Will Seahawks least-talked about draft pick make the final roster?

Ricky White III is in a fierce competition for a roster spot

If you felt like you didn’t do well on Friday’s Seahawks trivia quiz, you may have done better — or not as bad — as you think. So far out of 390 quizzes taken, the average score is 2.34 correct answers out of 12. That means that the trivia was probably harder than I intended it to be (I don’t think I would have done better than 3 correct answers) but at least we’re learning more about the Seahawks in the process.

I’ll post about the results and the questions/answers next week, so make sure you are subscribed to Seaside Joe to not miss it:

Speaking of learning more about the Seahawks, let’s use a few moments on Saturday to get to know one of Seattle’s 11 draft picks better and probably the least-talked about player in the rookie class: Ricky White.

History of 7th round picks

Since the NFL went to a 7-round format in 1994, value has been hard to come by at the end of the draft. Actually, in the league’s only 8-round draft in 1993, the Seahawks landed one of their best steals in franchise history in the seventh round: Michael McCrary was the 170th overall pick in 1993 and an eventual Pro Bowler and Super Bowl-winner with the Baltimore Ravens.

The next year, the NFL’s first 7-round draft, Seattle kind of struck it rich again but more in the sense of “seventh round gold” when they took tight end Carlester Crumpler out of East Carolina with pick 202. Crumpler played five seasons with the Seahawks and was a significant offensive contributer for three of those.

But it would take four more years for the Seahawks to draft a player in the seventh round who would appear in a single NFL game (Keif Bryant, Johnie Church, and Carlos Jones were drafted by Seattle and didn’t make the league) and three more years after that until they picked someone who played in more than ONE career NFL game.

Between 1995 and 2000, the Seahawks drafted four seventh round players and they combined to play in one NFL game.

Then in 2001, the Seahawks picked center Dennis Norman in the seventh round and though he only appeared in one game for Seattle, Norman would eventually start 24 career games. Cut to 2003-2004, a decade after McCrary, and the Seahawks finally found a solution to those late round picks:

Focus on the special teamers!

In 2003, the Seahawks drafted kicker Josh Brown and in 2004 they selected punter Donnie Jones, two players who combined for 427 NFL games. (All but 6 of Jones’ 226 career games came for a team other than Seattle which is probably why you forgot that the Seahawks drafted Donnie Jones.)

(The Seahawks also drafted receiver Taco Wallace in 2003, a seventh round pick who you only remember because of his name…I was shocked to find out that Taco only played in 4 career games and had 0 career stats.)

It was around this time that the Seahawks solved some of their issues with seventh round picks and landed a few contributors:

• 2006: WR Ben Obomanu

• 2008: RB Justin Forsett

• 2011: LB Malcolm Smith

• 2012: G J.R. Sweezy

Those four players alone did more for Seattle than pretty much the lot of the Seahawks’ seventh rounders in the previous decade to Obomanu.

Who is your favorite Seahawks 7th round pick of all-time?

The Seahawks hit another seventh round rough patch from 2013-2016 (8 picks and almost nothing to show for it) but made it up for it double-time in 2017 with the selections of David Moore at 226 and Chris Carson at 249.

Since then, John Schneider has “hit” on players like Stephen Sullivan (a consistent member of the Panthers), Dareke Young, Bo Melton (still fighting for work with the Packers), and Kenny McIntosh. They aren’t starters, but they’ve done better than players like Zac Brooks and Kenny Lawler and Kiero Small.

And now this year, Schneider had three seventh round picks, his most as a GM since 2013:

• 223. RB Damien Martinez

• 234. OL Mason Richman

• 238. WR Ricky White III

Maybe because he was the last pick or maybe because he was the second receiver/third pass catcher drafted, White seems like the player I have to strain the most to remember was part of the class. But with Tory Horton still recovering from a knee injury suffered last year, and Seattle’s competition for special teams contributors wide open, White could be in the best position a seventh rounder could hope for to make the roster and contribute.

Ricky White III’s college career

As a 4-star recruit in 2020, White chose Michigan State and posted 223 yards as a true freshman. There was actually one season when he overlapped with Kenneth Walker III (2021) but White was not allowed to be with the team that year for “undisclosed reasons” although it is assumed that he was a certain player who was accused of a heinous crime, which later led to White suing Michigan State for a wrongful suspension.

There is not a lot known about that situation, so it would be hard to do anything other than speculate. Ultimately, White was never charged with any crimes and was allowed to continue his football career, which he did after transferring to UNLV in 2022.

Since then, White has totaled 3,143 receiving yards and 23 touchdowns over 39 games:

• White’s 1,483 yards in 2023 were the third-most in the country behind only Rome Odunze and Malik Nabers

White was slightly less productive in 2024, but still had 79 catches for 1,041 yards and 11 touchdowns. He also returned four punts last season, including one for a touchdown, and special teams is almost certainly where White will have to try to earn any spot on Seattle’s roster in September:

Ricky White won the Mountain West Special Teams Player of the Year award last year, largely because he had four (!) blocked punts.

Here is what NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein had to say about Ricky White before the draft:

Productive inside/outside receiver with good instincts but below-average play strength. He’s too easily knocked around and needs to play with better care for eluding trouble inside the route. White is smooth in space with an easy stride but won’t light it up with separation speed -- though he does have a feel for positioning and adjustments to create late catch space. A lack of size and catch strength will become exacerbated on the pro level, so refining his route-running as a slot option is a must. His lack of traits and explosiveness could overshadow the production and punch his ticket as an average NFL backup.

White is 6’1, 184 lbs and only ran a 4.61 40-yard dash, which leads to the probably-fair assumption that as a receiver he lacks the speed and explosiveness to become an NFL starter. He ranked 45th among all draft-eligible receivers in “Athleticism Score” by Next Gen Stats, but then ran a 4.44 40-yard dash at his pro day, if you can believe that.

Ricky White’s biggest challenge: Fierce competition

White is not only in a competition against himself, but a wide receivers room in which there are legitimately going to be 7-8 players competing for 1-2 spots:

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Cooper Kupp, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling have nothing to worry about

• Jake Bobo, Dareke Young, and Cody White will enter training camp with the experience of having won jobs on the team before

• Tory Horton was drafted earlier than White and has more upside as a WR3

• Steven Sims was signed in free agency for his own special teams value

• There is also John Rhys Plumlee and undrafted free agent Tyrone Broden (River Cracraft was recently waived)

If Horton is a shoo-in, we could easily reduce this competition to White being up against Young, Bobo, and Sims, at least, for one job on the roster.

However, players like Cody White and Young might have a much better chance than Ricky White of getting through waivers and going unclaimed by other teams if they are released. Bobo would have a better chance of getting stolen by another team if he is released.

But if Ricky White is as good at punt coverage and special teams with the Seahawks as he was at UNLV, he might make himself too valuable to cut and risk losing. White could end up as one of Seattle’s rare seventh round gems, or become as forgettable as most of the names I scrolled through to research this article.

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