This unheralded tackle from Michigan makes more sense for Seahawks than Charles Cross, Ikem Ekwonu
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This unheralded tackle from Michigan makes more sense for Seahawks than Charles Cross, Ikem Ekwonu
It's in the numbers and it's on the record
Among the actual good things that happen on Twitter are the Relative Athletic Scores posted by Kent Lee Platte (@MathBomb) and the adjoining RAS website. Here is the RAS for recent Seahawks draftee Stone Forsythe, a sixth round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft at offensive tackle.
Forsythe is 6’8, 307 lbs, with his best attribute at the combine being a 7.47 three-cone time.
If you click on the link to go RAS.Football to see his card, you can also see athletic comps to Forsythe from NFL history. To be super generous, you could compare him to Matt Kalil, the former 4th overall pick out of USC who had a decent-but-disappointing career with the Vikings and Panthers that ended early due to injuries. But an even better comp is probably Conor McDermott.
A sixth round pick of the Patriots in 2017, McDermott didn’t make the team as a rookie and he’s bounced around the AFC East, making three starts for the New York Jets in 2021. McDermott isn’t likely to be an NFL starter at any point, but he did catch a touchdown pass from Zach Wilson last year. Stone For-shadowing?
There’s a chance that Forsythe reaches a level of aptitude that allows him to become Seattle’s starting left tackle, but most sixth round picks have short NFL careers—only five players from McDermott’s sixth round have become starting players.
What is most important with regards to Forsythe isn’t necessarily his future, but what his draft resume tells us about the Seahawks and the qualities they desire in an offensive tackle.
Pete Carroll and John Schneider have revealed their cards for over 12 years, but the new blood in the water is what offensive coordinator Shane Waldron looks for in a tackle, as well as recently-promoted offensive line coach Andy Dickerson. The final missing ingredient is, “What does a new quarterback tell us about a new system and what the system for that quarterback looks for in an offensive tackle?”
The closest thing we have to an answer for that would be Forsythe and 201 undrafted free agent Jake Curhan.
Unfortunately, Forsythe is a pretty good athlete… and Curhan is one of the worst athletes in the league. His RAS score is a 1.73 out of 10, meaning it’s a miracle that he made five starts as an NFL rookie. Or maybe “miracle” isn’t the right word for it.
Do any of these scores and comps matter?
Is it a coincidence that one of Curhan’s best comps is former Seahawks guard Oday Aboushi? Or that Carroll recruited and coached Kalil at USC? It might be.
But comparing measurements and setting bars for acceptable scores in certain agility tests could also point us in the direction of notable prospects in the 2022 NFL Draft. Not just in the first two rounds, but also deep in the draft.
One such example is Michigan tackle Andrew Stueber.
A three-star prospect out of Darien, CT in the class of 2017, Stueber chose to play for Jim Harbaugh at Michigan. He redshirted his freshman year, made some brief appearances on offense in 2018, missed all of 2019, started all six games during the shortened 2020 season—four at right tackle, two at right guard. Stueber didn’t get his first chance to become a full-time starter at right tackle until 2021, where he was only blamed for one sack allowed over 14 games.
As a run-blocker, Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy called Stueber a “longtime NFL starter”.
It was then at the Senior Bowl—which as I wrote before, is a place you can guarantee that a future Seahawks early draft pick will emerge from—that Stueber stood out.
Some bad.
But to his credit, Stueber was taking reps at guard at the Senior Bowl, a position he only made two career starts at, and he was also working at center for the first time in his life. If Seattle drafted Stueber to be a center, we know that’s a story we’ve heard with them before.
There’s no telling where in the draft Stueber will be taken, and there’s a chance he’s not picked at all, but “athleticism” won’t necessarily be the reason why he gets his opportunity at the next level. Instead, versatility (he could potentially work out at all five positions) and tapping into potential that wasn’t unearthed at Michigan because he only made 20 career starts at tackle over five years, is what makes Stueber so intriguing. As he noted to The Detroit News, he’s also had some of the best practice competition of any offensive tackle in college football:
“It’s for sure made the games way easier,” Stueber said of playing against top Michigan defensive players in practice. “I come in as a freshman, cut my chops going against Rashan Gary and Chase Winovich and then Mike Danna and Josh Uche and Kwity Paye, and this past year I’m going up against (projected first-rounders) Aidan (Hutchinson) and David (Ojabo) every day. If you want to be the best, you compete with the best. That’s the motto at Michigan.”
Stueber said as of March 3rd that he’s met with 15 teams, and that many of them see him as a guard. You see, when you take Jake Curhan’s terrible RAS score, but reset his position from tackle to guard, the first comp that comes up is Andrew Stueber:
When you go to Stueber’s RAS page and run him as an OT, one of the first comps that comes up for him at that position is former Seattle tackle J’Marcus Webb:
Stueber isn’t necessarily the “prototypical” Seahawks offensive lineman in athleticism, as former first round picks like Russell Okung, Germain Ifedi, and James Carpenter (as well as Duane Brown) all have some traits that help them test better than 80 or 90-percent of their competition. But his frame—over 6’6, 325 lbs, over 34” arms—and his favorable comparison to both tackles and guards in Pete’s history, his performance during Senior Bowl week, his versatility, and his proficiency in run blocking are all notable reason to expect Seattle to be one of those interested teams.
Per Bleacher Report’s scouting report:
Stueber excels as a run-blocker, using precise aiming points on double-teams to consistently fit and seal off first-level defenders, with the leg drive to uproot and displace them off their spot. He's also adept at knocking defensive tackles off-balance to feed them to the guard before his release on combo blocks. He shows a firm grasp of the play's intent by knowing when and how to reposition himself on blocks to help define the read for runners and open up rushing lanes.
The SB Nation blog for Michigan football, Maize N Brew, describes Stueber’s greatest strengths as football IQ (“Stueber’s mental acumen is as sharp as you’ll find anywhere in the draft.”), hand placement, and… well, strength.
POW-ER-FUL. What Stueber lacks in explosion and “get-off,” he compensates with four quarters of relentless strength and power. He generates force from his lower half and is difficult to get away from once contact is initiated.
As to his mental acumen, Stueber said that he was probably the only lineman at the Senior Bowl to show coaches he knew what a “two tight ends attached power” looks like:
“One of the core ones is drawing up plays,” Stueber said. “I think I was the only person to draw up a two tight ends attached power. Everyone wants to draw up five lineman playing inside zone. I come from Michigan, so I like the power scheme. Coaches like seeing that. There are some tough questions you have to answer about yourself and as a player and what you want to improve yourself. It is all about seeing who you are as a player and a person.”
Though Andrew Stueber won’t be drafted because of athleticism, it is thanks to his athletic testing and measurements that Seahawks fans should start looking in his direction. It is then a credit to his passion to be a great football player, his versatility, his run blocking, and the fantastic senior season he had at right tackle (Michigan was given the award for “best offensive line in the nation” last year) that makes Stueber a probable Seattle target if he winds up at the right place at the right time.
Stueber has supposedly seen his stock rising in the last month (I only say “supposedly” because this is all based on narratives, even if it makes sense that he’d be of greater interests to teams post-Senior Bowl, pro days, and interviews), with Day 3 looking like a lock for his current draft position. The Seahawks hold pick 116 in the fourth, 145 and 153 in the fifth, while 229 in the seventh is probably too late.
I expect the Seahawks to trade down to add additional day three picks, so that could come into play for Stueber’s Seattle future too.
There’s always going to be way more talk before a draft about first round prospects like Icky Ekwonu and Charles Cross than there will be for players expected to go in round three or later. But this is a fact that I’ll stand by: Andrew Stueber looks, measures, and tests way more like a Pete Carroll offensive lineman than Charles Cross does and it’s not even close.
If Seattle picked him, Cross would have the worst three-cone time (7.88) of any tackle in Carroll’s Seahawks history. Same for Ekwonu, who had a 7.82.
Of course, Andrew Stueber had a 7.92—even worse—but we’re not talking about Seattle using a top-100 pick on him, let alone top-10.
And no Pete Carroll tackle has ever done worse than 27.5” in the vertical jump; Charles Cross had a 26” vertical.
Stueber’s was even worse, measuring in at 24.5”… but would you expect Carroll to be more likely to go outside of his comfort zone with his first pick in the draft or with his sixth pick in the draft?
Cross and Ekwonu are also both 6’4 and weigh between 305-310 lbs. Not since Okung in 2010 has Seattle taken a tackle who weighed less than 315 lbs, but then Forsythe came into the picture at 307 lbs last year… as a sixth round pick. At 307 lbs in 2010, Okung did 38 reps on the bench, one of the best marks in combine history.
That’s also 12 more reps than Ekwonu and 16 more reps than Cross. Okung’s 32.5” vertical is 6.5 inches higher than Cross. Okung has 36” arms, which is 1.5 inches greater than Cross, and two inches greater than Ekwonu.
Want to argue for Cross or Ekwonu? Tell me in the comments!!!
It’s not that Charles Cross or Ikem Ekwonu are overrated NFL prospects or that they won’t be excellent players at their respective positions at the next level. But unless Shane Waldron and Andy Dickerson have completely revamped the framework for which tackles and guards the Seahawks favor in the draft, Cross and Ekwonu are terrible “first round fits” based on SEATTLE’S typical needs.
Andrew Stueber is not the same level of a prospect as those two are, clearly. However, as far as what Carroll’s proven to like—which sometimes includes “draft an offensive lineman late, start him anyway”—he checks every box.
This unheralded tackle from Michigan makes more sense for Seahawks than Charles Cross, Ikem Ekwonu
You have done your homework well, very interesting. IQ is very underrated by most people on the outside.
A question for you, do you see Stone Forsythe as a legitimate starter in the NFL. Also is he not an anomaly, in that his best trait is pass blocking and not as much in run blocking. I believe the Seahawks feel they can teach pass blocking but a very good run blocker is where they start, which the Michigan chap seems to be.
Sorry more than on question. What say yee?.
Travon Walker and Evan Neal won't be there at nine and Jameson Williams won't be there at 40. On a need basis, OT is the bigger hole because, well, Stone Forsythe is our starting LT. However, I think that the top five edge rushers are better than the OTs. I'd go with Karlaftis and if we got Raimann at 40 I'd be estactic. More likely is Abram Lucas and Kyler Gordon with Max Mitchell later. If Trayvon Burks fell I'd grab him in a heartbeat but he's likely to go in the 20s.