Draft day 2: Seahawks have intriguing pass rushers, quarterbacks, cornerbacks available
What some see as the top quarterback in this class.
Another QB Seattle hosted on a pre-draft visit.
Prime pass rushers plus cover cornerbacks to fill urgent team needs.
The second day of the 2022 NFL draft is full of those and more available players that could help the needy Seahawks immediately. And unlike most years, Seattle doesn’t have to wait long to add that help after selecting Mississippi State left tackle Charles Cross ninth in round one Thursday night.
The Seahawks own the 40th- and 41st-overall picks during round two Friday (which begins at 4 p.m. Pacific Time), plus the 72nd choice of the draft in the third round Friday night. The 40th pick is from Denver. It’s part of the haul Seattle got for trading franchise quarterback Russell Wilson to the Broncos last month.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said of picking eighth and ninth in the second round, instead of in the high 20s,where Seattle has usually picked throughout the last decade.
Will they draft a quarterback?
The Wilson trade following the team’s 7-10 season in 2021 created a Seahawks need at quarterback. Only one was taken in Thursday’s first round; Kenny Pickett of the University of Pittsburgh went to the Steelers with the 20th selection. That’s the latest a first quarterback went in a draft since 1997.
Malik Willis from Liberty University, Desmond Ridder from Cincinnati and Sam Howell of North Carolina are three quarterbacks likely to get drafted Friday.
Willis is something of a wild card. He struggled at the end of last season. He played at a lower-level school. But he lit up the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis with his personality, poise and passing.
Asked at the combine last month if, when he transferred to Liberty from Auburn, he still held the dream of playing in the NFL Willis said: “No, I didn’t. I thought I was done. I thought I was just going to go and have fun and play my last two or three years.
“But I’m here now.”
Still here available in round two.
He calls Wilson one of “the OGs.”
Willis was asked at the combine which players he watched growing up.
“I didn’t even really watch football like that until high school,” he said. “I used to think it was boring.
When did he decide football wasn’t boring?
“When I started getting better at it,” he said.
The Seahawks don’t necessarily need a rookie quarterback to play in 2022. Coach Pete Carroll and Schneider want to see what they have in Drew Lock, the passer they got from Denver in the Wilson trade. They loved Lock, 24, when he was entering the 2019 draft out of Missouri.
The Seahawks also recently re-signed 31-year-old veteran Geno Smith, Wilson’s backup the last three seasons.
Both Lock and Smith are signed only through 2022. So the Seahawks are more likely to draft a quarterback than they’ve been since 2012, when they selected the supposedly too-short Wilson in the third round out of Wisconsin.
Schneider and Carroll have drafted only two QBs in 12 years running the team: Wilson and Alex McGough, in the seventh round in 2018.
The Seahawks are likely to pick a quarterback over the final six rounds of this draft Friday and Saturday — but for 2023 and beyond.
Ridder fits that possibility.
The Seahawks reportedly had Ridder in for one of the 30 pre-draft visits by prospects the NFL allows each team. Ridder’s draft stock has been rising because of physical skills of throwing and running, his University of Cincinnati records of 87 touchdown passes and 12,418 yards of total offense — and because of all his winning. The 6-foot-3 Ridder won last season at Notre Dame. He led his Bearcats to the College Football Playoff.
Pre-draft visits used to be a Carroll-Schneider smoke screen. Earlier in their Seattle tenure many of their draft choices said they hadn’t met with or heard anything from the Seahawks prior to their selection.
That has changed in recent years. Picks such as Cross Thursday, plus Frank Clark, L.J. Collier, Malik McDowell, Paul Richardson and others had pre-draft visits with the Seahawks before Seattle selected them.
Schneider entered the second and third rounds convinced many quarterbacks would be drafted Friday.
“There’s a bunch of them that will get picked,” Seattle’s GM said Thursday night. “Several (Friday), for sure.”
Pass rushers needed
The Seahawks’ biggest need, bigger than quarterback, for 2022 is to pressure opposing QBs into more mistakes. Seattle’s 18 takeaways last season were the fewest in team history.
Carroll has said improving the pass rush is Job One this offseason. To do that, he’s changed defensive coordinators (Clint Hurtt replacing Ken Norton Jr.) and systems (to more of a speedy, varied 3-4 from his old 4-3).
Six-foot-three Boye Mafe from the University of Minnesota has speed, length and strength. He’s one of the raw wild cards in a draft loaded with top pass rushers seemingly ready to play in the NFL immediately.
Five defensive ends and outside linebackers went in round one.
David Ojabo would have been the sixth edge rusher drafted in the first round. At 6-5 with speed, the native of Nigeria, who grew up in Scotland before going to high school in New Jersey, had 11 sacks with a University of Michigan-record five forced fumbles last season. That was while he played opposite Wolverines’ sack sensation Aidan Hutchinson, who went second overall to Detroit Thursday.
Ojabo tore his Achilles tendon at his on-campus Pro Day March 18. The Seahawks are so needy in pass rushers they may go one-two on them Friday. They may be willing to wait for Ojabo’s recovery. Some hopeful estimates say he could return by November, though Achilles tears are no sure things to get past.
Top cornerbacks still available entering Friday evening for a Seahawks team that played eight of them last season: Clemson’s Andrew Booth, physical Kyler Gordon from the hometown University of Washington and long, 6-foot-4 Tariq Woolen (with 33 5/8-inch arms) from Texas-San Antonio.
Carroll still loves long, Richard Sherman-style cornerbacks.
“(Friday) is really cool,” Carroll said of rounds two and three of Seattle’s draft.
“That’s exciting.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 11:52 AM with the headline "Draft day 2: Seahawks have intriguing pass rushers, quarterbacks, cornerbacks available."
