Would Seahawks draft Ashton Jeanty?

Which 2025 NFL Draft prospects are too good to pass on?

It’s time to take questions from Super Joes about the Seattle Seahawks, with topics ranging from the draft to the best regular season Seahawks games of all-time to Ashton Jeanty to moving DK Metcalf to defense.

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Chuck Turtleman: I cannot remember the last time I was less enthusiastic about the guys coming out projected to be drafted where we will pick first and beyond. I am surely wrong and not paying attention to some guys who will be 10 year starters in the league, but even guys like Sam Teets have only 7 guys with a first round grade.

Mocks have guys that were considered top 5-10 when the season ended going in Seattle’s range (18th). If Ashton Jeanty actually drops to us like some mocks suggest, I think we HAVE to take him. LB Jihaad Campbell is another, in spite of off-ball linebacker value. Same with S Malaki Starks or CB Will Johnson or CB Azareye’h Thomas where it could be argued that we don't really have a huge need and they aren't Witherspoon special. Or Tyler Warren (my favorite player in this draft after Travis Hunter) or Colston Loveland as tight ends.

If a blue chip player falls, please tell me the plan won't be to trade back. At least in this year's draft. Or do, if I need to expect it. Though I suppose other GMs will feel the same way.

From this list, it actually does sound like you could be excited about some prospects who could be available at 18. The NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board has Azareye’h Thomas at 43, Jihaad Campbell at 29, Colston Loveland at 23, and Starks at 15.

They could all go much higher than those estimates, but from the sounds of it you might eventually find out that you do like the Seahawks picking in the late-first/early-second range.

It doesn’t really have any impact on me what “mock drafts say” because of mock drafts being content, not intel. And because content needs to come out every single day, an opinion of a prospect could change 20 or 30 or 100 times between now and the draft.

If we’re using mock drafts as hypotheticals, as in “I read this mock draft and I found this scenario to be interesting, what do you think of this scenario?” that would be one thing. For example, using your example of Ashton Jeanty:

Should the Seahawks draft RB Ashton Jeanty if he’s available at 18?

In a vacuum of just fitting a player to a team at a certain draft value, then maybe. But then we have to ask who else is available? Did another top-10 prospect “fall” to 18 who is a better value? Is Jeanty going to keep dropping and still be available if the team trades back?

A straightforward answer would be that for a lot of reasons you mention, the Seahawks almost certainly won't draft Jeanty.

Will the Seahawks trade back?

It’s impossible to answer until the Seahawks are on the clock — John Schneider couldn’t answer this question today — and that’s if Seattle hasn’t already traded their pick before then. Are the Seahawks opposed to trading back? Definitely not.

Danno: My Question is, who do you see as stick and pick players in this year’s draft vs trading back for more picks? Players I would stick and pick if they are still on the board at 18 are OL Armand Membou, OL Will Campbell, TE Tyler Warren, EDGE Mike Green, DL Kenneth Grant, CB Will Johnson, OL Kelvin Banks, and EDGE Shemar Stewart.

Your list is as good or better than mine, and same as Chuck it seems you won’t have a problem finding one or multiple of those players left on the board at 18.

If there was anything I could impart on fans about the 18th pick in the 2025 draft, it’s not to get your hopes up for a rookie first rounder to come in right away and be a superstar who lifts the team up from a fringe playoff contender to the Super Bowl.

Whether that guy was a blue chip prospect like Devon Witherspoon or a draft day “steal” like Byron Murphy or the answer at left tackle like Charles Cross or the top receiver like Jaxon Smith-Njigba, nobody has had that sort of impact. They all still have to prove themselves, to a degree. Guys going into their fourth year — Cross, Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker, Abe Lucas, Coby Bryant, Tariq Woolen — are still proving themselves.

It wouldn’t matter at all if they found a superstar at pick 18 or a superstar in the fifth round. They just need to draft more stars and those players often come from where we least expect.

Dewhub: If we don't get a reasonable offer for DK Metcalf, would he have any value as DB?

If the state of DK Metcalf is that he might be better off playing defense, let’s hope Seattle doesn’t write him a new check. If the Seahawks wanted to try Metcalf out at a new position, he would certainly hold out until he’s released or traded.

Scott M: Is there any way to set up a Seaside Joe subscriber-based big board? One that the subscribers could vote for top ten (out of say 20) at each position and then compile that data. Then using that data set up a big board we could then vote players up or down somehow? The end results I am hoping to see is what SSJ subscribers are thinking regarding position groups and overall rankings. This year seems to be kinda crazy with the differences in analysts rankings. I would also like to be able to see individuals rankings and big boards later on to see who did well and who didn't do as well. I know it's a long shot, but thought I would throw it out there...

I’m not sure how to set this up or organize it myself, but if anyone wants to throw some ideas out for Scott in the comments the floor is open!

Rusty: Besides SSJ, what else should I be reading/watching during this off season?

In the replies, Chuck pointed to Sam Teets as a source of daily NFL Draft content and scouting reports. There are the videos and YouTube channels that I share here, but every offseason is new so maybe the best shows haven’t even debuted yet.

Pete Carroll said “Always Compete” so in my bones I have to remain partial to Seaside Joe.

Paul G: Any thoughts on John Schneider’s dispiriting appearance on Wyman & Bob? He pretty much said that the approach to building an offensive line won’t change.

For clarification, Paul is referencing an earlier appearance (I think) to the one that I wrote about on Thursday. As far as what Schneider says on the radio, I don’t put a lot of stock or read much into it. He’s not going to go on the radio and tell us his plans and he may not even be aware of what his plans are yet.

As far as having conviction and confidence in some of the offensive linemen that Seattle has drafted recently, that’s not surprising.

Joshular: What’s your favorite regular season Seahawks win of all time?

The game that always stands out is beating the Eagles on Thursday Night Football in 2011. That felt like the night that the Legion of Boom was born and I remember thinking for the first time that the Seahawks might have the pieces in place to win the Super Bowl.

What about you?

MTSeahawkFan: What are some salary cap strategies that teams use to get around the "hard" cap and seem to weasel out of being accountable to the cap? Also, I hear our cap guy is fairly new to the role...any thoughts on his strategies for keeping the Hawks within the cap?

Teams have different strategies but ultimately there is no such thing as a better system than another system. If there was a strategy that had all benefits and no setbacks, then every team would just do that. It’s just based on risk aversion and how much is the team willing to owe on the back end?

There’s cap and then there’s cash.

If the Eagles pay a player, it’s usually in lots of cash and little salary. The upside is they’ve managed to keep a strong team together, the downside is that most of that money is guaranteed and it makes it harder to get away from players when they get too old or injured.

It has already paid off for Philadelphia because they won the Super Bowl. But if the players start to regress, they’ll be stuck in a hole just like the Saints and the Eagles won’t have much cap space to get better in the near future.

This is what happened to the Rams after they won the Super Bowl and they still haven’t totally recovered.

As to how vice president of football administration Joey Laine will approach the cap, we shall find out together. He was hired last April, so this would be his first free agency with the Seahawks.

Eduardo: We hear that Klint Kubiak is a big proponent of fullbacks in his scheme. He is a product of the Shanahan tree and we've seen first hand with Kyle Juszczyk how effective fullback use can be in today's NFL. I believe you've referenced a few FB candidates recently, but would be interested in hearing in a bit more detail about the role of fullbacks in the modern NFL, how did that work for the Saints last year and how could that translate into the Seahawks scheme moving forward?

Fullback is still a pretty rare role in the modern NFL. Not even the Saints really established who their fullback would be until the end of training camp and then they put a few different players, including Taysom Hill, into that spot during the regular season. But Kubiak did use his fullback regularly, part of which I referenced here.

I think it will be best to wait and see what the roster looks like when Seattle gets to training camp and breakdown their fullback options once they put the pads on. If Kubiak ends up using a fullback anything like Shanahan does, then he’s going to see a lot of action (Juszczyk plays 50% of the snaps) and be more visible as a receiver than as a runner.

But even then, Juszczyk still only catches about one pass per game.

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