We don't talk enough about this free agent signing by Seahawks

Is Johnathan Hankins steal of Seahawks offseason?: Seaside Joe 1961

I think I wrongly stereotyped Johnathan Hankins. As a player who has been around so long that he actually got to Ohio State before Urban Meyer did, who played with Terrelle Pryor (and Dane Sanzenbacher) in college, and who was on the Giants sideline for Odell Beckham Jr.’s catch in 2014, I took Hankins for a quiet, journeyman workhorse who probably keeps to himself. He’s 32, he’s been around forever, he’s got all the makings to be a gentle giant* who thinks that the Internet is a waste of time.

It turns out that Hankins is actually a very online guy.

*oh great, now I’m stereotyping giants!

In his announcement of signing with the Seahawks, which has 831 views on YouTube as I write this, Hankins says:

“With that being said, this will be my 12th year and I will be signing with the 12th man, the Seattle Seahawks. I am excited to help this team grow and clog up the middle with them. Thank you to everyone who has tuned into thhe channel and it’s only gonna get bigger from here. I’ll see you soon!”

I didn’t know that any players released their own announcements on YouTube, let alone a recent veteran signing by the team I cover here at Seaside Joe, but Hankins seems pretty committed to being a YouTuber: He’s been posting at least once a month consistently for the past two years. Being on the Cowboys seems to have helped bump his views considerably, as his latest video has just over 100 views in the last day. I’m sure Seahawks fans could help him out with that:

But so far, not a lot of Seahawks fans know much about Hankins or even that he is on the Seahawks. That should change when the season starts, whether Hankins is having a significant impact on improving Seattle’s run defense or not. If he’s nearly as good as he could be in Mike Macdonald’s front-seven though, Hankins will be the steal of the Seahawks offseason.

I was wrong in thinking that Hankins was not the type to be a vlogger. What else could I have gotten wrong about Seattle’s newest veteran preseason on the defensive line?

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I didn’t know he was once considered worthy of a top-10 pick

Recruited during the Jim Tressel era at Ohio State, Hankins was on a team that went 12-1 in 2010 and rotating with a defensive line that featured future NFL players such as Cameron Heyward and John Simon. Amid NCAA investigations, the team went through one difficult losing season under temporary head coach Luke Fickell, who was then replaced by Meyer in 2012 as the Buckeyes went undefeated at 12-0.

Unfortunately for them, Ohio State was not eligible for a bowl game due to punishments handed down by the NCAA.

As a sophomore, Hankins posted 67 tackles and 11 tackles for a loss, which earned him buzz as a potential top-10 pick and a “first round lock” if he could continue his strong play in 2012. However, Hankins season was considered underwhelming after he posted four tackles for a loss and one sack, so it was not clear how early or late he would go once the draft was getting near.

There were still plenty of mocks that had Hankins going in the first round, but this post from cleveland.com just prior to the draft outlined some reasons he could fall out of day one:

When the season ended, Hankins announced he was turning pro. He said he'd been told he was a probable first-round pick by the NFL's draft advisory board. He was ranked as a top-20 pick by CBSSports.com analysts Rob Rang and Dane Brugler at the time and was listed ninth by ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. among his best draft prospects.

Now, with the draft less than a week away, Hankins isn't a first-round pick anymore. Of the nine draft analysts on NFL.com, none have him in the first round, and it's the same from Kiper and Todd McShay at ESPN.com. Rang and Brugler have dropped him as well. Rang now has him going in the second round, 55th, to Green Bay, while Brugler has him at No. 52 to Minnesota.

Brugler added that Hankins had a “special” sophomore season but didn’t have enough production for the number of snaps he played in 2012 and that he “wore himself out” over the course of a game. Hankins told cleveland.com after the Ohio State pro day that he felt he had done enough to be a first round pick:

"I'm a big guy, and I've very athletic and I can move, and I'm not just a one- or two-down player," he said. "I can play all the downs.

"I expect to be a first rounder, that's one of my goals. If it happens it happens. If not, I'll keep working to get better."

It did not happen for Hankins and now 11 seasons later I think it is fair to say that he made good on his promise to keep working on his game. The Giants drafted Hankins with the 49th overall pick and he’s one of just five active players remaining from the second round of the 2013 draft. The others include Zach Ertz, Darius Slay, Robert Woods, and new teammate Geno Smith.

Ertz, Slay, and Woods are all notable players in their own right and Geno is a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback, so it is not surprising that they continue to play in the league in their 30s.

Hankins is probably the last guy that anyone could have guessed was left from that second round. But with 152 career games, he’s not continuing to get opportunities for no reason.

I didn’t know he sold his own merch

I told you recently that I’ve been obsessed with merch lately. Hankins apparently has a brand called “born to hustle”, so I felt it was my duty as someone being supported by Seahawks fans to buy one of Hankins’ shirts and review it for Seaside Joe. I’ll do that after the shirt arrives but in the picture it does not seem to be a low quality product as far as the material goes, in my amateur opinion.

I didn’t know he’s excited to get to work with Byron Murphy

I mean, I assumed, but this is just my opportunity to segue into talking about the new Seahawks defensive line.

The Seahawks went into 2023 with a defensive line of Dre’Mont Jones, Jarran Reed, Mario Edwards, Mike Morris, Cameron Young, and Myles Adams. And even that group only included one holdover from 2022, that being Myles Adams. (Bryan Mone was on IR, so I’m not including him.)

I mean, the total number of names to play d-line for the Seahawks from 2022-2023 is 14: Shelby Harris, Al Woods, Poona Ford, Quinton Jefferson, Darryl Johnson, L.J. Collier, Mone, Adams, Jones, Reed, Edwards, Morris, Young, and Leonard Williams.

If we update that to the expected new faces on the 2024 Seahawks, that would also now include Byron Murphy II and Hankins, bringing the total to 16 defensive linemen in three seasons. It’s hard to develop any chemistry without any continuity.

At least this time, the Seahawks bring back Williams, Reed, Jones, Morris, Adams, and Young from last season, while adding in Murphy and Hankins. And Hankins is probably the one I think about only the sixth or seventh-most out of the whole group but he brings more experience to the team than anyone else on the defensive line.

That’s the type of teammate coaching that could really benefit Seattle’s first round pick.

I didn’t know that Hankins had almost half of his career sacks in one season

After playing sparingly as a rookie in 2013, Hankins was upgraded to a starting role in Perry Fewell’s defense in 2014 and played alongside Jason Pierre-Paul, Mathias Kiwanuka, Cullen Jenkins, and former Seahawk Damontre Moore. He posted seven sacks that year, second-most on the team behind the 12.5 of JPP.

I don’t think sacking the quarterback has ever been the primary goal for teams that acquire Hankins, but if it works for you sometimes then do it.

And it seems so fitting that there’s a give and take there: When he had his best season as a pass rusher ever (Hankins only has 17.5 career sacks, so seven in one year is a lot), the Giants ranked 32nd against the run.

That may not be his fault, but that is nonetheless what happened to the Giants in 2014. (In addition to OBJ.)

Having a less productive season as a pass rusher in 2015, with zero sacks and two QB hits in the first nine games, Hankins tore his pec in November of that season and went on season-ending IR. He returned for a full 16 games in 2016 (good reminder that Uchenna Nwosu could do the same after he tore his pec last year) and added 10 QB hits, eight TFL, and three sacks to his career resume.

Over the next six years combined, Hankins would have a total of 4.5 sacks.

But that’s just not what he does.

Hankins signed a three-year, $27 million free agent contract with the Colts in 2017, but Indianapolis decided to him him the following offseason because they were switching to a 4-3 under new defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus. The team preferred Hankins for the Chuck Pagano’s 3-4, but decided against paying him $9 million per season if they weren’t playing the same style of defense.

However, it is probably telling that as a free agent again in 2018 that he only got a one-year, $2 million deal from the Raiders. Hankins had a productive season with the Colts, 44 tackles, 6 QB hits, 2 sacks, 3 batted passes in 15 games. Yet Hankins didn’t sign with a team until after the draft. Ohio State blog Land Grant Holy Land wrote a bit about his free agency issues back then:

Part of the concern with signing Hankins last offseason was his price tag. Originally asking for more than $10 million per year, the DT settled for just shy of that when he signed with the Colts. Just a year later, his asking price is just a little lower, around $8 million per season. That’s still a hefty cost for someone who finished the 2015 season on IR and has battled injuries throughout his career.

This was before Hankins found out he could only get $2 million for one year.

Playing for Jon Gruden and defensive coordinator Paul Guenther, Hankins impressed the Raiders enough to get a two-year extension in 2019. He ended up lasing into a fifth season with the Raiders prior to being traded to the Cowboys during the 2022 campaign. Hankins missed some time that year with another pec injury (not torn however) but overall has played 19 games under former Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.

Last season, the old Johnathan Hankins—aka the young Johnathan Hankins—showed up again, notching 3 sacks in 14 games. More importantly though, teams want Hankins for his run defense and the experience he brings to the position. Hankins has seen his playing time go down in recent seasons, from 58% in 2021 to just 40% in 2023, so he might not be the three-down player he once claimed to be.

But three downs is not what the Seahawks signed him for anyway. He’s perfectly suited to be the fifth or sixth-most important defensive lineman on Sundays, which makes him the right kind of addition for the $2 million (only $300k guaranteed) that Seattle signed him for this offseason.

And maybe no team got more out of their fifth and sixth-best defensive tackles in 2023 than the Baltimore Ravens.

Macdonald made a star out of Justin Madubuike, the Pro Bowl defensive tackle with 13 sacks and 33 QB hits, but also helped veteran Michael Pierce have his best career season at age 31, and had an important role for 32-year-old Brent Urban, who had three sacks last year. Travis Jones and Broderick Washington were two more defensive linemen on Baltimore’s roster who played key roles on the number one or number two defense in the NFL.

Hankins is as good of a bet as anyone besides Williams, Murphy, and Reed to have a positive impact on the defensive line. Especially with a value of only $2 million.

And if it doesn’t work, you can still always find Johnathan Hankins online.