Guys...we currently have a top 5 pick

[evergreen]

ESPN currently has us ranked #13 in their power poll. If we win against the NYG's & Denver loses in London, we could have a top 5 power ranking while holding a top 5 first round pick. Never has a 5', 10" 3rd rounder yielded so much for one team.

That is it! We struck gold with Wilson and we’re instantly contenders. We had three years where we were the best team. Then we trade him on his way down and boom. We’re contenders and it’s just as Swiss it was getting him. Super Bowl next year?! Such an incredible sports story! Time for the new Rain City Redemption 2022!

 

[RiverDog]

I think Dallas did it with tony Dorset and us. Maybe it was 2nd pick.

It was our 2nd draft in 1977. Tampa Bay had the #1 overall, and had already committed to taking Ricky Bell of USC, a running back that the Bucs head coach John McKay had coached in college. We were sitting on the #2 overall, and the consensus BPA was Tony Dorsett out of Pitt, but it was widely speculated that he wouldn't sign with us, perhaps go to the CFL, so we traded the pick to the Cowboys, who were already a contender.

 

[AgentDib]

The clear difference between 2010, 2011, 2012, 2021 and other years is amount of draft capital. There isn't a magic trick or a mystery here. More draft capital equals more draft talent and that leads to a much better chance of having a good draft.

What I basically said, is that they lock on to specific players and move out of the pick if they don't think the specific pick is high enough to land him or alternatively, if a later pick could land him. No mention of if the pick was high, mid, or late in the first round. They have a track record of repositioning, to pick players they are smitten with, regardless of where the pick is.

That sounds to me like standard narrative fallacy from draft bloggers. They like to identify that the team should draft player X, and so when we trade down and then player X is taken then they claim that the team lost player X because they got too cute trying to trade down.

In reality, most years you can see the draft board behind them fuzzed out but still clearly arranged into tiers like everybody else. They may have a player they particularly like and are waiting on for value but most of what they do on draft day is easily explained by the standard tiered approach to drafting. If player X is still on the board and they trade down it's because the team didn't have player X rated higher than everybody else.

 

[Lagartixa]

Carroll and Schneider have had very few high 1st round picks to be able to trade, the only seasons seasons we didn't make the play-offs were:
2010 Draft: Pete & John were new to the Seahawks, and kept the No 6 pick
2012 Draft Had the Number 12 Pick and traded it down to 16. I would count this as a high pick but you may not.
2022 Draft: Traded our 1st Rounder as part of the Adams deal (before we knew what pick it would be ended up being 10)
2022 Draft: Kept the No 9 kept the pick we got as part of the Wilson trade.

Only having late first rounders is a nice problem to have

The Seahawks had two first-round picks in 2010, and they used both, with no trade-downs. They took Okung with pick #6 and ETIII with pick #14, which they had obtained from the Broncos (hahahahahahahaha... I wonder at what point Broncos management is going to set up their phone system not to take calls from Seattle area codes or allow outgoing calls to there either) on the day of the 2009 draft in exchange for the Seahawks' 2009 second-round pick.

 

[Jac]

That Bronco trade is arguably in competition for this one with respect to most awful. The Broncos traded their 2010 first rounder for the Seahawks 2009 second rounder, selected bust CB Alphonse Smith, who they traded after one year.

 

[RiverDog]

That Bronco trade is arguably in competition for this one with respect to most awful. The Broncos traded their 2010 first rounder for the Seahawks 2009 second rounder, selected bust CB Alphonse Smith, who they traded after one year.

Then the following year, in 2010, the Broncos traded their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks to get back into the first round to select Tim Tebow with the #25 overall. It was those two trades that helped seal the fate of HC Josh McDaniel.

 

[Mick063]

The clear difference between 2010, 2011, 2012, 2021 and other years is amount of draft capital. There isn't a magic trick or a mystery here. More draft capital equals more draft talent and that leads to a much better chance of having a good draft.


That sounds to me like standard narrative fallacy from draft bloggers. They like to identify that the team should draft player X, and so when we trade down and then player X is taken then they claim that the team lost player X because they got too cute trying to trade down.

In reality, most years you can see the draft board behind them fuzzed out but still clearly arranged into tiers like everybody else. They may have a player they particularly like and are waiting on for value but most of what they do on draft day is easily explained by the standard tiered approach to drafting. If player X is still on the board and they trade down it's because the team didn't have player X rated higher than everybody else.

Teams do not reposition their draft selection to get into a "tier" unless they are smitten with every player in that "tier" or believe a position of need can be guaranteed to be filled within that "tier". In all other cases, it makes no sense to move your pick on draft day if you are confined to a "tier" mentality. Further, "Standard narrative fallacy" makes absolutely no sense to me as a descriptive term. You kind of lost me with that one and I regard it as more of a personal attack then a valid point to reinforce your argument.

I'll tell you what does make sense:

Teams will not move from their draft position if they are satisfied with their "tier".
Teams will most likely move out of a draft position if they are seeking a specific "player" although they may move out of that position if they are dissatisfied with every player in a given "tier"

But if we are going to go down the rabbit hole of "Standard narrative fallacy" then I maintain that the "one size fits all" idea of "tiers and only tiers" may be the biggest fallacy of them all. Teams will, and often do reposition in the draft for specific PLAYERS. When they stand pat, and do not move, they are likely satisfied with a given "tier"

Which leads back to my original statement. Pete and John have a track record of moving their pick on draft day. Much of it having to do with seeking a specific player with some of it having to do with stockpiling picks to fill multiple holes. Most likely a combination of both and it isn't "standard narrative fallacy" to say this happens.

 

[AgentDib]

narrative fallacy makes absolutely no sense to me as a descriptive term

The narrative fallacy is something we all fall into at times but is how most bloggers and sports journalists make their living. Better explanations can be found if you google it or read the original arguments via Taleb, but here's my poor short explanation.

Human mental processing depends on putting things into stories so we can comprehend them logically. If you take a bunch of random facts, ie. Seahawk draft day trades, then you will naturally be drawn to compose some sort of story around them that resolves many complex separate facts into one understandable idea. The problem of course is that 15 distinct trades do not actually equal one understandable idea, hence the narrative fallacy cautions about overconfidence in how we design stories around those events.

They have a track record of repositioning, to pick players they are smitten with, regardless of where the pick is

What you actually have is a record of draft day trades they have made. Interpretations about whether they are "smitten" with particular players and how that has affected those trades is a narrative attempt to turn those facts into something more actionable. Maybe you are right and maybe you are wrong, but you're assuming the conclusion on an important point.

It's also not meant as a personal attack, rather a reminder that jumping to conclusions about what we think we know from the outside is often flawed. In my view, tiered drafting also explains their moves and is what every NFL team describes as their process. You can also see the tier lists on the boards behind them at times.

Teams do not reposition their draft selection to get into a "tier" unless they are smitten with every player in that "tier" or believe a position of need can be guaranteed to be filled within that "tier". In all other cases, it makes no sense to move your pick on draft day if you are confined to a "tier" mentality

It's a gamble that every team does to pick up some value. In short, the Hawks may be picking at #25 and they see they have 6 players left all about in the same tier. They could drop down 10 spots and have a pretty good shot of one of those players falling to their pick. Similarly, if the last player from a previous tier is still there at #23 then that's a great reason to jump up two picks.

I suspect there's also an unwritten confidence parameter assigned to every pick that influences the actual decisions, which may be partly what you're referring to.

Teams will, and often do reposition in the draft for specific PLAYERS

I don't follow this point. Trading down if you are fixated on a certain player is something you would not do because you have no idea what the draft boards of 31 other NFL teams looks like. Trading up is easily explained by the player being the last one in a given tier and position group.

In other words, if we were targeting Metcalf then how could we have known he would be available at #64? Letting him fall seems like a clear indicator of drafting for tier value and then taking BPA when he was available.