Seahawks draft prospects: An underrated edge rusher with an 'over-aged' problem

Akheem Mesidor could be the best edge rusher to get to pick 32, but does he put the "age' in "mirage"?

Arvell Reese, the top-ranked edge rusher in the 2026 class, graduated high school in 2023 and is 20 years old at the time of the draft. Reese will be a first round pick, perhaps top-3, and the team that drafts him will talk about him like a cornerstone defensive piece in the mold of Micah Parsons.

On the same day, a team will draft an edge rusher who was walking and talking and going to school before Reese was born, graduated high school three years earlier, and was in college for twice as long.

Nobody will openly compare him to Parsons or any of the other elite edge rushers in the NFL, but internally the team that drafts Akheem Mesidor will view him as a cornerstone defensive piece too.

With the Seahawks picking 32nd, maybe 30 picks after Reese goes, John Schneider will be looking for a prospect who falls for reasons that might not matter.

Could being a 25-year-old rookie not matter that much?

Because if so, Mesidor was a much more productive college player than Reese, has the same length arms, and the tape from his breakout 12.5-sack season in 2025 is universally praised by analysts.

Mesidor is the 28th-ranked prospect on Dane Brugler’s big board for The Athletic (and 21st on the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus) meaning that he’s likely to go somewhere between the end of the first and early in the second. Could Seattle’s need for a rookie pass rusher be filled by a player who is the same age as Derick Hall?

Perhaps the most underrated first round prospect according to this post at Fox Sports is Akheem Mesidor:

As for Mesidor, a scout told me that while he’s probably behind the other top edge rusher prospects, his tape is too good to overlook.

“I know all the knocks: He’s undersized (6-3, 259), he’s old (25), he’s battled injuries. I get it. But he can play,” the scout said. “If he had stayed healthy and played off the edge his entire career, we’d be talking about him as a first-round pick. I’d probably rank him below the top edge rushers (Arvell Reese, David Bailey, Ruben Bain) for all those reasons. But on the field, I don’t think he’s all that far behind them.”

This scout notes that Mesidor isn’t far behind teammate Rueben Bain, a projected top-15 pick, which was certainly apparent in the box score:

• Mesidor had 3 more sacks

• 2 more tackles for a loss

• 3 more forced fumbles

• 8 more tackles

• Even though he played in one fewer game than Bain did

Of course, teams aren’t really drafting stats at this level. If they were, Reese wouldn’t even be a first round pick (6.5 of his 7 career sacks came in 2025 and he’s never had a forced fumble) and the big board would look completely different.

But there’s always something to be said for production, as well as what production does for your teammates like Bain when opposing college offenses are game-planning to stop you like they were with Mesidor.

In 65 career games, including two years at West Virginia, has had at least 0.5 sacks in 42 of those contests; a full sack in 33 games; and more than 1.0 sack in 14 games. He had a sack in his college debut in 2020 and he’s never failed to be productive. Is this something that could translate to the NFL, especially if he was added to a roster with several of the best veteran and young defensive linemen in the league?

(Rylie Mills, for example, was in the same high school class as Mesidor and is the same age and many Seahawks fans see him as a major piece of Seattle’s defensive future still.)

Mesidor, who also goes by Kiki, was born in Canada and is part Haitian. He hasn’t been clocked in any drills, but is measured at roughly 6’3, 260 lbs, and 32.5” arms. He has gone back and forth from an inside player to an edge rusher throughout his career, a fact that sits him between the dreaded “tweener” label or the desired “versatile” tag.

Dane sees him as a three-down starter:

After several years of flash plays, Mesidor put it all together as a super senior and made significant strides with his pass-rush instincts. Along with his urgent upfield quickness, he has aggressive, well-timed hands and a deep bag of rush moves, which allows him to vary his attack and create challenging angles for blockers.

He is a physical run defender with adequate play strength, although he can get stuck on blocks and needs to continue maturing his escape maneuvers. Overall, Mesidor won’t be universally loved because of his age and injury history, but he is a disruptive force off the edge who is always playing 100 mph. He projects as a three-down NFL starter, with interior value on subpackages.

Lance Zierlein has a first round grade with a comparison to Johnathan Greenard:

Mesidor is an instinctive, high-effort edge rusher with a fluid rush style and a deep toolbox. He bursts upfield and can shrink the corner while punishing oversetting tackles with inside counters. He strings moves together with effortless mid-rush adjustments, utilizing harmonious hands and feet to carve efficient tracks into the pocket.

He’s a problem for guards when reduced inside, too. His urgency shows up in run defense, where he uses play strength and short-area quickness to disrupt blocking schemes and stay around the football. He won’t be as long as most edge-setters and his anchor at the point is just average. The talent and motor are obvious, but his age and injury history could push some teams to discount his grade below what the tape shows.

While Mike Macdonald seeks out future starters to follow Leonard Williams and Jarran Reed and a more immediate replacement for Boye Mafe, Mesidor potentially fits both needs. The question will be if his age and experience advantage over some college teenagers last year is the only reason we’re even talking about Mesidor as a first round pick.

Here is some of that tape broken down by “JakeNFLDraft”:

Some of Jake’s takeaways:

• mixed bag against the run

• has the motor to be disruptive against the run

• weakness: struggles to maintain the edge against the run

• can play 3-tech as a pass rusher

• maybe better against guards than tackles

• struggles to win with power against tackles

• more of a tactician than a bull rusher

• dips under contact and flattens angle to QB

Will Mesidor even make it to pick 32?

Kiki Fall-mer?

I have to be clear about this:

I am not the guy to say if Akheem Mesidor would or wouldn’t be a great pick for the Seahawks at pick 32.

I do not endorse, I investigate.

And at pick 32, there’s only so much hype you can build for any prospect; it was far easier for me to pound the table for Devon Witherspoon in 2023 because he’s a top-5 pick in any regard. Being drafted by the Seahawks this year flat out means that the prospect has red flags.

For Mesidor, that’s his age and the foot injury that cost him most of 2023.

Even with those issues, if Mesidor was 25 and had an injury history but was dominant against the run, didn’t miss tackles (he had a high missed tackle rate), and dominated at the combine drills that he didn’t run at all, he’d be locked into the top-20, if not the top-12.

Jared Verse was a 24-year-old rookie in 2024 (and Seattle passed on him for Byron Murphy) and he’s been good, at times great, for the Rams through two seasons.

Cameron Wake’s NFL career didn’t start until he was 27 and he had 100 career sacks.

If the Seahawks take Mesidor, they would be getting a player who is the same height as Hall and DeMarcus Lawrence, roughly the same weight (heavier, I’d say), essentially right in the same area of size for Mafe and Uchenna Nwosu. So yes, it’ll “look” the same in most regards, even if one of Mesidor’s knocks is that he’s a bit undersized and lacking in arm length.

We don’t know if the speed and power is going to be great in the NFL, but he is praised for being a technician who will win with his mind when he loses with his body.

He’s much lighter than Williams and Reed, so he’s not going to replace them directly. But if his technique continues to help him evade guards, perhaps Mesidor could move inside on some plays and have that versatility for a defensive coordinator who likes to have chess pieces on his defense.

Dane has eight edge rushers in the first round range:

Several of these players should make it to Seattle’s first pick, at which point Schneider could stick and pick or trade down.

Drafting Mesidor would be criticized for the reason we expect (L.J. Collier was a 24-year-old rookie) and then the praise would pour in because of how good he was for a team that nearly won the national championship last year.

ICYMI: Monday’s review of all the Seaside Joe draft articles so far

Plus, any defensive player going to the Seahawks in the first round will get the “the best defense just got better” boost to his rookie resume.

It’s like when the Fast and the Furious franchise added The Rock or Jason Statham to the cast: Even if those actors will never win an Oscar and even if you don’t like those movies, we can all recognize that the two sides make each other better for what it is and who they are.

Whether it’s Mesidor or a different edge rusher or a cornerback, etc., the Seahawks adding a defensive talent means that the defense got more talented and the talent got more defense.

Is Mesidor the best talent for this defense? At least we won’t have to wait another six years to find out. It’ll only take another nine days.

Seaside Joe 2596