Tyrice Knight doesn't sound ready for Sundays

Mike Macdonald's comments on rookie Tyrice Knight make it sound like he's a long-term project: Seaside Joe 1992

Tyrice Knight’s draft call from the Seahawks didn’t go as anyone expected. His first training camp and preseason in the NFL could also be classified as either a missed call or the wrong number, if reading too much into Mike Macdonald’s press conference statements is allowed.

After Seattle’s joint practice with the Titans on Wednesday, Macdonald was asked about Knight and where he’s at this week in his development. The Seahawks head coach grinned and chuckled, but then as we’re finding he’s prone to do, immediately flipped back to serious.

“Yeah, we’re throwing a lot at him. On purpose. Just keep on coming along, man. Keep finding new stuff to screw up and you’ll keep growing.”

It just sounds like good coaching, right? Most players will have a lot of “screw ups” early in their careers, and they need those mistakes in order to know what they need to correct. However, it’s also perfectly acceptable for some day three picks/UDFAs to stand out and prove to be much better than the NFL thought they were going to be, such as K.J. Wright, Jake Bobo, Doug Baldwin, Richard Sherman, Riq Woolen, and so on.

Nobody’s asking every day three pick to be as good as Sherman, but for the most part it does seem like late round standouts tend to make themselves apparent right away. From what we’ve heard and seen about Knight so far, including his place on the first depth chart behind Patrick O’Connell and Jon Rhattigan, it doesn’t seem like Seahawks coaches see him as a viable option to play on Sundays any time soon. Although in a new depth chart posted on Tuesday, Knight was ahead of O’Connell for the weakside linebacker job behind Jerome Baker. He was also third string, behind Tyrel Dodson and Rhattigan, at MIKE.

That’s NOT discouraging. It’s just also not encouraging and this is a team that I think we should expect to dip into its linebacker reserves during the 2024 season. Which, if I’m Rhattigan, I’m not thinking that I’m just holding second fiddle for Knight until he’s ready. I’m seeing it as an opportunity to prove that I actually am as good as any other backup linebacker on the team, including Seattle’s most recent fourth round pick.

Macdonald was also asked about Knight on Monday, and I will transcribe for you EXACTLY what the coach said, including his stumbles, to show that he might have wanted to say some stuff that he knew he couldn’t say publicly:

“Tina, he’s do—he’s a rookie. He’s got. He’s. He’s doing things, he’s making plays that he needs to make right now to compete, uhh, but he needs to keep chasing it. There needs to be a sense of urgency there on, on his mentality and, and he’s doing that. But I told him it’s gonna take him three years, you know, you haven’t made it yet buddy. You played one, one preseason game. You got, you got a ways to go but he’ll get there. He’s a. We’re exciting about him. But he’s, he’s got, he’s got some room to grow.”

Knight played 30 snaps against the Chargers and though I’ve seen some reactions to the game now that seem positive, including PFF’s continued insistence to get clicks for posting grades that are completely made up, those websites obviously avoid any context that might lower the value of the numbers. And look, Knight may have played fine or even good, but the context that even goes beyond the fact that it was a preseason game should be what Macdonald is saying about Knight since the game and some film the might hint at a lower “coverage grade” than what’s been reported.

This clip by alexcastrofilho on Twitter (I love ya buddy, but I’d have a much easier time finding your account if it was like, “SeahawksClips” or something) emphasizes one potentially missed play (Knight’s #48 running in from the right side to catch up with the target):

And this is a bad run read:

It wasn’t all bad. Knight moves into position and then slips a tackle to make a run stop here:

And here he makes a good tackle on a third down screen pass to force a punt.

What we’re seeing from Tyrice Knight in his first NFL training camp and preseason is nothing out of the ordinary, even for most really good linebacker prospects. The Lions picked Jack Campbell in the top-20 last season and the team is taking his development at a measured pace, certainly because he needs it, and Campbell was still the best rookie linebacker in the NFL last season even though he played 59% of the snaps.

Any linebacker having success as a rookie is increasingly rare, which is why picking them in the first three rounds has been less common lately too. Even “the best” of their class, like the Patrick Queen, Jordyn Brooks, Kenneth Murray first round group in 2020, have been at best, “pretty good, not great”. And that’s just Queen and Brooks.

When Macdonald told Knight it’s going to take three years, he really means it.

The Browns gave linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah a three-year, $39 million extension on Wednesday, rewarding the 2021 second round pick (who would have probably been a first round lock in any other era) even though he only made 10 starts in each of his first two seasons. It wasn’t until his third season that JOK broke out, made the Pro Bowl, and even then he still only played in 76% of the snaps!

I mean, Queen and Roquan Smith didn’t come off of the field for Mike Macdonald in Baltimore, so I would think the Seahawks are looking for two full-time linebackers who are equally adept at covering receivers, tight ends, running backs, stopping the run, rushing the passer, and signing autographs. That’s it. That’s also why linebacker could be the hardest defensive position to master in the NFL today.

The Ravens knew this when they used a third round pick on linebacker Trenton Simpson in 2023, hoping that by now he’d at least be an adequate replacement for Queen.

Seattle’s plan for Knight doesn’t seem any different, that is if everything breaks right. If all goes to plan, then Knight would be ready for a job in 2025, and if Macdonald’s timeline is accurate, then it won’t actually be a solidified position for Knight as a starter until 2026. That makes linebacker VERY tough to draft in the first round these days because you expect first round picks to play at start at least 3 of their 4 years under a rookie contract, if not 4 out of 5 if you pick up the fifth-year option.

Going into the season, the Seahawks plan to start Jerome Baker and Dodson, but Baker had a serious injury in 2023 and neither of them have had “healthy” camps. Dodson started 10 games last year, which is twice as many as the number of starts he had over his first three years combined.

If anyone seems to benefit from the potential need for a linebacker to start in place of either of them, it’s Rhattigan. And that might not be a bad thing given what I just said: Rhattigan is in his fourth NFL season, so by this time the 25-year-old (he’s actually a month younger than O’Connell) might be his best self. We’ve never seen Rhattigan in a regular season game other than a handful of snaps against the Giants and Ravens last year, so he could be good, he could be bad, all we have is context clues.

For me, the clues read that Mike Macdonald is going to do anything he can to avoid putting Tyrice Knight into a game situation until he’s ready and not while it could still hurt the team. There’s less risk with playing Rhattigan or O’Connell, or the recently-returned from PUP Drake Thomas, because if they fail, you move onto the next one. If Knight fails because he is caught off guard and exposed by savvy veterans and coaches on offense, then your fourth round rookie may start to let doubts in that he’s not good enough for the NFL.

Well, maybe you’re not good enough for the NFL…yet. Macdonald needs to keep pounding the idea of patience into players who were never told before that they had to wait to play football because before now, they were always the best players on their teams.

And if the Seahawks don’t end up feeling comfortable with the Rhattigan, O’Connell, Thomas, Blake Lynch options, I would not be surprised if linebacker is a position that Seattle targets after final cuts.

But just don’t try calling Tyrice Knight to tell him if he made the final 53-man roster. He won’t answer.