4 Seahawks trade down draft scenarios
4 Seahawks trade down draft scenarios
Which of these 4 trade down hauls would be best for the Seahawks? Seaside Joe 1873
The Seahawks had a top-30 visit update that you rarely see: The list got SHORTER instead of longer. Apparently Seattle has not had an official visit with Texas defensive tackle Byron Murphy other than a combine chat but they have met with teammate T’Vondre Sweat, who plays the same position. This is yet another reason for me to believe that my previous expectation of staying put at 16 is wrong and that the Seahawks will attempt to trade down because they need more picks and prefer the second round to the middle of the first.
As hard as it is for me to believe that John Schneider won’t be giving up the chance to draft a prospect who he has a true first round grade on by trading down from 16, it’s harder for me to accept that the Seahawks are meeting with all of these day two prospects for no reason other than intel. Teams don’t need to throw out a bunch of smokescreens to make a single move at 16, that doesn’t sound logical. Seattle is GOING AFTER defensive prospects in their pre-draft visits who are by and large expected to go between 20-60 and yet the Seahawks don’t have any picks between 16 and 81.
I am closer than ever to being convinced that will change next Thursday.
Aside from maybe a few quarterback handshakes, Byron Murphy had been one of the few first round prospects on the Seahawks’ list expected to be taken in the top-20 and now he’s off the list. It doesn’t mean Murphy is off the board, but the fact that T’Vondre Sweat is now on the list (a player ranked 63rd on the consensus big board) is a strong indication that Schneider believes he will need to pick between prospects in the second round.
Prospects like: LB Junior Colson, DE Braden Fiske, CB Ennis Rakestraw, G Zak Zinter, WR Malachi Corley, DT Kris Jenkins, EDGE Bralen Trice, CB Mike Sainristil, and EDGE Marshawn Kneeland.
If Seattle has met with all of these players who tend to get mocked between the late first and late second round, what’s the point if not to either make a massive “reach” at 16 or to trade down and sort through them later in the order? Especially since the Seahawks haven’t met with very many prospects expected to go at 16 even though when they held pick 5 last year Seattle met with Devon Witherspoon, Jalen Carter, and all of the quarterbacks? They were prepared for pick 5 through their top-30 visits, why don’t they seem to be preparing for pick 16?
“But Joe, just yesterday you wrote that the Seahawks met with Cooper DeJean, a player who I think they will miss out on if they trade down?”
A) The Seahawks could certainly be doing due diligence to seek out a prospect who makes them doubt their intentions to trade down B) Is DeJean going to go in the top-20 though? As I wrote, I don’t think outsiders are giving quite enough weight to the fact that DeJean is probably going to be switched to a position he’s rarely played in his life when he gets to the NFL, that may not be a quick transition. It seems like DeJean’s ceiling is 16th overall, so his floor might be at the back-six of the first round which is also where you could find Fiske or Rakestraw or an even bigger surprise.
“What about Johnny Newton? Seattle met with him and he could go top-15!”
The Seahawks could have a lot of interesting in Newton, the highly-productive defensive tackle from Illinois who was teammates with Witherspoon once and could do it again. Notably just like DeJean, his projections in the first round are all over the place and his consensus big board ranking is 25th.
“And Jared Verse? They flew Verse to Seattle and he could be a top-10 pick!”
He could be a top-10 pick or he could go in the last 10 picks of the first round because this defensive draft class is practically defined by its lack of a consensus and the inability for most analysts to get excited about the prospects in it. There isn’t a single defensive prospect in the 2024 class who I believe would be called “a top-5 pick in most years”. Yes, the receivers, quarterbacks, and tackles are all very intriguing, but I don’t think that Dallas Turner or Jared Verse are being pushed down the boards. If there was a Myles Garrett or a Nick Bosa or a Sauce Gardner in the class, he would be competing with Marvin Harrison and Malik Nabers to be the first non-QB drafted. That prospect isn’t in this class.
There isn’t a non-QB on Seattle’s list of combine visits and top-30 meetings who would seemingly be a lock for the top-16 outside of Alabama edge rusher Dallas Turner, but even he had PFF’s Sam Monson mock him 23rd overall two days ago.
“Dallas Turner may be a little overhyped in this pre-draft process in my eyes, but he is still a very good prospect with elite athleticism. The Patriots don’t have a screaming need at edge rusher, but at No. 23 overall, Turner’s value and potential are too good to turn down.”
Daniel Kelly wrote this about Turner for First Round Mock:
After studying seven games of Alabama edge rusher Dallas Turner and another six games in 2023, I can officially say for the record, he is not a first-round value in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft.
Shhh…don’t tell that to over 95% of mainstream NFL Draft platforms that have tagged Turner as a first-rounder.
Going by his ‘raw traits’ I kind of get it, but if I would use one word to describe my experience watching his 2023 game film, this would be the word I would use in pre-draft scouting meetings on a team’s scouting staff: Inconsistent. I can excuse a lot of things as an evaluator, but a lack of effort is not one of them.
There were numerous times in these games when Turner was seen jogging or slamming on the brakes on active plays, and that is inexcusable.
The other big issue is Turner is, he’s a vanilla pass rusher. In other words, he doesn’t show much in the way of pass-rush moves. I saw one spin move in six games. His grade must be discounted for this. It’s bull rush or nothing.
Kelly’s opinion isn’t a popular opinion, and he knows that, but at Seaside Joe we value analysts who step outside of mainstream narratives if they’re just telling you what they see and not repeating what they hear.
The Seahawks only had a combine visit with Turner—they’re allowed 45 of those meetings—so it’s not even that they went above and beyond to get to know him. It could be due diligence in case Turner is available at 16 or if they even think he will go outside the top-20; it could even be that if Turner gets to 16 that Schneider uses that availability as his trade chip for a team who really wants him. Maybe a team like the Washington Moons?
Schneider’s Day 2 Confidence
It feels as if the Seahawks have no qualms about revealing their intentions to trade down and why should they? If you want to trade down, your goal as a franchise should be to send up a signal to the other 31 teams: “Come and get it.”
If the Seahawks are trying to stay at 16, would they have flown in Quinyon Mitchell, the Toledo prospect expected to be the first cornerback off of the board? Would they have met with Penn State tackle Olu Fashanu or LSU receiver Brian Thomas or Georgia tight end Brock Bowers or Oregon State tackle Taliese Fuaga or any other prospect not expected to make it out of the top-20?
The only prospect in that range where an official meeting feels unnecessary is tackle Troy Fautanu since offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and o-line coach Scott Huff know him so well already. And Fautanu is the prospect most often linked to Seattle for that reason, but there isn’t a shred of good evidence that Schneider is or would look in that direction—the only reason people do that mock pick so often is because of the Washington connection and the Seahawks apparent need at guard even though all fans ever seem to say is “don’t draft for need”.
If you want evidence for the Seahawks picking Fautanu, don’t look at Schneider’s draft history, Seattle’s pre-draft visits that are almost solely focused on defensive players, Seattle’s three offensive tackles who have started plenty of games in the past two years (two entering the third year of a rookie deal), or even the depth chart and free agent investment to add five more linemen.
It is more telling that the Seahawks have met with Duke’s Graham Barton—the only non-QB offensive player on the list expected to go in the top-40 picks—because he’s expected to go in the same late-first, early-second range that I mentioned earlier with all of Seattle’s pre-draft visits.
Sign after sign points to the Seahawks trading down significantly lower (as I detailed here) into a range of the draft where Seattle can pick two of their top-30 visits who are expected to go on day two and a reason for that might be Schneider’s confidence in that range compared to the first round: While Witherspoon played his rookie season like a blue chip top-5 pick, aren’t Charles Cross and Jaxon Smith-Njigba at least even in value with Boye Mafe and Kenneth Walker III?
Not that I know the future, but it feels like the Seahawks did about as good at 40 (Mafe) and 41 (Walker) as they did at 9 (Cross) and 20 (JSN, 2023). Seattle also got Abe Lucas at 72 and Zach Charbonnet at 52, so aside from Derick Hall (37) not showing much as a rookie, the Seahawks have gotten equal or more value from their day two picks as their day one picks in the past two draft cycles.
If we ranked these players right now, obviously Witherspoon would be first but this year the Seahawks are picking 16th not 5th and that’s a HUGE difference. After Spoon, Lucas (when healthy), Mafe, and Walker have really good arguments over Cross. I’m not stamping anyone’s career here—I still think Smith-Njigba will be a star—but it was a position that had a lot of depth and seven rookie wide receivers had more yards than JSN in 2023.
I think this year John Schneider might actually prefer day two prospects over mid-first round prospects.
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Is there a reason for this Day 1/Day 2 discrepency?
What if the NIL (name-image-likeness) payments that college/first round stars make in school and the multi-million dollar guarantees they get this year make them slightly less motivated than the day two players who still have a lot of talent but don’t have nearly as much money? They have more to prove and some of them will be just as athletically gifted as first rounders, others will be more intelligent, and many will just find the perfect scheme fits.
For the rest of this article, I’ll outline four different trade down scenarios for the Seattle Seahawks at pick 16 and the pros and cons of each of them, as well as the links to those franchises that make these deals seem plausible. Want to read it and vote for the best one? Once more, today’s the day to subscribe!