Seahawks Draft Eve: AR...20???

It seems that we have a winner in the debate about Jalen Carter and it is me: Seaside Bonus 4/26/2023

It seems that on the eve of the 2023 NFL Draft, Rob Staton of SeahawksDraftBlog has finally decided to turncoat and agree with the majority that Jalen Carter is a better prospect than Anthony Richardson. There you have it.

In Staton’s final mock draft before Thursday, he officially relented on Bryce Young (his QB4) as the number one pick and now has the Eagles trading up with the Seahawks to pick Carter at fifth overall. This has been a gradual rise for Carter in Staton’s view, from being a “less spectacular version of Bryan Bresee” who only had first round potential in August to arguing that Seattle may have only used a top-30 visit on him two weeks ago to prepare for him falling to the second round.

And then in a mock draft last week, Staton had the Steelers sacrificing the 32nd overall pick to move up for Carter from 17—a hefty price to pay for character concerns—with the official final move being a decision by Eagles general manager Howie Roseman to give two day two picks to John Schneider for Carter’s rights at 5th overall. Which then ends in the Seahawks picking Anthony Richardson at 10th overall.

Kevin Costner would be proud to deliver this Draft Day 2 dialogue, I’m sure of it.

No matter how you calculate it, this final mock runs in stark contrast to the ones that had four quarterbacks going in the first four picks, and gleeful celebrations of Carter’s disappointing pro day by Staton saying—QUOTE—

“Can we please, please, please stop talking about Jalen Carter with the fifth overall pick?”

Yes, we can. No more time for talk. Only time to draft.

Here are some more final thoughts on the last night we have to suffer without the Seahawks making their first round decisions for 2023. Read 10 previous thoughts that I posted on Wednesday morning right here!

I will be posting my last prediction for what the Seahawks will do at pick 5 on Thursday—and while it won’t be that surprising to those of you who have at least been here for the last few weeks, it will be a shock to the nation—so be subscribed to Seaside Joe RIGHT NOW to not miss a thing! As previously mentioned, I see Thursday as a showdown between Seaside Joe and Rob Staton for these reasons and it seems even Rob has raised the white flag.

You have to be HERE to witness what happens next!

Daniel Jeremiah also has Seahawks picking Richardson…at 20

I don’t blame anyone who feels like, “I like Seaside Joe’s Seahawks content, but I could do without the bashing of other writers.” That’s an understandable feeling for some people and I’m not going to act like I didn’t put my hand in the cookie jar; I’m covered in crumbles. (A cookie is like a “biscuit” in England, I think.)

Although I do think that if this is “bashing”, it hits softer than Christian Gonzalez.

I say all this to say that you should ask Rob what he thinks about Daniel Jeremiah and then tell me if the pot and the kettle are both the same color as the Raiders uniforms. Everybody on Twitter is bashing somebody, everyone is doing some form of the same criticism of others, mine is just more straightforward and ultimately painless. People will say, “Well, I would NEVER talk about someone like that” in one breath and then “Mel Kiper is such an IDIOT!” in the next. I don’t ascribe to other people’s “approved-to-criticize” lists. Sorry.

If the Seahawks draft Will Levis, okay fine, I lose. If the Seahawks draft Jalen Carter, Rob loses. And then everybody forgets it two days later.

In the final mock draft for NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah on Wednesday night, he cuts right down the middle for both: The Seahawks choose Jalen Carter at #5 and Anthony Richardson at #20. Does that not kind of satisfy everybody to some degree?

I’ve never objected to Seattle picking Richardson in the top-5, I’d just be shocked. I don’t actually object to anyone! I don’t think I’m in position to judge, these are very difficult decisions to make and the Seahawks literally spend millions of dollars and have a big staff to try and do the right thing. The best in the world often get it wrong at least half of the time.

What’s most telling to me though is not Seattle choosing Richardson, but Jeremiah forecasting that 19 picks will be made before any team decides to take the risk on him. If that happens, I think it’s essentially the same as admitting that the Florida quarterback is as good as a second round pick. And even before all this draft season happened, I always loathed teams picking quarterbacks in this range of day one.

Quarterbacks who aren’t good enough prospects to go in the first half of the first round pretty much always have a fatal flaw. It’s funny that there is probably one standout example in the history of a draft of a quarterback who was expected to go first overall and then he fell into the 20s and became the story of the year, well before he became a starter and a four-time MVP: Aaron Rodgers in 2005.

Rodgers was always a much different case than say, Kenny Pickett, Jordan Love, Johnny Manziel, Tim Tebow, or Kyle Boller, for examples. You go back to the day of the draft, more people expected Rodgers to go to the 49ers than expected it to be Alex Smith. And even if the 49ers did choose Smith, surely someone in the top-5 or top-10 would pick Rodgers.

It was a perfect storm that led to Rodgers falling to 24. It was kind of a similar series of events that led to Dan Marino dropping to 27 in 1983.

Aaron Rodgers and Dan Marino.

Okay, now go back literally 55 years and find every quarterback prospect who was drafted between 17 and 32 in the first round and you’ll get 30 names. Remove Rodgers and Marino, you’re left with 28 names. Out of those 28 quarterbacks, there has been one All-Pro: Lamar Jackson. Remove Lamar, and in the other 27 names you will find four Pro Bowl players, three of them going once: Ken O’Brien (twice), Teddy Bridgewater, Jim Harbaugh, and Tommy Kramer.

Go through the other 23 names and you’ll get two Super Bowl winners: Joe Flacco, Doug Williams.

If we get to the 20th pick tomorrow and Richardson or Will Levis (seemingly now a consensus pick to the Colts in a matter of days) or C.J. Stroud are available, yes, maybe that is the right time to take the risk. But every quarterback with the exception of two—and Anthony Richardson is not Dan Marino or Aaron Rodgers—has some fatal flaw. Unsurprisingly, a lot of analysts believe that Richardson has multiple.

The Seahawks could get a really good prospect with decent odds to become a starter in the next one or two years. Or they could draft a quarterback.

What “they’ll” say about the Seahawks draft after Thursday!

Reminder that you can go back and check out all your awesome responses to the “What will they say about the Seahawks first round picks after it’s done?” article from the other day right here.

In the survey on what Grade the Seahawks will get for their picks, you voted this way: 41% say that Seattle will get a B, 37% say that Seattle will get an A, and 20% say that Seattle will get a C, with only a few votes for D and F.

Oh no! As we know, the Seahawks usually do better when they get a D or F for their draft haul.

In the section for “What will be said”, many of you said some version of “The Seahawks reached!” which will be interesting, if true, because I wonder who they could pick at #5 who will be a “reach”? There’s certainly a long list of potential names at #20. Some of you had picks implying Jalen Carter or Anthony Richardson. Or “not Carter” and “not Richardson”.

Here were some of my favorite replies in the anonymous survey:

There will be surprise from the media due to the Seahawks picking someone ‘they’ didn’t expect. Based on that, they will be graded down, regardless of how well the picks fit the team.

There will be very angry people on the internet, no matter what happens.

“Too old”

“Pete & John are fucking idiots, obviously, but they managed to fall backward into a helluva first round.”

And Rob’s anonymous response, I assume:

“They took the highest upside QB in Anthony Richardson and the best pure edge in Will McDonald.”

Final two picks in the Pete Carroll draft clues mock

Great job by everyone coming together to get 8-of-10 correct answers in the Pete Carroll clues mock draft. The clues were mostly difficult! I think two questions went unsolved, so I’ll give the answers now. They were hard to get and my apologies if you did answer one of these and I missed it.

6.198 - “A Boy Named Sue” and “Player of Games” were the two clues.

Answer: LB Bumper Pool, Arkansas

7.237 - “No Diggity feat. Li’l Penny” and “T.N.T” were the two clues.

Answer: LB Anfernee Orji, Vanderbilt

(Li’l Penny=Anfernee Hardaway and Vandy’s fight song is called “Dynamite.”)

Final Thought

The goal is not to look like the last Super Bowl winner. It’s to look like the next one.

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