Who would the Seahawks trade up for?

The right time to trade Kenneth Walker, offseason G/C cap casualty options, and questions from Super Joes

The Seattle Seahawks will be entering a very busy day two of the NFL Draft exactly three weeks from today, but that’s assuming that John Schneider hasn’t already traded one or two of his picks on day one. What could happen with Seattle’s first round draft pick, is Kenneth Walker actually available, and are there going to be any attractive free agent guards in the coming months?

That’s all part of this week’s Super Joes Q&A. If you want to join the next round of asking questions/sharing your own Seahawks takes, upgrade to Super Joes today!

Scott M: Who would you least like to see our division rivals draft in the first round and why?

Interesting thought. When I consider who has tortured the Seahawks the most over the past 10-20 years, a couple of first rounders come to mind (Larry Fitzgerald, Aaron Donald) but also some later picks like Frank Gore (2005, round 3) and maybe Brock Purdy, to some degree.

I found it interesting that Purdy has the highest “AV” of any player drafted in 2022 despite being the very last pick. That’s probably never happened before.

Perhaps the biggest existential threat to the Seahawks in terms of the NFC West and the first round is the answer to the question, “How will the Rams replace Matthew Stafford?” L.A.’s Les Snead is the most aggressive GM in the NFL when it comes to addressing the quarterback position:

• In 2016, Snead traded two firsts, two seconds, and two thirds to move up for Jared Goff

• In 2021, he traded Goff and two firsts for Stafford

Both moves had the Rams in the Super Bowl within two seasons.

The Rams pick 26th in this month’s draft and are unlikely to leave day one with a QB of the future. But we have to be mindful of how L.A. plans to use their current and future first round picks to address the quarterback position once Stafford parts ways, which could come as soon as 2026, and here’s the name I would tell fans to watch:

Trevor Lawrence.

The Jacksonville Jaguars just hired James Gladstone as their new GM and they pulled him from Snead’s front office. The last time that happened, it was the Lions hiring Brad Holmes and his first move was trading Stafford to his old boss. Tradng Lawrence before 2027 is financially complicated (he signed a bonus-heavy $275 million contract in 2024) but there are some very Stafford-y stars aligning up to maybe do something there next year if the Jaguars are terrible once again.

Not quite the answer to your question, although it’s kind of hard to muster up interest in what Arizona does and the 49ers have been shooting themselves in the foot with their recent first round decisions; no pun intended.

La’au: In the event the John moves up into the 30’s for a guard, would you be willing to outline JS and his trading up to get players and the results of trading up in relation to trading down.

I have been reading recently and hearing some on YouTube that JS is taking about having flexibility in the draft to be able to move if need be. We have discussed likely positions that we will draft in the first round. I think we will go T, edge, cb in the first round. We then will trade in me of our seconds and an additional pick to move up into the 30’s to grab a guard. What would we give up and who could we trade with is the real question. JS says he is at owners meeting talking trades.

I recently did a Google search for “Seahawks history of trading up in the first round” and Seaside Joe was one of the top results. I had forgotten that I had written the research myself. As far as first round trade ups, it hasn’t happened since Walter Jones in 1997.

Your idea to trade up to get a guard could be a great plan, although I don’t know that John Schneider will find it necessary to do this year.

As far as 2025 NFL Draft prospects who played significant snaps at guard or center in their entire college careers, Alabama’s Tyler Booker is the only one guaranteed to go on day one. North Dakota State’s Grey Zabel, who I don’t see as a first round lock, almost exclusively played tackle. There might not be a center drafted until day three.

If you ranked all 32 GMS by “Which of these people is most likely to think that the guard prospect at 30 is better than the guard prospect at 50?”, John Schneider would probably rank 32nd.

The other issue I see is that the 2025 draft class isn’t very good relative to the average first round.

Teams may not be fighting one another to make multiple first round picks, so if Schneider really wants to draft a guard, he would probably be more inclined to trade down than up. If he does trade down, don’t expect a massive haul because the class isn’t likely to have “omg i gotta have him” prospects at 18.

ESPN’s Matt Miller wrote that one GM told him that there are only 4-5 blue chip players and then maybe 40 guys who have late-first/second round grades.

On the flipside, maybe this means Schneider could trade up from 50 for a relatively low cost. Last year, it cost the Rams a 2025 second round pick + a fifth to move up from 52 to 39 in order to draft Braden Fiske, which I think we can all agree is too high of a price to pay for just about any prospect at #39.

As far as Schneider’s comments this week about adding two more day two picks and gaining draft flexibility:

"Initially, you're like, 'Yeah, we're going to take five really good players,'" Schneider said. "But then you get in a situation where it's like, 'All right, that guy's a starter, we should probably move to go get him,' if you can. It depends on how other people see these guys. But yeah, it allows us the ability to just be more free throughout our draft process."

I think he’s just making a pretty obvious statement that yeah, obviously Seattle has more options now. But the proof is in the pudding and the Seahawks have been extremely hesitant to trade up for players on day two, with some notable exceptions including Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, Jarran Reed, and Darrell Taylor.

I don’t expect the Seahawks to be overly aggressive in the draft but if there is a prospect who drops out of the top-30 who Schneider can’t believe is still available (I’ll shout out Wednesday’s article about Donovan Ezeiruaku) then sure, why not? Though the Rams seemingly overpaid for Fiske, he finished third in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting (losing to teammate Jared Verse).

Grant: We can't stop talking about guards and centers! Looking around the league at veteran O-line contracts and cap situations, who are some likely candidates for JS to target in a post-draft trade and/or pre-season cut cap casualty. We seem to be setup to have a small surplus of cap space, even after signing draft picks, that could presumably exist to give JS some flexibility to make another move or two. Are there any obvious targets out there that don't make sense on their current roster but might make sense for us? I'm thinking O-line, but if someone from another position stands out, that would be interesting too (like you suggested for Michael Mayer).

Here are some names on a list posted by NFLTradeRumors.co:

• C Ted Karras, Bengals

• G Joel Bitonio, Browns

• G Wyatt Teller, Browns

• OL Jonah Williams, Cardinals

• OT Braden Smith, Colts (has played guard)

• RT Kaleb McGary, Falcons

• C Luke Fortner, Jaguars

• C Frank Ragnow, Lions (I highly doubt it)

• G Graham Glasgow, Lions

• C David Andrews (was released by Patriots)

• G Isaac Seumalo, Steelers

• G Shaq Mason (was released by Texans)

• OL Tytus Howard, Texans

Apologies if any of these situations are out of date.

Seahawks fans shouldn’t get their hopes up about a post-summer veteran addition at guard or center, but you never know what could happen or which names might be best suited for Seattle’s next starting five. Remember Jahri Evans? Similar to Connor Williams, he was a late addition who ended up not helping the Seahawks.

It will also be a lot easier to read the tea leaves after the draft. If the Browns draft Zabel with their second pick, they might be planning to trade or release Wyatt Teller (I don’t envision them trading Bitonio, who decided to come back in 2025 rather than retire, which probably means he wants to continue/finish his career in Cleveland).

I’m personally not as tortured about Seattle’s offensive line situation as the average Seahawks fan. Maybe that’s my mistake, but I think the unit is going to be improved with what they have + the draft + one more low-key signing.

Cavmax: Trading K Walker keeps coming up recently. What are your thoughts? Is there, realistically, a player that JS would absolutely want to trade up for? I enjoy reading the mocks for the draft but do you think with the resources that the Seahawks have that there is a player that JS would jump at and make a trade?

An SI blogger for the Raiders said that the team tried to trade for Walker, which falls under the umbrella of “plausible rumors” but also seems like such a logical connection of dots (Pete Carroll→RB he drafted) that who knows if it really happened?

I still think Kenneth Walker has all the tools to be a top-5 running back in the NFL and he’s only 24 with just 600 career carries under his belt and only 480 in college. For context:

• Derrick Henry had 1,100 college+NFL carries at the end of his third season with the Titans

• The next season, he led the NFL with 1,540 yards and 16 TD

• The year after that, Henry led the NFL with 2,027 yards and 17 TD

• Four years after that (so last season), Henry had 1,921 yards and 16 TD

My point isn’t that Kenneth Walker is the next Derrick Henry, just that we haven’t even seen enough of him yet to know if he could be an elite NFL running back but there are flashes every week that he certainly could be. And though he’s been scraped up and nagged by some things, he’s never suffered a major injury before.

All of which to say that if the Seahawks trade Kenneth Walker for a fourth round pick, it could be a tremendous waste of their opportunity to find out.

And Seattle has plenty of picks! They don’t need any more picks.

If there is anything to come of these Walker trade ideas, I would expect it to come either right before or during the 2025 season. As long as he’s healthy, his value should only go up, not down. Even if the Seahawks decide that Zach Charbonnet is a better fit for Klint Kubiak’s offense and Walker takes a RB2 role, the team could probably still trade him for a better return in October than they would get today.

And if Seattle waits, then they can find out for themselves if Walker is going to be the star of Kubiak’s show or if it’s time to turn the page to Charbonnet. There’s just no way to expect anything better than a day three pick right now and that’s less valuable than going into training camp+the season with all of the running backs they currently have.

As to your other question if there’s a player who seems like he could be John Schneider’s dream prospect and worth trading up for, I can only guess that it would have to be a player getting top-8 pick hype who slides out of the top-10 and there’s no way to know who that would be; I don’t think there’s ever a guy who the Seahawks panic if they don’t have him and last year Schneider was content with seeing if Byron Murphy II would fall to him or not.

He waited and he still got the prospect he wanted the most without trading up.

I would be surprised if that “gotta have him” prospect was an offensive lineman — although I did bring up Will Campbell in that respect recently — or a skill player (Tyler Warren, Tetairoa McMillan, or even Ashton Jeanty although he would probably be the most intriguing of those) but two names that first come to mind are:

• LB/EDGE Jalon Walker, Georgia

• CB Will Johnson, Michigan

Johnson’s career didn’t overlap with Mike Macdonald’s at Michigan, but obviously Macdonald is going to know his game very well and Johnson should have an easier time adjusting to the NFL if he plays in the same system. He’s CB2 in this class behind Travis Hunter (so maybe even CB1) and he’s 6’2, 194 lbs, and similar to Derek Stingley a few years ago he’s the corner who has basically been earmarked to be a top NFL Draft pick for his entire career.

However, he only played in six games last season due to various injuries and therefore also didn’t test at the combine. Athleticism shouldn’t be an issue and pairing Johnson with Devon Witherspoon could be a phenomenal gift for Macdonald, but is the injury bug going to follow him to the NFL? The perception of Johnson’s stock is that it has been going down over the last month due to not testing, so MAYBE he’s a former “top-6 lock” who ends up being available at 12 or 13 and Schneider decides to move up.

On Walker, I asked our friend All-22 film “Is there anyone who screams Mike Macdonald to you?” and he said two names: Edge Mike Green and Walker, but specifically said, “Jalon Walker might be the one”.

All-22: “Because of the versatility to blitz, drop, cover, and play ILB or OLB…tremendous talent…His versatility, athleticism, closing speed, and then coverage ability is a very unique combination…As an ILB ... he reminds me of Patrick Queen from an athleticism standpoint. But he simultaneously reminds me of like a Justin Houston Edge Rusher in the same player. Just a unique blend of skills that I dont know if anyone else in the Draft offers”

Though Walker has a long ways to go in terms of refinement and development as a pass rusher, he could end up as one of those players who 3-4 years after the draft everyone is wondering “How did he not go earlier?” and that’s even if he goes 9th or 10th.

Unlike former teammate Jalen Carter, another one of Jalon Walker’s elite traits according to Lance Zierlein is “leadership” and Nate Tice notes that “his competitive style is infectious”, so I’m definitely getting some Devon Witherspoon-in-an-edge-rusher vibes that could appeal to the Seahawks if he drops, but ultimately it’s looking more likely that he goes top-8.

What do y’all think? Tell me your “I would trade up for this guy” prospects in the comments:

I’ll post more questions this weekend. Upgrade to Super Joes if you want to get in on the Q&Action.

Seaside Joe 2223