Seahawks next draft choice could come down to QB or WR
Will Seahawks change strategy and target the passing game in the 2025 NFL Draft? Seaside Joe 1946
If there’s been a minor theme to Seaside Joe lately, it’s defining who the Seattle Seahawks are as an NFL franchise—unspoken rules that they’ve lived by for the majority of the past 50 years—and who they want to be moving forward with John Schneider and Mike Macdonald as the new Pete Carroll. Whether it’s the article about Seattle’s unwillingness to draft, find or keep upgrades at guard and center, or the Seahawks drafting more first round running backs than first round quarterbacks, this newsletter is going to continue digging and getting closer to understanding the organization so that we don’t have to waste our time with rumors and speculative theories that don’t align with those things that are “Seahawk-y”.
A perfect example would be Seattle Sports radio’s unwillingness to walk away from Bill Barnwell’s speculation for ESPN that the Seahawks would make a lot of sense as a destination for Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
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The Seahawks have walked a very clear path with regards to quarterbacks over the last 50 years, one that is too far below the value placed by average NFL teams on quarterbacks, to think that Seattle will both make a play for / win the services of Dak Prescott or any “franchise quarterback”. Doing something like that is not who they are, which reminds me of a YouTube video I watched recently.
I was watching an interview with Deryck Whibley, the lead singer of Sum 41, and he said something very interesting when asked about performing for prospective labels when the band started to gain some traction. Sum 41 was known for doing stunts on stage and in their homemade music videos, but Whibley said that they never did anything bigger or different just because someone from a major label was going to be in attendance.
“We weren’t trying to impress anybody that was coming to these showcases. We were just like ‘Here’s what we do, like it or hate it’.”
For me, that is really the key to why any artist gets a break or has success: To be as authentic to who you are as you can be and not compromising what makes you unique by trying to be like something or someone else that is successful.
I don’t know if you like or dislike Sum 41, or if you even know that band at all (I’m not even really aware of their songs outside of “Fat Lip” and “In Too Deep”, although ironically, relative to being true to yourself, I do know that those two hits are much different than their usual style as a hardcore metal band), but they’ve had some objective success in the music industry and that’s extremely hard to do.
I do not have strong feelings about Sum 41 musically (I do know that their name is based on how they started the band on the 41st day of summer) one way or the other, for some reason I have had an urge to revisit those songs a lot lately, but I really like that Whibley said that part about not trying to conform* to what they thought a label would want to see from them. If they had done that, I don’t think there would be any YouTube videos about Deryck Whibley or Sum 41.
(*obligatory “I don’t wanna waste my time, become another casualty of society, I’ll never faill in line, become another victim of your conformity and back down”)
I can’t guarantee that the Seahawks will or won’t do anything in the future. Seattle has only drafted two first round quarterbacks in 50 years, but that still means that they once picked Rick Mirer second overall. The time will come for the Seahawks to draft a first round quarterback again at some point and while 2025 isn’t considered a strong draft at the position, it could end up being a perfect storm of circumstances that makes it an ideal time for Seattle.
3 reasons why the Seahawks first 2025 choice could be a QB or a WR
The Seahawks were the lucky recipients of the highest-rated defensive player on a lot of NFL draft boards in 2024 because the first 14 picks of the first round went to offense. Byron Murphy II was the player who the Seahawks coveted and didn’t think they could get because Seattle was sitting at pick 16 and super unlikely to trade up, but then all these unexpected dominoes fell that dropped Murphy to the middle of day one and caused John Schneider to do something he swored to his pappy he’d never do:
Say “No” to a trade offer.
The Seahawks also seemed to get lucky in 2023 by getting Devon Witherspoon without having to do anything except trade Russell Wilson a year earlier, and getting the first receiver in the class at pick 20, a player who might have gone in the top-10 if he had not missed the entire 2022 campaign.
These players all still have to perform at a high level, stay healthy, and prove to be the types of people we want to have around for a long time.
But then think of all the drafts between 2013 and 2021 and compare that to now and it almost feels like the Seahawks have been getting the number one pick year after year. “Charles Cross? Great, that’s just what we need!” “Devon Witherspoon and Byron Murphy? I wouldn’t have asked for anyone else!”
I don’t know how much of it is good luck, how much of it is Seattle setting themselves up for good luck, and how much of it is a creator or “universal overlord” deciding that I’ve finally done something to deserve seeing the Seahawks add super intriguing top-20 draft picks. I mean, even Aaron Curry was the first top-10 pick by the Seahawks since Koren Robinson eight years earlier.
At least I think we can all agree that Devon Witherspoon doesn’t feel like those two!
Will the Seahawks get as lucky in 2025 and could their first pick be a quarterback or a wide receiver? These are three reason I think it certainly could happen, even though drafting a quarterback would still necessitate highly unusual circumstances: