One-upping NFL.com's Seahawks mock draft picks

Jadari Price might be a good pick, but can fans do better?

In 2022, the Seahawks used a second round pick on Kenneth Walker III expecting to receive a chorus of boos (my article on the 2022 boos can be re-visited here). They weren’t wrong to expect it:

Four years later, not only has the Walker pick outdone the Boye Mafe pick (Super Bowl MVP and a better compensatory pick), but now Seattle can expect a chorus of boos if they DON’T draft a running back to replace Walker.

That would be like if you started dating someone and they told you that liking country music was a deal breaker, but then you get married and they get mad at you for not taking them to Stagecoach.

In a 5-round mock draft for NFL.com, Chad Reuter has the Seahawks taking CB Chris Johnson at 32, but I want to focus on his second pick for Seattle: RB Jadarian Price.

It’s been two weeks since I highlighted Sam Teets also mocking Price to the Seahawks at 64, which I called a good value compared to the mocks that have Price going a round earlier. However, the running back pick on day two assumes that Seattle is so “loaded” as a Super Bowl champion that the only thing missing is the piece that replaces Walker.

Seaside Joe readers know that’s not true.

If anything, the Seahawks could be one year late on drafting an edge rusher, perhaps only rolling the dice on a pair of undrafted free agents (O’Toole, Ivey) because the draft order didn’t fall John Schneider’s way at the position.

It’s sort of like how back in 2009 my friends and I went to the movies to watch Avatar, not realizing that every showing had been sold out for weeks, so we ended up watching Up in the Air instead.

Up in the Air might even be a better movie than Avatar, but it wasn’t what we intended to see, it was the audible we had to call after the board didn’t fall our way.

In the case of Reuter’s mock draft, that may not be the case. Is a running back like Price a better draft value at 64 than some of these prospects who were still available in his particular world of football fan fiction?

I’m curious about some of these non-running backs left on the board at 64:

EDGE Gabe Jacas, Illinois

Reuter has Jacas going 89th overall to the Bears, 25 picks after Seattle picked a running back. Shout out to one of Seaside Joe’s regular commenters Danno for highlighting Jacas to us last month … it’s another great reminder to anyone reading this that you gotta join the comments community!

I think MM wants someone who can do both. I’m a fan of Gabe Jacas in the 2nd round and Dani Dennis-Sutton in the 3rd. Both go 6’5’ 260-270. Solid run stoppers who can bring pressure. Since that podcast the Hawks brought Zion Young in for a 30 visit. He fits the big run stopper edge and is similar in size to Jacas and DD-S. MM inherited Mafe. Mafe saw fewer snaps at the end of his career with MM than at the start. I don’t think we replace a Mafe with a cheaper Mafe.

Teets has ranked Jacas as the 38th-best prospect in the class on his top-300 Big Board, and he mocked him 55th to the Chargers in his latest mock draft.

Jacas had the third-best athleticism score among edge rushers at the combine (although the combine loses more luster with each passing year) and Lance Zierlein compared him to four-time Pro Bowler Matt Judon:

Jacas is well-built with tremendous play strength and the ability to play as a hand-down end or a stand-up edge. He’s more rugged than explosive and twitchy. He can hold his ground against power but needs to do a better job of playing with discipline to set and contain his edge. Jacas’ pass-rush plan lacks creativity but features a good deal of force and leg drive to bully his way into the pocket once he opens the tackle’s edge. His play is more steak than sizzle with average sack production expected, but his field demeanor and play strength foreshadow a long career as an NFL starter.

Jacas passes the character test as well, a commonality between Seahawks picks, with Zierlein highlighting his status as a team captain and an anonymous scouting director calling him a “great teammate”.

If three years from now Jadarian Price is a two-time Pro Bowl running back and Jacas is a 25% playing time edge rusher that his team has given up on, someone’s going to tell me I was wrong to bring this up. Which sounds fair actually.

It’s not like I can pretend that this article doesn’t sound like a plea for Seattle to draft any edge rusher over any running back if the board falls this way.

However, what I’m intending to address is the sliding doors nature of the draft and what other possibilities exist besides the one that has become a cliché. And there’s no bigger cliché right now than “The Seahawks will draft a running back because Kenneth Walker is gone”.

Schneider has never operated like that before, so I’m not expecting him to operate like that this time either.

C Connor Lew, Auburn

I first wrote about Lew in August because everyone could see that Grey Zabel could only fix so much about the interior of Seattle’s offensive line.

If you’re thinking the logical thought of “Well, who cares? This Connor Lew guy is still in college and we’re months away from even considering this as a possibility, and that’s only if he declares”, that’s a fair pushback.

But in the scenario where the Seahawks do have an opportunity to draft Lew or a center prospect who turns out to be as good as what experts feel Lew will be in 2026, and do so between picks 20-60, wouldn’t that be an awesome solution to Seattle’s biggest mess?

Here we are in April and Lew could end up being available at the later end of that projection, but only because he tore his ACL in October; he expects to be ready for training camp.

Reuter has Lew going 71st overall to the Washington Moons, but Teets mocked him 45th overall and ranked him 69th overall on his big board.

Lew’s ACL injury could even work in Seattle’s favor because the Seahawks aren’t desperate for a center in 2026, but 1-1.5 years of development could be the perfect timeline for offensive line coach John Bennett to coach him into a long-term starter. The Texans blog Battle Red Blog wants to see him find a second gear:

I grade Lew as a comfortably third round prospect with an incredibly high ceiling if he can gain more power in his hands and drive defenders off the line of scrimmage. He’s young and full of potential, but needs to develop a second gear. I wanted to love Lew and was excited about his current draft value, but believe he could have been better served transferring schools to a better program his Senior year.

Having Jalen Sundell under contract for 2026, the Seahawks know that they can win a Super Bowl with the North Dakota State alums at left guard and center. Even if Sundell signs long-term, a player like Lew could help the team transition Sundell to right guard in 2027.

C Sam Hecht, LSU

Speaking of players like Lew, Reuter has Hecht going 97th to the Vikings but Teets ranked him 67th on his big board…two spots higher than Lew. Zierlein says Hecht has the best technique of any center in the class:

Hecht lacks ideal mass and length but it will be hard to find a center in this year’s draft with better technique. He plays with well-placed inside hands that help maximize his leverage and core strength. All schemes are available to him but his athleticism will shine when activated in space. He stays sticky to blocks once he connects, but his lack of length will put him on the wrong side of the battle from time to time in both the run and pass phases. Hecht needs to add more muscle mass to his frame but he has the consistency and tape of a future starter.

There is no apparent “reach” to taking Hecht or Lew with the 64th pick in the draft. If anything, we could end up getting to the end of round two and both centers are off of the board.

Some Seahawks fans will wonder why the team would draft a center instead of a running back when the April 2026 depth chart shows EMANUEL WILSON at one position and JALEN SUNDELL at another position, which I understand.

But that would be like being a pumpkin farmer and not sowing your seeds until October 24th.

A pumpkin farmer needs the pumpkins in October, not the seeds. A Christmas tree seller isn’t just now starting to think about this December. The Christmas tree farmer has to plan a decade ahead and a football team general manager knows that some plants grow very quickly and some plants take years.

A running back is like a radish and grows in 30 days, whereas an edge rusher or an offensive lineman is like asparagus and grows over the course of several years.

The April 2026 depth chart doesn’t dictate the Seahawks draft plans as much as the 2027 expected depth chart does. But even if it does, a center could actually be starting sooner than we think and there’s still an ongoing competition at right guard which could include Sundell or a rookie.

S Kamari Ramsey, USC

Does anyone else thinks it’s interesting that safeties always seem to have “safety names” like Kamari Ramsey or Kam Chancellor or Kam Kinchens or Kam Curl?

(Actually I think the pattern could be more simple than I imagined.)

This video from 2025 notes that Ramsey needed to improve his tackling:

Zierlein’s 2026 draft profile notes of Ramsey: “Cleaned up technique and consistency as a tackler in 2025”

Back in February, I wrote that maybe the Seahawks should just draft another versatile defensive back like Nick Emmanwori.

Ramsey’s versatility is the first word mentioned by Zierlein and he can play free, strong, or nickel, as he did at USC. At 200 lbs, Ramsey ran a 4.47 and posted a 10-foot broad jump, but he’s also run into injury issues in college.

Perhaps if Seattle doesn’t like Ramsey they could peek USC teammate Bishop Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald is very undersized, but Zierlein calls him a “ballhawking” safety with versatility whose biggest issue is misdiagnosing run defense assignments. Maybe like Drake Thomas and Ty Okada he just needs 1-2 years on Seattle’s B-team.

Reuter has Ramsey going 78th, but Teets has him 63rd on the big board. Reuter has Fitzgerald going 169th.

More Reuter third round picks after Price:

• C Trey Zuhn

• S AJ Haulcey

• EDGE Zion Young

• LB Jake Golday

• CB Brandon Cisse

• DT Darrell Jackson

• S Jalon Kilgore (safety name)

• CB Davison Igbinosun

• RB Mike Washington

• S Genesis Smith

• Edge Keyron Crawford

• LB Harold Perkins

• G Keylan Rutledge

I’m not familiar with all of these names yet but I know we have a lot of smart draft experts in our Seaside community. This little shanty, sandy town of bird watchers. So share ‘em if you go ‘em (opinions that is) and read ‘em if you wanna:

Seaside Joe 2586