Spoon vs. Carter

[CactusJack]

New ESPN article is up. Gives some more insights into the pick.

SEATTLE -- The night before the first round of the 2023 NFL draft, Pete Carroll had a hankering, and then a hunch.

On his way to Popeyes, the Seattle Seahawks head coach stopped at a red light near the fast food restaurant and saw an Illinois license plate on a car in front of him. Funny, Carroll thought, because he had just been thinking about Illini cornerback Devon Witherspoon, who along with Alabama outside linebacker Will Anderson Jr. was one of the two highest-rated defenders on the Seahawks' draft board.

Seattle is 1,900 miles away from Illinois' western border, so you can imagine Carroll's surprise when he pulled into the drive-thru and found himself right behind another car with an Illinois plate.

"I thought, 'Whoa, what kind of sign is that?'" Carroll told Seattle's Sports Radio 93.3 KJR-FM. "... The fact that it all came through, what the heck, all those mock drafts, all those times, I should've just looked at the cars in front of me. I would've figured it out."

Few mock drafts, if any, predicted Seattle would take Witherspoon with the fifth pick. Many had the Seahawks going with quarterbacks Anthony Richardson or Will Levis. Others had them taking defensive end Tyree Wilson.

But perhaps the player most commonly mocked to Seattle at No. 5 was Jalen Carter, the All-American defensive tackle out of Georgia who would have filled by far the biggest hole on the Seahawks' roster. And to some, he was exactly the kind of game-wrecking interior defender Seattle had been trying to find for years, a search that continued in October when it traded a second-round pick for Leonard Williams.

But the Seahawks had concerns about Carter, who pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing in March after being involved in a crash that killed a Georgia teammate and a recruiting staff member.


THE SEAHAWKS' DECISION to pass on Carter wasn't a product of pure talent evaluation.

"We thought he was a great player, we really did," Carroll said of Carter last week. "He was dynamic physically, so explosive and strong, played aggressively, played tough, played on a great team, a great championship team. There was a lot of real positives there."

But inside Seahawks headquarters, there were a lot of questions about Carter's off-the-field behavior and his on-field motor. In addition to his involvement in the fatal car crash, some of the team's decision-makers -- who had met with Carter at and during a pre-draft visit to the Virginia Mason Athletic Center -- had reservations about his work ethic and love for football. They weren't eased when, according to a team source, Carter admitted to Seattle that he didn't always play hard against lesser competition.

The Seahawks had gambled unsuccessfully on Michigan State's Malik McDowell at the 35th pick in 2017, believing the veteran leaders on their Legion of Boom defense could help guide him. After an ATV accident and legal issues, McDowell never played a snap for Seattle.

But taking Carter at No. 5 represented a much bigger risk in terms of the high draft pick and the fully guaranteed $31.86 million contract.

The Seahawks, according to a team source, would have considered drafting Carter with the second of their two first-rounders, at No. 20. But with the Eagles willing to make a leap of faith, he was long gone by then.

After drafting Witherspoon, Carroll likened his aggressive style to another defensive back he coached at USC, Troy Polamalu. Schneider raved about Witherspoon's energy and "juice."

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id...ve-rookie-year-devon-witherspoon-jalen-carter