Seahawks’ objectives, options for NFL draft day 2: Trades, and decisions about need

What to expect from Team Unexpected on day two of the draft?

Trades.

The Seahawks have two choices in round two, at the top (37th overall) and near the end (52), plus a single third-round pick (83rd overall) as the NFL draft continues Friday.

Three total picks on day two. For now.

“Right now it’s three,” general manager John Schneider said late Thursday night.

That was after Seattle surprised many picking cornerback Devon Witherspoon fifth overall and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba 20th.

“Eighty-three is the last pick, right now. We’ll see how it goes. We’d like to try to work our way through the board,” Schneider said. “We’ll see if we can move around a little bit. If we can, great.

“If not, we’re set to take good players.”

So that means trades. Likely down, as is Schneider’s MO, to net more than the 10 total picks they had entering Friday. That includes five of the first 83 choices.

“It was really fun to have the two picks in this one and then to come back again (Friday in the third round). I’m all pumped about it,” coach Pete Carroll said.

It’s what they did Thursday in round one.

They picked Witherspoon at five, making him a bookend with 2022 rookie Pro Bowl star Tariq Woolen as perhaps the NFL’s best young duo at cornerback. Then about an hour and a half later the Seahawks entertained what Schneider said was “five or six” other teams making trade offers before Seattle picked Smith-Njigba at 20. He will be the third wide receiver this team’s been seeking for years to use with Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf particularly on third downs and in the red zone.

“We come back with two again in the second round. There’s a good rhythm to that,” Carroll said. “It was fun and I’m looking forward to doing it again (Friday).”

Witherspoon and Smith-Njigba are reminders Carroll and Schneider most often pick the best player they’ve assessed that’s available when it’s Seattle’s turn to pick. That is, over obvious need.

The Seahawks’ obvious need remains defensive line and defensive tackle, specifically. Schneider acknowledged after round one late Thursday.

“Absolutely,” the GM said.

“We recognized we needed help on the defensive line.”

They still do. And they still have at least three more picks Friday in rounds two and three and five more in the fourth through seventh rounds Saturday to address defensive line.

Or center. Or, perhaps quarterback, a position Carroll and Schneider have drafted only two (Russell Wilson and Alex McGough) in 13 years running the Seahawks.

Here’s a look at the top of who remained available in this draft for round two Friday:

John Michael Schmitz, center, Minnesota: The most highly regarded center in this draft. No center went in round one. Carroll has said Seattle must “fix” the center position, after years of one-year trials and undersized guys getting overrun at the snap. This would fix that.

But they’ve only drafted one true center in 13 years: Joey Hunt, sixth round, 2016.

Steve Avila, center, TCU: If a team takes Schmitz before Seattle’s turn, or if the Seahawks go in another direction at 37, Avila could be there for them at 52.

The 6-foot-3 1/2, 332-pound Avila was a consensus All-American last season for the Horned Frogs’ march to the national championship game.

If so, the only two centers Carroll and Schneider would have drafted for Seattle would be TCU guys.

Hendon Hooker, quarterback, Tennessee: If Hooker wasn’t 25 and coming off a torn anterior cruciate ligament from late last season, he would have been drafted Thursday in round one. He was the 2022 offensive player of the year in the Southeastern Conference, the best league in college football.

The question becomes: Do the Seahawks feel the need to invest at the top of the second round, a round higher than they drafted Wilson, with having recently re-signed Geno Smith to a three-year, $75 million contract? Yes, that’s a contract the Seahawks can get out of with relatively low salary-cap hits after one or two years, but do Carroll and Schneider see Hooker as a QB for their team for most of the next decade?

Will Levis, quarterback, Kentucky: Some thought he’d be a first-round pick, maybe even in the top five. But Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson went one, two, four instead.

Carroll and Schneider were at Levis’ campus pro day, as they were Young’s, Stroud’s and Richardson’s. But Detroit could draft Levis three spots before Seattle’s first turn Friday — again, if the Seahawks are even thinking quarterback, which they don’t have to be.

Drew Sanders, linebacker, Arkansas: What’s particularly intriguing about Sanders: The former five-star Alabama recruit can play inside linebacker or edge rusher outside. The Seahawks have inside linebackers Bobby Wagner and Devin Bush under contract for 2023 only. Jordyn Brooks, the starter there last season, is coming off an ACL injury in January. And Carroll can never have enough pass rushers.

But there we go getting sidetracked by need for the Seahawks again...

This story was originally published April 28, 2023 at 7:55 AM with the headline "Seahawks’ objectives, options for NFL draft day 2: Trades, and decisions about need."

Gregg Bell

The News Tribune

Gregg Bell is the Seahawks and NFL writer for The News Tribune. He is a two-time Washington state sportswriter of the year, voted by the National Sports Media Association in January 2023 and January 2019. He started covering the NFL in 2002 as the Oakland Raiders beat writer for The Sacramento Bee. The Ohio native began covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season of 2005. In a prior life he graduated from West Point and served as a tactical intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, so he may ask you to drop and give him 10. Support my work with a digital subscription