PLEA: 📣Draft a QB for once!📣

5 reasons Seahawks should draft a QB in 2025

If John Schneider is secretly subscribed to Seaside Joe (I’d also take assistant GM Nolan Teasley or director of college scouting Aaron Hineline) then I have to get THIS ONE MESSAGE TO YOU:

Give Seahawks fans just ONE quarterback draft pick to get excited about in our lifetimes!

Because if you started following the team after 1993, then you’ve never seen the Seahawks draft a quarterback in the first round. And you’ve also never seen the Seahawks draft a quarterback in the SECOND round either! That’s too many years and too many early rounds…

Even those of you who have been following the Seahawks since the very beginning in 1976, the only first or second round quarterbacks who the team has EVER let you root for are Dan McGwire and Rick Mirer, two busts picked within two years of each other.

John, it’s not cute anymore.

Without getting into why the Seattle Seahawks should NOT draft a first round quarterback in 2025, which is a worthy subject (for another day), there are at least a few reasons why some fans really do need Schneider to start taking some risks at the position:

1. Geno Smith is among the oldest QBs

2. Sam Howell is not the answer

3. Only 3 positions worth a first: QB, OT, and EDGE

4. Desperate times, desperate measures

5. IT’S BEEN 32 YEARS!!!

There are many Seahawks fans who understandably do not want to see Seattle draft a first round quarterback. Look at all the recent busts. Look at all the needs coming up in 2025. Look at the upcoming quarterback class, considered by many to be an underwhelming group.

There are going to be articles for those fans. This is not one of them.

THIS is an article for the fans who want to see…FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIVES…the Seahawks draft a first or second round quarterback.

1 - QB age ain't nothin' but a(n important) number

If Aaron Rodgers retires, the oldest starting quarterbacks will be Matthew Stafford, Kirk Cousins, and Russell Wilson, all of whom will be in their age-37 season. Setting aside exceptions like Rodgers, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees, the 35 to 37 range is usually when quarterbacks begin to shutdown.

No matter how good anyone feels about Geno Smith, including those who assume he has extra tread on his tires from being on the bench for seven years, he is turning 35 next year. If Stafford retires, or any of these quarterbacks are injured, we’re on the cusp of calling Geno “the oldest starting quarterback in the NFL”.

Starting QBs 35+

*Significant injury

2024: Rodgers, Cousins, Stafford, Wilson

2023: Rodgers*, Stafford, Wilson, Cousins*, Ryan Tannehill

2022: Tom Brady, Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Andy Dalton

2021: Brady, Big Ben, Rodgers, Ryan

2020: Brady, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Big Ben, Rodgers, Ryan

2019: Brady, Brees, Rivers, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ben*, Rodgers

2018: Brady, Brees, Rivers, Eli Manning, Ben, Rodgers

2017: Brady, Brees, Josh McCown, Carson Palmer*, Rivers, Eli, Ben

2016: Brady, Brees, Palmer, Rivers, Eli

2015: Matt Hasselbeck, Peyton Manning, Brady, Brees, Palmer, Tony Romo*, Michael Vick*

After Manning’s ghost won the Super Bowl in 2015, that’s 15 names and 47 individual seasons in the nine years since and without Brady you can easily count the number of Super Bowl or Conference Championship appearances: Rodgers: 2 NFC title game losses, Brees: 1 NFC title game loss.

Brady is the only QB on this entire list besides Peyton Manning to win more than one playoff game in a single year after turning 35. Brees and Rodgers didn’t do that. This is not necessarily bad news for Geno or his fans: Teams should stop starting rookie quarterbacks and Geno is the ideal 2025 bridge quarterback.

2 - I’m Not Sure Howell He’ll Do

Sam Howell was a fifth round pick and as much as he deserves a chance to start for a team without Eric Bieniemy as his offensive coordinator, the odds are greater that his ceiling is Gardner Minshew than they are in favor of him being the next Baker Mayfield. When the Seahawks signed Matt Flynn and drafted Russell Wilson in the same offseason, Howell would be the “Tarvaris Jackson” in that equation.

3 - QBOTEDGE

No, it’s not your favorite Mexican fast food chain.

It’s the 3 positions that the Seahawks must focus their attention on with a first round pick: QB, TACKLE, and EDGE. These are the only acceptable first round options because Schneider doesn’t have the privilege of upgrading other positions while they’re still so weak ON THE FOOTBALL…Build INSIDE-OUT, not OUTSIDE-IN.

Not only does an offensive tackle insure the team against another Abe Lucas injury, that right tackle spot has been a hotbed for great picks recently: Penei Sewell, Joe Alt, and Lane Johnson are three of the most important players on successful teams and they were all picked in the top-10.

If Lucas, Charles Cross, and the rookie are all healthy, just move someone inside and there’s your answer to the guard problem.

Edge is obvious for many reasons (detailed on Wednesday) and that leaves quarterback, which also needs no explanation. After picking a corner, a receiver, and a defensive tackle, Schneider has spent Seattle’s most three most recent top-20 picks on players who don’t play those positions. (Byron Murphy II is not an edge rusher, but is at least meant to accomplish the same goal of getting to the quarterback.)

Those were not bad picks by any means, but those decisions increase the visibility on the positions NOT addressed and THE SEAHAWKS ARE NOT GOING TO MOVE THE NEEDLE WITH A TOP-20 PICK OFF-BALL LINEBACKER, GUARD, CORNERBACK, OR EVEN A WIDE RECEIVER.

A top-10 pick at receiver is a luxury for teams that are already set at QB, OT, and EDGE, and the Seahawks are not one of those teams.

4 - Consider this an invitation, to my desperation

Losing Efforts:

• 2024: Lost 5 of last 6

• 2023: Lost 5 of 6 in November

• 2022: Lost 5 of 6 in December

• 2021: Lost 8 of 10 after Week 1 win

It’s worrisome to see so many people claim the Seahawks are not a bad team. By the end, Pete Carroll’s greatest skill was finding ways to win a few meaningless games against mediocre teams to finish around .500. We don’t even know if Mike Macdonald possesses the same ability so it’s too early to say how high Seattle’s 2025 draft pick is about to be.

5 - ‘93 and Me

Celebrities born after Seattle’s most recent first or second round QB:

• Ariana Grande

• Miley Cyrus

• Morgan Wallen

• Derrick Henry

• Cooper Kupp

• Justin Bieber

• Harry Styles

• Pete Davidson

• Patrick Mahomes

• Kendall Jenner

• Some of you (You’re a star in my eyes)

The Seahawks are the LEAST-GIVING-A-SHIT team in the entire freakin’ NFL when it comes to the quarterback position. The QUARTERBACK position. It’s just nonsensical for so many reasons.

The JOY in being a sports fan is certainly tied to winning, but also…give me players to go to bat for, give me players to be fanatical over, give me players whose face will be plastered on NBC on Sunday nights and ESPN/ABC on Mondays….Quarterbacks are most often THOSE players.

John, you were so close twice already…

The Bills were the most irrelevant team in the NFL until they got Josh Allen.

The Chiefs were essentially the same as the 2015-2020 Seahawks until they got Patrick Mahomes.

The craziest part of those QB picks is that not only did Schneider reportedly love both of those prospects in particular, but the Bills and Chiefs both had to trade up and over the Seahawks for them:

• 2017: Seahawks are picking 26th, Chiefs are picking 27th, but Chiefs leapfrog Seattle and 16 other teams to get Mahomes; Seattle trades down and gets Malik McDowell

• 2018: Seahawks are picking 18th, the Bills are picking 21st, but Buffalo makes two trades to leapfrog Seattle for Allen; Seattle trades down and gets Rashaad Penny

It’s revisionist history to argue, “What if THE MOST IDEAL THING POSSIBLE happened?” but at this point a lot of Seahawks fans would rather take a failed attempt at quarterback than playing it safe and finding out that there’s no such thing as “safe” in the NFL draft.

Fortune favors the bold, not the bulldozed.

Many of you are hesitating to agree and you have good reason to hesitate. Who is the “right” prospect in 2025? What would the Seahawks need to sacrifice to trade up?

But sometimes we outsmart ourselves from being smart and over-think decisions that require no thinking…Winning is great for many reasons, but at its core fans like their teams to win because success is more entertaining. John, the Seahawks haven’t won meaningful games in a long time, maybe it’s time try to entertain the fans for once and see if winning follows.

Seaside Joe 2054