You have it exactly backwards. Whatever "interest" the Seahawks had in Mayfield was worth less than $3M and a conditional 5th round pick in the 2024 draft. They might have been "in talks" with the Browns because it's the GM's job to be in talks with everybody, but we obviously weren't pursuing Mayfield. Or if we were, our level of interest was (again) less than $3M and a day three pick in the 2024 draft.
The lesson you should be taking away from this is that the Seahawks have more faith in Lock & Geno than they had in Mayfield. And they had more faith in Lock & Geno throughout this entire Mayfield media speculation storm.
The same kind of faith that they had in Tarvaris Jackson when Carroll stated "he's the QB of the future" and then immediately signed Flynn and drafted Russell Wilson after 2011. I think Carroll knows what he's doing, we're tanking this year. I have no doubt that he doesn't really have much faith in Geno Smith and Drew Lock. Both of these players are hot garbage, it's arguable that we have the worst QB room in the entire league. Lock and Smith are place holders to keep the seat warm.
There was a reason why Seattle was in on the DeShaun Watson sweepstakes. If we were completely sold on our starters we wouldn't have even been entertaining a player with that much baggage.
Aside from that our options were guys like Matt Ryan who cost a huge amount of the cap, decent amounts in draft capital. Good player, but very old and he hasn't looked like his prime self in awhile (though still good). Then we have Baker Mayfield, a QB with spotty QB play, but potential. He likely puts us in the not good enough for the playoffs, or just squeaking in -- which limits our prospects for the future.
It is clear to me by this draft that Carroll is playing the long game here. We aren't retooling, this is a full on rebuild. He's gearing up for one last run at the end of his career. He's got until 2025 until his contract runs out and I truly believe that Jody intends to let things play out.
Carroll knows that this current roster has no chance in hell even with a competent QB of making run for the Super Bowl. I think he's looking at it as a developmental year, that is what the draft tells me at least. We went really heavy on the offensive line -- and we also made a hard shift on defense, hence guys like Mafe. It's going to take 2 years at least until we can make a deep run.
Why didn't we draft a signal caller? Quite frankly, they all weren't solid prospects. I watched so much footage on all of these guys after we traded Russell Wilson, I was unimpressed with most of them. They each had something funky going on with them, along with a funky system. The safest pick of the bunch, Pickett only had one good year and mediocre physical traits. Carroll didn't like a single one, I think his eye is set towards next year. I looked at the video of potential QB's coming out next year and let me tell you, they're miles ahead.
I don't think for a moment that Carroll believes Lock or Geno are the answer. I think it's quite the contrary -- I think he sees them as a liability.
