DO YOU TRUST PETE AND JOHN WITH THIS DRAFT?

[AgentDib]

It’s the first draft in years they haven’t been picking primarily at the end of each round - especially in the early rounds. They’ve been a victim of their own success.

That's a big part of it, maybe most of it. Our draft outcomes have been above average since 2015 when weighted by how much draft capital we've had.

However, they've also consistently traded away what draft capital they did have and have undervalued compensatory picks. The downside of the Always Compete philosophy is that it's tough to make moves that hurt the team in the short-term even if they lead to long-term benefits. I'd like to see a little more structure at the top where perhaps JS can take on the role of the bad guy a bit more often and keep draft capital a priority going forwards.

 

[keasley45]

69 draft picks since 2015 how many are top guys, better than avg? answer under 10( I will use 10 for the hit rte. To compare 2010-2014 we had 28 draft picks and out of 28, 10 ended up top guys and many more better than AVG. so we went from a 36% hit rate to 14% not great(hit rate based on % of top guys). Hence why I have little faith and the hit rate son FAs is even worse

You can say what you want KEasley but their draft was significantly different than in past years that it would be easy to conclude that they were forced to quit effing around stupid flyer picks in early rounds or to accept the suggestions of consultants etc.

I have very little issue with the latest draft except maybe taking a RB too early and maybe nit taking a flyer on a QB late. No real issues with who they took and my positional concerns are relatively minor. A very UN Seahawk like draft.

Again, your assessment is based on an assumption that they were 'effing' around. Two things - first, and this was talked about on one of the latest Bob and Wyman segments - that the difference this year had to do with the makeup of the staff (personnel and coaching) - better staff, better coaches with input, better selections. It hinted at the democratic process employed by Pete and the Hawks in most things. When they're in the draft room, they give a lot of weight to what the guys who are coaching specific position groups say. Woukd stand to reason that the better those guys are , the better the decisions.

Also, they've been hitting solid drafts since 2020. And 2019 looks like it wasn't as bad as originally thought either.


Seriously... 2020 was very, very good-

J Brooks - All pro potential

D Taylor - All Pro potential

D Lewis - some in the NFL thought he was the best rookie lineman drafted after his 1st season

C Parkinson - solid pick, was just injured

Dee Jay Dallas - solid contributor at that spot

Alton Robinson - looks to be ready to contribute

Freddie Swain- our #3 guy

Stephen Sullivan - not on the team, but still playing

By my count 7/8 contributing, high contributing , and potential all-pro players (Brooks and Taylor - Brooks received an All Pro vote last year). But again. This draft like early Hawks drafts was polluted by the perception that the FO had lost its way. So when we picked Brooks... they should have picked Queen. When they took Taylor, they reached, etc, etc, etc.
Parkinson received rave reviews from scouts and coaches, but was unfortunately injured the Hawks couldn't help that. Now, he looks to be 1/3 of a dynamic TE group.

2021...

Eskridge - The only question is whether he can stay healthy. Shane is incredibly high on him. I'll rely on his opinion over anyone else's, considering it's his offense.

Tre Brown - This dude was nothing but electric before he was hurt. Considered our likely starter when he's back. GREAT PICK

S Forsythe - rotational player at the moment and battling for RT

Hits on 2/3, pending injury returns, plus a solid depth contributor in the 6th round in Forsythe. AND, when you factor in that we added J Adams... the Only reason he had a down season last year was because Norton used him incorrectly... about as idiotic a utilization as when we used J Graham as an inline blocker. It wasn't Jimmy's fault, and it's not Jamals.

But this draft has been canned for only netting 3 players and the perception that we gave up too much for Adams. But if you use the baseline measure that if you have 7 picks in a draft, that you want 2, hopefully 3 to start and overall hit on 4 out of 7, it looks like Eskridge will fight for our #3 wr, Adams is a starter, Tre Brown is assumed to start if healthy, and Forsythe is fighting for playing time and at minimum will be solid depth.

4 keepers, 3 of which potentially start.

2019:

Of the 11 picks we had, we nabbed 4 starters / solid contributors and a potential All Pro

Dk Metcalf
Cody Barton
Marquis Blair
Phil Haynes
Ugo Amadi
Travis Homer

Some will claim that Cody is just a starter by default. I think this year, he'll show the league how solid a guy he can be. Intelligence and speed... he'll be good.

M Blair - the dude is a difference maker who just hasn't been able to stay on the field, in one case, due to just a freak injury.

Metcalf - tops in the league

Haynes - solid depth piece

Amadi- solid contributor

Homer - solid depth - special teams for a 6 round pick

So 6/11... better than 50%.

2018 - not as spectacular a haul, but he picked up:

R Penny
W Dissly
M Dickson
Jamarco Jones

4 out of 9. Not great, but not the abomination that you'd think, listening to conventional wisdom around here.

So in the years PRIOR to 2022, the draft hailed as the first one where we got 'back on track' and stopped effing around, out of 31 picks, we added 19 guys, some of which are likely future all Pro based on what they've already shown, starters, solid depth, and top special teams contributors. That's 61% of the guys they picked, playing considerable roles on the team.

So I have to ask, by what measure is that a FO that didn't know what it was doing?

And 2022...

If you add in the projected contributors at this point...

Cross - starter
Walker - future starter
Mafe - likely starter
Lucas - likely starter
Bryant - likely starter
Woolen - making a strong case...

All look likely to contribute right away, saying nothing about the others like T Smith who have also shown well in limited looks.

So that's 6 of 9 potential starters / solid contributors. So yeah, better than past averages (2020 was better), but with the benefit of drafting significantly higher and a draft that overall featured a ton of great talent at several positions.

So including 2022, as it stands right now, 25 out of 40 players added that are solid contributors, starters and 3 potential All pros, 4 if you include Dickson

Plus Harris, Fant, and Jamal Adams, with Lock as a wildcard.

That would make it 28 out of 40 players drafted, acquired via trade for picks, starting or contributing significantly.

If LJ Collier can do anything, it would be 29 of 40.

Is that the train wreck prior to 2022 that it's been made out to be?

 

[keasley45]

So to piggyback on the above, one could make the argument that yes, we might have added players who start on our team, but that we are overvaluing our guys relative to the average talent level of players on better teams across the league. So let's look at that.

RB - excellent group
Are Rashad Penny, Ken Walker and DeeJay Dallas an average group? I'd say that if Penny continues where he left off, we are top 10

WR - average? top to bottom, we are very fast and very good. Probably the best tandem in the league on paper, with Eskridge having a shot to round out what woukd have the potential to be the best trio in the league.

TE - average? I'd say above average to great with Dissly, Fant (hailed as the best young TE in the league by many) and now a healthy Parkinson, who's been every bit as impressive as his stable mates.

O Line - a solid, solid group. We have the luxury of only NEEDING to start Cross. If Curhan can pick up where he left off, our line will have a solid mix of Vets and young talent. Doesn't have to be a green group with both anchors in their rookie campaigns.

DEFENSE

SS / FS - One of, if not THE best in the league, plus Marquis Blair who can play there or at CB

CB - went from a liability to a potential strength and envy of the league if Brown can make it back and Bryant and Woolen continue to develop.

LB ... the names include Brooks and Taylor, two guys who after this season will be talked about as garnering all-pro consideration. Add Mafe, an underrated a Barton and Nwosu and you have a great starting group, if not the best depth

DL - average? I'd have to say average to likely slightly better than average with the potential to be good. Harris, Woods, Ford, Monet, Collier and Robinson. The first 4 are solid, solid pieces. Will have to see how Robinson and Collier fit.

S Teams - Dickson- guy is the best in the league

Myers - solid enough

PR - Eskridge/ Dallas - can be electric
KR - Eskridge / Dallas / ? - see above.

So no, we don't have all pros at every position, but this roster isn't in 'rebuild' mode. It's been rebuilt and is simply waiting for a QB to tale the helm and run the damn thing. But not a guy who HAS to make every play look like a highlight reel exercise. We have a good OC. As was evidenced by what J Goff was able to do when Shane was with him, whoever the QB is will be made better by the scheme if he simply plays within it effectively.

If you disagree with the position group analysis, would love to understand where.

 

[JayhawkMike]

You are giving Eskridge credit when he actually hasn’t done jack on the field. People can think he will but as of yet he has not performed. And adding Penny for a handful of games at the end when he was literally playing for his career after years and years of nothing doesn’t work either.

some are quick to write off players that don’t perform well early. You on the other hand seem to be giving a lot of credit to players that actually have not performed well YET but a coach likes or have potential.

it seems like you are shielding PC from responsibility by calling it a “democratic” process. I don’t buy that at all. PC and JS get full credit for getting DK Metcalf. Kudos to them. yes, a no brainer at the time but they didn’t eff it up so good on them. They also get full blame for Penny, Collier, Eskridge (so far - am i to understand that our FIRST pick can’t even become a starter as a THIRD receiver in his second year?). McDowell, etc etc etc

 

[keasley45]

You are giving Eskridge credit when he actually hasn’t done jack on the field. People can think he will but as of yet he has not performed. And adding Penny for a handful of games at the end when he was literally playing for his career after years and years of nothing doesn’t work either.

some are quick to write off players that don’t perform well early. You on the other hand seem to be giving a lot of credit to players that actually have not performed well YET but a coach likes or have potential.

it seems like you are shielding PC from responsibility by calling it a “democratic” process. I don’t buy that at all. PC and JS get full credit for getting DK Metcalf. Kudos to them. yes, a no brainer at the time but they didn’t eff it up so good on them. They also get full blame for Penny, Collier, Eskridge (so far - am i to understand that our FIRST pick can’t even become a starter as a THIRD receiver in his second year?). McDowell, etc etc etc

I'm not shielding anything. I don't consider the 22 draft to be the first one they git right in many years. The point of the post is that they've had solid drafts over the last 4 years that have been almost entirely canned.

And I'm also not making an excuse for them. It was discussed as being the reason this draft was perceived as different. There were different decision makers in the room.

I gave two players advanced credit. Penny has been given that same advanced credit by almost every pundit in the league. And if his performance in TC and the reports of his conditioning are accurate., he will be the guy who left of last year. And to be clear, Penny didn't just splash in a game, he finished the year with over 800 yards in the last 5 games. There was no let up. It was consistent ass kicking. So penalize him for arriving late if you want, but it looks like he arrived.

but if you want to call him and Eakrisge a stretch, that's fine. Take them out and the drafts STILL aren't the abomination that they've been made out to be.

And as far as talent goes, even if Penny doesn't pop, Walker is there ready to start. It's been reported that he's every bit and more, guven hiw well he's caught the ball out of the backfield.

But again, my point was two fold. We didn't just start drafting well. We've drafted well since at least 2020, and 2019 was average to above average.

AND

The roster isn't full of holes as some would like to portray.

 

[jammerhawk]

Before totally shit canning Carrol and Schneider let’s look around the league to assess the reality of the effectiveness of drafting from other teams with generally good records. Every team has draft misses although the Rams who have seemingly traded away most all of their early draft picks, which raises questions about the utility of draft picks anyway.
Although the route of buy a championship has worked for the Rams the longevity of the effectiveness ofthat approach remains to be determined

It seems to me that as ever you focus only upon the negatives to continue your argument that Pn’J need to be fired. Anyone who disagrees with your view is regarded sycophant to Pn’J. Just so you know I too think they have made a great deal of poor decisions but still have regularly fielded competitive teams. Their record compared to other drafts is actually above average.

I agree that Eskridge has been a significant disappointment so far, that Collier has not played anywhere close to his draft slot, McDowell was a disaster, Blair is a snake bit talent who occupies a prominent spot in the trainer’s rooms rehabbing this or that significant injury. and there are others like Penny who has never yet been able to play a full season and was in result overdrafted; you fail to acknowledge the players they hit. Interesting though that it seems injury forms the largest reason for draft misses instead of lack of talent, save Collier. Are the FO to be blamed for these injuries too?

Jayhawk, for you it seems the rain never stops.

 

[keasley45]

You are giving Eskridge credit when he actually hasn’t done jack on the field. People can think he will but as of yet he has not performed. And adding Penny for a handful of games at the end when he was literally playing for his career after years and years of nothing doesn’t work either.

some are quick to write off players that don’t perform well early. You on the other hand seem to be giving a lot of credit to players that actually have not performed well YET but a coach likes or have potential.

it seems like you are shielding PC from responsibility by calling it a “democratic” process. I don’t buy that at all. PC and JS get full credit for getting DK Metcalf. Kudos to them. yes, a no brainer at the time but they didn’t eff it up so good on them. They also get full blame for Penny, Collier, Eskridge (so far - am i to understand that our FIRST pick can’t even become a starter as a THIRD receiver in his second year?). McDowell, etc etc etc

And honestly, I don't know how you can blame Pete or John for drafting a player that then got hurt. But this again falls in line with the bias on this forum. We took Penny because our offense is based on a sound running game. We have only ever had real success with someone in the backfield who a defense had to account for. Rb on this team is a 1b priority. So whnlen Carson showed a tendency to not be able to finish seasons, they grabbed Penny. Some here didn't like it, but some pundits considered it a great pick.

And they could have taken Chubb but between the two, Chubb had the injury issues, and had we taken him and he gotten hurt, some in this fanbase woukd have had Pete's head. As it is, they took the safe bet at a critical position of need, and regardless, when he ended up blowing out his knee (couldn't be predicted) and then suffered through other lingering issues, Pete still gets killed for it. AND... even then when Penny runs wild over 5 games to close the season as the hottest back in the league... that doesnt warrant credit.

Same with Eskridge? Seriously? The dude had a major concussion. Nothing to be done there. There was no prior signal that he woukd have this issue, just bad luck.

But this all goes to another point I made in another thread regarding engrained perception. If your mind is made up that the drafts have sucked, Pete sucks, or the FO is 2nd rate, it doesn't matter what evidence exists to the contrary. Cherrypicking talent that hasn't performed because of an injury history that could not have been predicted becomes a black mark of the drafting ability of the FO. A performance that saw a player rush for 800 plus yards on 5 games and is now a key feature in our offense moving forward is still factored into the 'blame' game that Pete needs to own up to.

There were 29 players I noted as having been solid pickups over 4 years and Eskridge and Penny are singled out as failures and stretched optimism. What about the rest?

 

[Lagartixa]

CB - went from a liability to a potential strength and envy of the league if Brown can make it back and Bryant and Woolen continue to develop.

If you look at the typical training-camp-time articles about "biggest holes in all NFL rosters" articles that are everywhere lately (after all, it is training-camp time!), a lot of teams need CBs. It's crazy that CB went from being one of the Seahawks' worst position groups to a potentially strong and deep group.

DL - average? I'd have to say average to likely slightly better than average with the potential to be good. Harris, Woods, Ford, Monet, Collier and Robinson. The first 4 are solid, solid pieces. Will have to see how Robinson and Collier fit.

You mentioned Ford here, but not in your analysis of players recently acquired by the Seahawks. Poona was a frickin' undrafted free agent who was ready to be a significant contributor to an NFL team in his rookie season (Pete said after the 2018 season that the Seahawks should have given Poona more playing time earlier) and has been solid since then. Baldwin, Kearse, and Shead were UDFA's. The current Seahawks front office appears to be pretty good at getting useful performance out of undrafted players. That's part of how a team can get good value out of the draft capital it's got, so you're understating the case a bit, @keasley45.

I've been saying for years now that the fact that Ford went undrafted made 31 teams look very stupid for not risking even a seventh-round pick on him and one team look very lucky. It's not like Ford was unknown. He was the Big 12 Conference's Defensive Lineman of the Year in 2017, his final season at UT. I remember that draft. A guy on the online Seahawks community I frequented at the time had been talking about Ford for some time, and I was rooting for the Seahawks to get Ford. As Day Three of the draft went on, I thought some other team might take Ford with a late pick and hoped it would be our 'Hawks, but nobody was willing to risk even a seventh-round pick on him, which is just nuts.

Actually, Poona falling all the way out of the (256-player!) draft probably because of his relatively small stature made me wonder if teams were using outdated "rules of thumb" to reject certain players, like height for a DT in Ford's case (interesting that it's the same reason Wilson fell to the third round in 2012), and ignoring mitigating facts. In Ford's case, those facts were that he was actually about the average weight of an NFL DT at the time (but he's quite mobile for a DT, so it wasn't that he was too fat and slow), and his wingspan was bigger than that of much-taller players. So while the height guideline might have been reasonably good on average, because shorter players tend to have shorter reaches (so they'd lose on the first "punch" in the trenches) and be lighter (so they could be pushed around), it made everyone let Ford fall through the draft.
Thinking about this led me to an idea for a machine-learning project. It has evolved a lot since then (I realized that a lot of the work I'd done to create a system to identify what really matters when drafting players could be applied to something else from which I might be able to make some money), and I'm working on that project now. Because it has evolved, the project needs a new name, but for a long time, because of its inspiration and because it was supposed to provide probabilistic projections of performance by potential NFL rookies, I called it Projection of Output Odds for NFL Aspirants (POONA).

 

[Lagartixa]

it seems like you are shielding PC from responsibility by calling it a “democratic” process. I don’t buy that at all. PC and JS get full credit for getting DK Metcalf. Kudos to them. yes, a no brainer at the time but they didn’t eff it up so good on them.

Actually, at the time, the media jumped on Schneider and Carroll for trading up to get Metcalf, and they simultaneously talked about how brilliant Belichick was for drafting N'Keal Harry (32 picks before Metcalf was drafted).

People were laughing at the pick. Bill Simmons said the Seahawks had traded up to draft an "Instagram model" who would just flex and pose on the sidelines.

So not a "no-brainer" at all.

 

[keasley45]

You are giving Eskridge credit when he actually hasn’t done jack on the field. People can think he will but as of yet he has not performed. And adding Penny for a handful of games at the end when he was literally playing for his career after years and years of nothing doesn’t work either.

some are quick to write off players that don’t perform well early. You on the other hand seem to be giving a lot of credit to players that actually have not performed well YET but a coach likes or have potential.

it seems like you are shielding PC from responsibility by calling it a “democratic” process. I don’t buy that at all. PC and JS get full credit for getting DK Metcalf. Kudos to them. yes, a no brainer at the time but they didn’t eff it up so good on them. They also get full blame for Penny, Collier, Eskridge (so far - am i to understand that our FIRST pick can’t even become a starter as a THIRD receiver in his second year?). McDowell, etc etc etc

And the democratic process I cited that you quoted, wasn't my hypothesis. It was reported on Wyman and Rob that that was the major change in the evaluation process, and they got their information from people in and/ or around the FO - cant remember whonit was they were specifically speaking about, but it was in a general diacussion about how incredibly good our new coaching staff is. So you can not 'buy' it if you want. I'm not selling anything. It's apparently what those involved in the draft process have reported was the difference this year.

AND they also referenced specifically the Penny selection and that the room was split on draft day between Chubb and Penny, and that the personnel guy or coach that was high on Penny, won out.

So yeah, they have a democratic process. It doesn't align with the 'PC' is an all controlling, past his prime, anchor around the neck of the team dinosaur... but it wasn't information designed to favor pre-dispositions. It's just the facts of how the FO works on draft day.

 

[TwistedHusky]

Yeah I was pretty upset about Metcalf. Not because I wanted Harry. Because it was a luxury pick at a time we had needs in the secondary.
We didn't need a WR. We NEEDED safeties. Desperately. Or maybe a CB.

I wanted Savage.

If not Savage, then Byron Murphy because you can never have enough secondary depth.

It wasn't a 'no brainer' but it was a pick we could have used to help an area that really hurt us. We rolled the dice and won on the pick, but you could argue that getting a good safety in that draft could have helped us avoid some big missteps with trades for safeties later.

 

[Fade]

That's a big part of it, maybe most of it. Our draft outcomes have been above average since 2015 when weighted by how much draft capital we've had.

However, they've also consistently traded away what draft capital they did have and have undervalued compensatory picks. The downside of the Always Compete philosophy is that it's tough to make moves that hurt the team in the short-term even if they lead to long-term benefits. I'd like to see a little more structure at the top where perhaps JS can take on the role of the bad guy a bit more often and keep draft capital a priority going forwards.

Don't fall for the revisionist propaganda. The LOB Seahawks were not built with a bunch of 1st rd picks. they were built from 2nd-7th rd picks, UDFAs, savvy trades and finding a QB in the 3rd rd.

What makes the current draft impressive isn't their 1st rd selection, or even their 2nd rdr's, but getting the RT in the 3rd, and the CBs on day 3. They could've won the Super Bowl last year and still selected those players, and still drafted the RB too.

 

[keasley45]

Yeah I was pretty upset about Metcalf. Not because I wanted Harry. Because it was a luxury pick at a time we had needs in the secondary.
We didn't need a WR. We NEEDED safeties. Desperately. Or maybe a CB.

I wanted Savage.

If not Savage, then Byron Murphy because you can never have enough secondary depth.

It wasn't a 'no brainer' but it was a pick we could have used to help an area that really hurt us. We rolled the dice and won on the pick, but you could argue that getting a good safety in that draft could have helped us avoid some big missteps with trades for safeties later.

DK did surprise, but I don't know that the Adams trade was a loss. He came in and was the difference make we needed in what should have been a deeper playoff run.

Last season wasn't as bad as it seemed and I think this year will make the trade look like a good deal again .



I do think his contract will be an issue. Hoping Blair stays on the field this year and can take Adams' spot when his time is up.

 

[pittpnthrs]

I thought this years draft was solid, but the team had holes everywhere so it wasnt hard to impress. Hopefully what looks good on paper translates to the field.