. The average S2 score of those players was the 91st percentile. Those with passer ratings below 90 had much lower test results. “Those 14 guys, the average score was in the low 60s,” Ally said."
- "The highest S2 score in last year’s draft class, in fact, was turned in by a cornerback, Trent McDuffie, who started 15 games for the Chiefs, including the Super Bowl."
- HERE'S THE BIG ONE "“We’ve been doing the NFL draft for seven years,” Ally said. “From an S2 Cognitive perspective, last year was the worst year we’ve ever had score-wise. And this year is by far and away the best we’ve ever had, score-wise, at the quarterback position.”
Why there might be fewer taken:
Next year's top three are Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Michael Penix with McCall, Hartman, Leary and other also on the board. It looks like another banner year for QBs.
I agree with you Dale, I don’t think this is a weak draft class. My takes is that it is not particularly strong class for prospective wideouts and until I read your post not particularly strong for QBs but strong for tight ends edge rushers, slot receivers and corners. If the first round of the draft is perceived as weak it is because the generational prospects are at defensive tackle and running back, which are not positions drafted in the top ten much less the top five. But they are very valuable pieces for a team that wants to run the ball and stop the run above all other things. One of those two players will be available at 5 and I think both maybe because neither are traditional top 4 picks. I also doubt we will trade out of 5. When we had the 6th we didn’t trade out. When we had the 9th pick we did not trade out, and we had more holes to fill then we do now. No matter how the top 4 picks play-out there will be a player there that we want who not only starts but also makes us better so I don’t think we are very likely to trade out unless it is with Carolina and we are confident Detroit is not taking the player we want.
I also think it is unlikely we trade out of 20 because we need a strarting interior lineman/ slot receiver/ lLB and
DTs and 1 of those players is going to be there and may very well be best player available.
But you raise an interesting prospect maybe Stroud or Richardson has unworldly processing speed. I have trouble believing Levitt does because with his tools and elite processing ability he should be better. Likewise It is almost certain that Young does because even before I read your post his play reminded me of Drew Breeze.
I had presumed we were going to draft a Qb but I figured it would be in the second round where I thought we likely to target Hooker in the second round. There is an outside possibility that we potentially trade up with KC or Philly (Denver second rounder 36 and our third rounder 84 to have a fifth year as Hooker is going to essentially have a redshirt year because of his ACL. But if you are correct and the class is promising then we could actually be moving up from 5 to get the QB we want, as It is a hell of a risk to sit at 5 with two maybe three teams that have a need at QB above you. What we do with Geno is going to be a heck of a tell at any rate
For the purposes of the article being responded to, the point being that there wasn’t a prospect that anyone feels they need to sellout the farm for.
Actually I would say we probably agree. There’s some good depth at certain positions. I should be more clear.
Thanks for the summary. Sounds cool if it is predictive, and that could mean we might take a QB this year and that if we do it might not be a huge mistake. The way I see it is that Levis is the wild card. If he is available at #5 it might not be the disaster I fear. Rob Staton keeps saying Levis is already familiar with our system and is basically pro ready, or more pro ready than anyone else except maybe Young. But thanks for the information and hopefully, JS likes one or hopefully ALL of these QB's and one of them almost certainly, and if one counts Anthony Richardson then probably two, of the top 4 QB's will be available at #5. You give me hope.
Interesting article (or snippet, I no longer subscribe to the Athletic) and I am surprised to just hearing about this. Now I want to take it! Interesting that they keep the player results private. I feel like people’s Wonderlic scores were always brought up, whether low or high.
That's a fascinating article. I've never heard of this test, but testing info processing speed makes so much sense for QBs. I am sure JS is looking at these scores. It's clear the 49ers were weighting it heavily. Until all teams weigh this heavily - if it's as predictive as the article says - it could be a new NFL moneyball metric that gives a team an arbitrage advantage against other teams.
Yes, I adjust my trades based upon two criteria. One, did the other team call us, or did we call them? Second, are there any QB's a team might be interested in. The truth is (what a loaded phrase, usually the hair on the back of my neck stands up when I read that phrase, so I use it advisedly) we don't know what another team is thinking, and so we can only go by what has gone before, as Joe pointed out. Joe's trades are very conservative, but I will assume, we called them, and they needed some incentive to accept the trade. Historically, there are not lots of trades, but the Seahawks are involved more often than the average team.
I have also noticed it is easy to trade down and end up with too many rookies, which is an argument in favor of taking quality over quantity. In an interview on this years' draft, JS said this was a "deep draft" but what he didn't say is that it is thin at the top. I believe I could hear him say it to himself, but stopped before he blurted it out. I don't think 12 rookies this year is too much, but some might wash out and that would be normal.
I have noticed that two groups have so much depth that good players or players with exceptional traits are being pushed into the last round of the draft. CB's and Defensive Tackles. Tight Ends are also deep, but fizzle out in the last couple of rounds. I hear people say the RB group is also deep. Last year was deep in CB's and that is why we got two starters out of the 4th and 5th rounds.
Success in the draft depends on the quality of the draft and figuring out where it is so deep there are gems to be found. I believe it is interior defensive players. I hope we draft at least two. PFF has shaken up the draft order again, and it pushes DI's and CB's down even further, but I have my eye on taking a CB at 153 out of superstition and/or tradition. My eye has been drawn to Riley Moss our of Iowa or Starling Thomas V out of UAB, who has speed traits, but not long arms.