After Some Lean Years, Seahawks need a Score in This Week’s Draft

Regarding the NFL draft Thursday, the bad news for Seattle fans is that the Seahawks have a pick in the first round, 18th overall. The good news is they have nine other picks with which to attempt to make up for whomever is the first-round mistake.

Cynical? By only a smidge or two. In the 15 years under current majordomo John Schneider, the Seahawks in the first round have squandered more than they have succeeded. The list below speaks for itself:

The list does not include perhaps the Seahawks’ most notorious draft-day decision. In 2017, Malik McDowell of Michigan State was considered by many scouts to be the most talented defensive tackle. But he slid all the way through the first round on a preponderance of red flags over maturity issues. So Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, always confident in his ability to Father Flanagan his way through any young man’s troubles, thought he had a steal when he ordered McDowell’s hire with the 35th pick, third in the second round, and Seattle’s first in that draft.

McDowell never played a down in Seattle. Before training camp, he was injured in an ATV accident. In September, he was arrested on a DUI. In March 2018, he was arrested for disorderly conduct. In July, the Seahawks cut him. So much for the Carroll mystique in rescuing the wayward.

In fairness, any NFL GM in the job 15 years likely has a knucklehead selection or two. And Schneider gets credit for the creation of the Seahawks’ Super Bowl teams of 2013 and 2014, although he was aided greatly by longtime friend and fabled draft savant Scot McCloughan. His departure in 2014, largely because of his struggles with alcoholism, was a little-recalled turning point in Seahawks player personnel adroitness.

From then on, Carroll’s “always compete” mantra mandating no step-back seasons inspired the Seahawks to trade several first-round draft picks for established NFL veterans. The one through-point of the trades for receiver Percy Harvin, tight end Jimmy Graham and safety Jamal Adams was they were disappointments relative to expectations and treasure surrendered, even if Harvin was an electric part of the SB XVIII champs.

Since Carroll owned the final say in personnel over Schneider, and since the tandem never let daylight appear between them on decisions, we can only speculate as to who took the initiative to sacrifice draft capital. Still, I’m checking the box next to Carroll for overreaching on all three trades. For a variety of reasons, some players just can’t be reached.

The drop in talent level more recently has been noteworthy but hardly grim. From the start of the Carroll-Schneider era (2010 to now), including the first year of Mike Macdonald as coach, the Seahawks record of 147-96-1 is a winning percentage of 60.5 that ranks sixth, trailing only the Chiefs, Patriots, Packers, Steelers and Ravens. Only the Packers are in the NFC. In the same period, the Seahawks’ 10 playoff appearances were tied for fourth, trailing the Chiefs and Packers (12) and the Pats (11).

But in What-Have-You-Done-For-Me-Lately America, the Seahawks since 2016 have won one playoff game, a dreary, 17-9 slog at Philadelphia in 2019 over a broken Eagles team down at quarterback to Josh McCown, whose age at the time required carbon dating. The persistent paucity of big victories explains one of the more ominous developments in 2024 — the widespread dumping of tickets onto the secondary market, where they were snatched up by fans from visiting teams. Suddenly, the once-legendary home-field advantage went from 12s to around 5s.

While the diminution of ardor has minimal financial consequence — the NFL is an idiot-proof monopoly — it is a tad embarrassing to squander an advantage built into the stadium. Particularly in view of the potential sale of the franchise, which is mandatory by 2028, per terms of the estate of Paul Allen. In May, the Seahawks will no longer need to pay 10 percent of sale proceeds to the state, a requirement for the use of expiring 20-year public bonds to help fund the stadium construction. That doesn’t mean a sale is imminent. What it may mean is that someone who can afford a value estimated by Forbes at $5.45 billion might be freshly inspired to invest today in an idiot-proof monopoly rather than hang out in a financial world that is decidedly not idiot-proof.

As pertains to the draft, which begins its three-day grip on sporting America Thursday, the Seahawks really do need an impact player whose results are close to immediate. Problem is, a consensus opinion in the scouting-industrial complex seems to be that this draft has perhaps only six to eight players projected to fill that description. For the Seahawks to trade up into that tier from No. 18 would be hugely expensive. But the second tier of players is deep enough that the Seahawks, who have five picks in the top 100, most of any team, would do well to trade back from No. 18 for even more picks.

As everyone from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Signal chat community on down knows, the Seahawks need quality offensive linemen. Relatively few are customarily chosen in the first round. But premium OLs will still be around in the late first and early second rounds. As the list above shows, Schneider has four first-rounders from the past two drafts that are plus players — offensive tackle Charles Cross, receiver Jaxson Smith-Njigba, cornerback Devon Witherspoon and defensive tackle Byron Murphy, although the latter had a disappointing rookie season. But only Witherspoon, likened by Carroll to Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu, has steady game-breaking talent.

So it’s not impossible for Schneider to nail a good first-rounder. Just unlikely. Best to play safe — beyond the blast radius, known by personnel tacticians as the McDowell Line. The heat shield of Carroll is no longer around.