Marry 'Tyler' More: Could Seahawks 'Ty' selves to 2023's Lockett comp?
Marry 'Tyler' More: Could Seahawks 'Ty' selves to 2023's Lockett comp?
Among Pete Carroll's "types" in the draft, Tyler Scott fits numerous attributes and will star on Saturday: Seaside Joe 1461
There’s really no secret at this point who the Seattle Seahawks see as the young, inexperienced receiver already on the roster who has the potential to become special, and no it’s not the guy who John Schneider picked in the second round two years ago. It’s the guy who the Seahawks picked in the seventh round last year.
Nope, not him. Not Seattle’s first of two seventh round receivers, the former four-star recruit out of the Big Ten. Not him either.
It’s Lenoir Rhyne.
No wait, that’s not it either. That was his college. The receiver who the Seahawks are legitimately excited about giving an expanded opportunity to next season is Dareke Young, and Schneider said as much at the combine this week.
"I think, you know, the really cool thing is, that we’re real fired up about, is the way Dareke finished the season. You know, playing some fullback, you could see him blocking, you can see him coming downhill and hitting, cracking defensive ends and everything.”
At 6’2, 224 lbs with a 4.44 40-yard dash, 1.54 10-yard split, and unique exploviness in the vertical jump, broad jump, and on the bench, Young is a different kind of weapon who resembles a safety more than he looks like your prototypical wide receiver. He’s actually maybe only a little bit of speed shy of having a close physical comp to DK Metcalf and Julio Jones, but this should never be confused with, “That guy’s going to be like DK and Julio!”
A more accurate physical comp with 40-yard dash added in is Robert Davis, a sixth round pick out of Georgia State in 2017 who caught two career passes.
This isn’t to say that Young will wash out as quickly as Davis either—perhaps playing before Deebo Samuel was a detriment to players like that—it’s just a reminder that no matter how much we “hope” for Dareke Young, there’s a lot of work left to be done and the odds remain stacked against him.
Young is a type and one who I assume Pete Carroll wants to utilize a lot in training camp in order to find out if he and Shane Waldron can start feeding him the ball in Week 1. Those targets and touches shouldn’t take away from Tyler Lockett, Metcalf, Ken Walker, or whoever they add (I still think Robert Woods a vet minimum makes sense because of the run blocking) and Schneider didn’t say or imply that Seattle was done looking for potential starters.
"Because it takes forever, as there’s so many different types of guys. Whether they’re Fs, Zs, Xs. And it’s all the different body types that go into that position and, you know, the different skillsets that you have to have. So, yeah. We’re always constantly looking."
The Seahawks have to maintain a belief that Metcalf is on the roster for at least two more years, hopefully more. I will sometimes see comments about “When can Seattle trade Metcalf” so just to get that out of the way: Not earlier than 2025, in almost any scenario. But that’s not the dream. The dream is that Metcalf keeps getting better.
I’ve written the Lockett thing and the breakdown of over-30 receivers to death so let’s not go down that path today, instead let’s agree on Lockett’s past instead of arguing his future. Tyler Lockett was a third round pick in 2015 (rare Pete and John trade up) and an immediate All-Pro player on special teams. What was less quick to develop was Lockett’s mastery of the wide receiver position, something that didn’t come on until his fourth season in the NFL.
Even factoring in Lockett’s horrific leg injury at the end of his second campaign, he didn’t become one of the league’s best route runners overnight. It took a long time.
Surely if we’re looking three years ahead, we can all agree that the Seahawks would love to have an heir apparent to Tyler Lockett waiting in the wings and oh wouldn’t you know it, there’s a receiver in this draft class who doesn’t get as much attention, who will probably run the fastest 40-yard dash on Saturday, who is competed to Tyler Lockett by many, and hey isn’t that convenient…he’s named Tyler, too.
Tyler 2.
I am committed to not spending too much time this year talking about draft prospects who have much worse odds than “50/50” of landing in Seattle, which is basically every prospect. As easy as it is for us to talk ourselves into “Seahawk-y” types and players who make life enjoyable when we fantasize about them in Seattle’s offense or defense, the truth is that all of those types of players have fans all over the NFL believing that actually it’s THEIR TEAM that is the perfect fit. Not YOUR TEAM.
Instead, we can talk about the attributes that Tyler Scott brings to a football team that the Seahawks would like to have added to their football team. Such as…speed at the receiver position.
Speed
Scott is said to have run a sub-4.3 in the 40-yard dash in the past and by the time I’m done writing this or you’re done reading it, he may have already broken that time at the NFL Scouting Combine on Saturday.
(I have to say this once at least: I’m having a harder time every year believing some of these numbers. Literally believing in them. The NFL seems a little desperate, in my opinion, to get more attention on the combine and they know that what drives people to watch more than anything else is the 40-yard dash. Not a conspiracy theory by any means, but “Who’s harmed if we just shave off a tenth of a second or two?”)
But Scott knows that speed isn’t everything and most of the combine’s fastest receivers in history had disappointing NFL careers.
That’s one reason that Scott could still go in the third or fourth round even when he does run an insane time in the 40. He sounds committed to honing his speed into something special, not just believing he can burn by NFL defensive backs.
“Not just being known as just somebody who can run fast, but really just perfect my craft and learn how to use my speed to my advantage,” he said.” Know that sometimes you don’t always have to go full speed to be effective and a lot of DBs, they feel your speed. But just knowing when to use it, there’s a time and a place.”
Lockett was a track star in Oklahoma before honing his receiver skills at Kansas State. Scott’s been running track since he was 6 who was the top-ranked runner in the state in high school.
Positional versatility and room to develop
The Seahawks like guys who have a history of playing different positions and that qualifies for Tyler Scott. He was a running back in high school and has only been playing receiver for the last two seasons. In his very first season as a receiver, Scott became Desmond Ridder’s number two behind current Colts receiver Alec Pierce, and he caught 30 passes for 520 yards and five touchdowns.
With Ridder and Pierce reaching the NFL, Scott became the number one and had 54 catches for 899 yards and nine touchdowns in playing with transfer Ben Bryant at quarterback. His numbers with Bryant were even better than Pierce’s numbers with Ridder.
That’s notable to me because Ridder should be miles better than Bryant and Pierce was one of the top rookie receivers in the NFL in 2022.
Pete has a long history of picking guys who have only been learning their position for a short period of time, most notably Richard Sherman and Tariq Woolen at cornerback. He sees players who have quickly developed the skills to play those positions at a high level and notes that with more time, he believes his coaches can basically “flip a house” for a massive profit.
Lockett got better every year at K-State, eventually totaling 106 catches for 1,515 yards as a senior. But that production wasn’t immediate in the NFL.
We’re obviously seeing with players like Young and even Metcalf that Pete sees all that they can do now, but the potential to do much more in the future if they keep developing their receiver skillset. Scott played running back until two years ago (1,337 rushing yards, 21 TDs as a senior), he had three kickoff return touchdowns in high school, and he’s just scratching the surface of what he could do as a receiver—which is different than me saying “And he’ll get there eventually.”
Most of these players never get there. But the Seahawks are the types to want prospects in the draft who have loads of untapped potential. Tyler Scott is just one of those prospects who qualifies.
Multi-sports star in high school
Pete talked about this at the combine and we linked it to Will Levis in a recent bonus article. It’s not just track, Lockett also helped lead his high school basketball team to a state championship.
Scott was a star in football and track, but also basketball.
Make note of any prospect who was “the best athlete in the state” or at least one of them, because Pete Carroll doesn’t even hide his affinity for those guys. As the former head coach at USC, Pete probably got used to searching for and finding certain types out of high school and he likely came to the conclusion that the best football players were also the best basketball, baseball, track, or “other” players too.
Student of the game
Scott talks about how important it is for him to not just be fast, but to manipulate defensive backs to get open and how to use his “undersized” frame (5’10, 177) to his advantage.
We saw how Russell Wilson used his undersized frame as an advantage and this is common with a lot of the best players in the NFL, including Lockett, TY Hilton (another common Scott comp), Aaron Donald, Elvis Dumervil, etc. It’s important to note that a lot of smaller players do fail to achieve NFL careers—but let’s not cherry pick them to make a point either…players fail at ALL SIZES.
Your greatest disadvantage should become your greatest advantage.
BrownsWire, a blog/team that desperately wants Scott to stay near his home, wrote about this recently:
Having game-breaking speed is one thing, but being able to control his body and throttle his tempo up and down is a gift. And Scott possesses this gift.
It allows for Scott to get in and out of breaks with suddenness and without taking added steps to throttle down. He is a twitchy mover who runs a full route tree effectively. This allows for Scott to toy with the hips of defensive backs and manipulate himself into blindspots to create added separation. His tape is a highlight reel of freezing cornerbacks where they stand with his ability to stem and break suddenly.
This shows up after the catch as well as Scott is slippery with the football in his hands. With the tendency to make men miss in the open field, Scott is a hard man to get hands on as he can cut on a dime and change directions without losing any speed he has built up.
This is what separates him from speedy receivers like Tennessee’s Jalin Hyatt and Princeton’s Andrei Iosivas, who are both more linearly explosive but struggle to get out of breaks or change directions efficiently.
Tyler Scott has talent because he worked on his body, his speed, and his body control. He’s made it this far because he also works on his game and that’ll be paramount to the draft evaluation process and where he gets picked.
Which is unclear right now.
Update: Scott’s 40-yard dash of 4.44 wasn’t quite the expectation
Seahawks draft picks — WRs
The Seahawks hold picks 5, 20, 37, and 52 in the first two rounds. Some have Scott going on the back end of the top-50, others have him getting drafted on day three.
If he goes on day three, then he has another Pete attribute—”chip on shoulder”—but his speed and interviews could push him up the boards. It’s surprising that Metcalf fell to the end of round two despite his size/speed profile and perhaps the Seahawks could still get someone like Tyler Scott with their third round pick.
It was a similar case when they moved up for Lockett in the third round of the 2015 draft.
John and Pete say they won’t try and force anything in this draft, that they just want to pick the best players. That’s believable—to a point—but I still don’t think they’re expecting to come out of the first two days of the draft without a few things, including an edge rusher, a defensive tackle, and depending on how free agency goes, quarterback, running back, and reciever have to be considerations. I’m not ruling anything out or guaranteeing anything—tight end may be a priority eventually, really no position is completely off the table—but you can see how adding depth at receiver could be vitally important.
No team is getting anywhere these days without at least one, probably two, and sometimes three elite pass-catching weapons in the offense. The Seahawks can get through 2023 based on what they have right now, they can throw quarters in a wishing well for Young and Dee Eskridge in the future (maybe let the L.A. Chargers serve as a cautionary tale for how far a team gets even with a great quarterback and a handful of weapons), but it’s not too soon to be thinking about 2024, 2025, and beyond.
Time is fast, and so is Ty.
Wow, four straight years of Seaside Joe without missing a single day!
The best nickname I saw given to Dareke Young was "the DK of D2". Yes, similar physical composition, different level of play.
I'm really glad you mentioned Dareke because I absolutely think he can develop into a top-25 guy at the position. The best play I saw him make in college was actually when he played inline TE and ran a post route so I was pleased to see the team incorporate him from some less traditional WR alignments later in the season. While I'd be surprised if the Seahawks stand pat at WR through the off-season, I don't think they'll feel pressed to use alot of resources at the position because Young can fill Goodwin's role in the offense and add some extra elements thanks to his alignment versatility.
On Scott, I could definitely see him being a Seahawk if he's still there in R4. I think his skillset is attractive but overlaps with Eskridge's to the point where I'd want to add to other positions in the earlier rounds, plus there are some similar guys I'm a little higher on like Hyatt, Flowers and Downs who could still be available at 50.