Have we not drafted any quality depth?

[Tical21]

I was just thinking about some of the issues we've been having, and thinking about some of the depth we've been seeing out there underperforming.

Kam went down, and we couldn't replace him with a draft pick. UFA's Bailey and Shead were underwhelming.

Maxwell left, we've had injuries at nickel, and have nobody drafted to replace them. Cary and Burley and Shead are underwhelming.

Wagner went down and our options were KPL and Coyle, both who are underwhelming. But hey, at least we played a guy we drafted!

DT's went down, and we had undrafted King and Dobbs in there, who were underwhelming.

OL mess. No draft picks ready to replace anyone. Britt I guess.

TE--after Willson didn't really pan out, our only option was to go big dollars.

WR--too early to tell on Lockett of course, but no draft picks for the past several years have taken any jobs

RB--Turbin and Michael gone, FA's needed to fill, no draft picks to step up

There just aren't guys stepping up when they need to. Those guys just aren't in place. The point is that if we're going to spend most of our cap on a few players, it puts tremendous pressure on the front office to draft well. If they can't, we'll be stuck in situations where the weakest link on the field is a pretty bad player, bad enough to cost you entire games. We all love the front office and scouting staff, but they've got to do better.

 

[mrt144]

You're spot on and I think that beyond depth the whole experiment of shunning FA acquisitions of veterans unless wholly necessary to field a team and just trying to maximize the output for the 3-4 years we have players from the draft requires uncommonly good drafting. We aren't even using draft picks, we're signing UDFA players in lieu of using draft picks.


http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-a ... fl-rosters

Check that out. We're only behind Jacksonville last year in youth on Offense (the chart is ranked oldest to youngest so that NO is the oldest and Jacksonville the youngest)

Also, check out the most experienced starter on Offense by position group:

Okung going into 6th year, Wilson into 4th, Baldwin into 5th, Graham into 6th, Lynch into 9th (Jackson into 9th but he played NFL Europe and indoor prior to that so he's old).

The reason I focus almost exclusively on offense with the Hawks in terms of roster management is because it's decidedly 'different' from the NFL. I feel so lucky to already have been a fan of the Hawks when PC and crew took over and went to it and it's been exciting in game, but now we're getting to another phase in roster management.

And looking at the chart, you can see that the Packers are 3rd in youth on offense.

Maybe what the offense really does need is veteran leadership from a Steve Smith Sr. type player, who knows?

 

[Tical21]

You're spot on and I think that beyond depth the whole experiment of shunning FA acquisitions of veterans unless wholly necessary to field a team and just trying to maximize the output for the 3-4 years we have players from the draft requires uncommonly good drafting. We aren't even using draft picks, we're signing UDFA players in lieu of using draft picks.


http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-a ... fl-rosters

Check that out. We're only behind Jacksonville last year in youth on Offense (the chart is ranked oldest to youngest so that NO is the oldest and Jacksonville the youngest)

Also, check out the most experienced starter on Offense by position group:

Okung going into 6th year, Wilson into 4th, Baldwin into 5th, Graham into 6th, Lynch into 9th (Jackson into 9th but he played NFL Europe and indoor prior to that so he's old).

The reason I focus almost exclusively on offense with the Hawks in terms of roster management is because it's decidedly 'different' from the NFL. I feel so lucky to already have been a fan of the Hawks when PC and crew took over and went to it and it's been exciting in game, but now we're getting to another phase in roster management.

And looking at the chart, you can see that the Packers are 3rd in youth on offense.

Maybe what the offense really does need is veteran leadership from a Steve Smith Sr. type player, who knows?

Good point on the Steve smith comment. I was thinking of something like this the other day. I was thinking maybe having a star player as a receiving option throws everything off. My solution I was kicking around was to have two. Maybe if we had two instead of one, Russell wouldn't feel awkward about targeting one specific player and things would flow freely again. It would be great if that other player was a vet. I dunno.

 

[StoneCold]

Is there another team drafting replacement players the caliber of Bennet, Sherman, Lynch, and Thomas on a regular basis? Draft is notoriously hit and miss. Our style of paying big money to a core of players does put a premium on drafting or finding diamonds in the rough. That said it's too soon to say it's a bust.

 

[Mtjhoyas]

This is one of my pet peeves.

A) It's hard enough to obtain quality starters via the draft, let alone find depth that can adequately replace those starters.

B) Safety and OL have been some of the hardest positions to fill in the NFL. There are plenty of teams (Seahawks included) who are absolutely struggling to find competent starters.

C) When "depth" players do get a chance at significant playing time; they are at an inherent disadvantage.
1. They usually haven't worked with the starting group for very long.
2. Game reps are far different than practice reps, no matter the quality of your team.
3. Human nature in wanting to prove yourself. Their careers are so short that guys are going to do everything they can to get noticed and get that second contract.

I too yearn for quality depth in the NFL; but with the scarcity of talent at certain positions, combined with the Salary cap; it's virtually impossible to have significant depth other than randomly hitting big on late draft picks or UDFAs.

 

[mrt144]

Is there another team drafting replacement players the caliber of Bennet, Sherman, Lynch, and Thomas on a regular basis? Draft is notoriously hit and miss. Our style of paying big money to a core of players does put a premium on drafting or finding diamonds in the rough. That said it's too soon to say it's a bust.

Well, the wrinkle that positions us differently from other teams is that the position groups where we've devoted the least amount of 'big money' to. I really do believe that PC/JS are trying to exploit market inefficiencies they believe to exist when it comes to talent on the offensive side of the ball and it stands to reason that some of the success they've enjoyed is because they were absolutely right on some of those inefficiencies. With the OL and WR it's debatable whether its 'working' in specific, especially this season.

Back to Tical's point on depth though, there might be other issues at hand like the propensity to keep star starters in as the game situation dictates that limits the development of backups. Also unless there's a catastrophic injury, holdout, etc etc. its hard to get them snaps. It's really one of the perverse outcomes of having star players - you don't know your backups true talent until you give them a large enough sample size to observe across a host of situations and you only get those opportunities when disaster strikes (or you're whipping the pants off the other team so badly that you can afford it)

 

[kearly]

OP contents

I agree on S, OL, TE.

S: Shead is meh, but versatile. McCray has done nice things on specials. Terrell... Steep drop-off.
OL: Only bright spot might be Glowinski, but he hasn't played in a real game yet.
TE: Willson is replacement level, and Helfet is a big receiver posing as a TE. No blocking TE.

I disagree on CB, LB, DT, WR, and RB.

CB: We have one of the nicer 4-5-6 corner groups in the NFL, unfortunately they are all injured right now.
LB: KPL, Morgan, and Coyle are a well above average backup LB trio. Moody is talented as well.
DT: Hill stepped up and looked good, but got hurt. Frank Clark at DT has looked good. Dobbs/King are solid.
WR: Every WR, save Lockette, is competent at the position. Our WRs are relatively interchangeable.
RB: Before the ankle injury, Jackson was a big upgrade over Turbin. Rawls has been a steal.

Overall, Seattle still has the most talented team in the NFL, but has played the NFL's toughest schedule through six games while leading in the 4th quarter in every game (by 7+ points in all but one of them) and finding a way to still end up at 2-4.

There are some issues between Bevell and Wilson that could be sorted out, but most of what ails Seattle is bad luck and being in a mental funk.

 

[Tical21]

Is there another team drafting replacement players the caliber of Bennet, Sherman, Lynch, and Thomas on a regular basis? Draft is notoriously hit and miss. Our style of paying big money to a core of players does put a premium on drafting or finding diamonds in the rough. That said it's too soon to say it's a bust.

I know what you're saying, we've hit some homeruns in the draft, definitely. But it has been a little while. I am not so sure it is too soon to say there are problems. We need depth NOW. Our lack of depth from the draft is costing us games NOW. We've just needed a role player or two over the past few years and we haven't gotten any. We need those guys to be in place NOW. It's getting to be too late.

 

[RussB]

Hawks have good depth. its just that most of our corners are injured. jeremy lane is injured, marcus burley was playing really good and hes injured, and tye smith is injured. Pierre louis is good also. Shead is a good backup at corner and safety. Once the corners get back from injuries everything should be great

 

[mrt144]

OP contents

WR: Every WR, save Lockette, is competent at the position. Our WRs are relatively interchangeable.

They're competent for the Seattle offense. It'll be interesting to see how FA plays out with all of our homegrown talent.

 

[DavidSeven]

We've failed to acquire any game-changers via draft since 2012 (not judging 2015 yet). I feel even mediocre front offices stumble upon one or two gems in each class. We've fallen behind the curve right at the moment we needed to stay ahead of it. The scouting advantage we had from Carroll's USC years has dried up, and we have not proven (yet) that we can scout without it.

I look at some of the more talented rosters in the league right now, and I see that they got over-the-hump with players they acquired in the last two years. Cardinals (2013: Mathieu, Okafur, Ellington, 2014: Deone Bucannon, John Brown); Bengals (2013: Eifert, Gio Bernard, 2014: Jeremy Hill, Darqueze Dennard, starting Center).

We don't need to hit on 7-of-7 picks, but hitting on just a small handful of guys over two years can be the difference between 8-8 and 13-3.

 

[Tical21]

OP contents

I agree on S, OL, TE.

S: Shead is meh, but versatile. McCray has done nice things on specials. Terrell... Steep drop-off.
OL: Only bright spot might be Glowinski, but he hasn't played in a real game yet.
TE: Willson is replacement level, and Helfet is a big receiver posing as a TE. No blocking TE.

I disagree on CB, LB, DT, WR, and RB.

CB: We have one of the nicer 4-5-6 corner groups in the NFL, unfortunately they are all injured right now.
LB: KPL, Morgan, and Coyle are a well above average backup LB trio. Moody is talented as well.
DT: Hill stepped up and looked good, but got hurt. Frank Clark at DT has looked good. Dobbs/King are solid.
WR: Every WR, save Lockette, is competent at the position. Our WRs are relatively interchangeable.
RB: Before the ankle injury, Jackson was a big upgrade over Turbin. Rawls has been a steal.

Overall, Seattle still has the most talented team in the NFL, but has played the NFL's toughest schedule through six games while leading in the 4th quarter in every game (by 7+ points in all but one of them) and finding a way to still end up at 2-4.

There are some issues between Bevell and Wilson that could be sorted out, but most of what ails Seattle is bad luck and being in a mental funk.

Really fair point on Hill and I actually forgot about him. The rest of the guys that you bring up, I don't know that we "drafted" any of them. I guess a lot of it is semantics. If you trade a pick for a guy or cultivate a UFA, that is probably just as good as a draft pick.

I do though disagree in reference to our LB's. KPL looked really bad, and I don't know that Coyle makes 3/4 of the rosters out there. I thought King played okay but Dobbs did zero. I don't think we drafted either one of them anyways.

Our CB's, did we draft any of them? Lane I guess. Did we draft any of the WR's? We didn't draft Jackson or Rawls.

My point isn't as much that they're not bringing in or finding some talent, my point is that they are wasting draft pick after draft pick. RB picks, wasted. WR picks, wasted (Norwood, Durham, Harper). OL picks, wasted. DT picks, wasted (Howard, Williams, etc.). Safety picks, wasted. Corner picks, wasted. It's really nice to hit on some UFA's, but you can't go through draft pick after draft pick and not get any contribution whatsoever from the guy. That is how we end up with Dion Bailey, KPL, Luke Willson, Ricardo Lockette and the like losing games for us.

I hate to say it, but I just looked at our drafts from their era, and those first two years were great for the most part, but there are almost no halfway decent football players since. Very few. I'd have to look at other teams and learn about them, but I can almost guarantee that we have drafted less halfway decent football players over the past three years than just about anybody else.

 

[mrt144]

I hate to say it, but I just looked at our drafts from their era, and those first two years were great for the most part, but there are almost no halfway decent football players since. Very few. I'd have to look at other teams and learn about them, but I can almost guarantee that we have drafted less halfway decent football players over the past three years than just about anybody else.

I think the findings might surprise you though. I think other teams have very similar issues but the position groups changed based on where they have identified bonafide talent. That the Hawks are pursuing a different strategy of where and how they take the lumps is what is most noticeable to me.

 

[Exittium]

this is really interesting. I mean heck look at bennett and how he's come along, we didn't draft him but we gave him his start as a UDFA before cutting him for Kyle Williams. We cut him originally for being too inconsistent, and now look at him its almost like we're back at square one. Coyle, to me just seems off and on. When he's off his meh, and when he's on it feels meh. Lockett, I don't know if Bevell spoke to him or what, or if our ST blocking went backwards. He went from shooting gaps and breaking away to running into coverage. But I'll give the kid a pass. Overall I've been happy with our backups. Issue seems to be or at least for a few, they want money (which i understand) and sign somewhere else so retention is hard to. Look at Jeron Johnson, I think he was the closest we had to our mirror Kam.

Overall In the end its a few things. Draft quality these last few years haven't been exactly stellar, especially Olinemen. But PC and JS usually find 1 diamond in the rough.

 

[kearly]

You mentioned howard. Howard was turning the corner when seattle let him go. When healthy he has been a really nice player for KC. He was one of several 'wtf' cuts that year. Parker was another dumb cut that turned into a stud for KC.

Limiting roster evaluation purely to draft picks is silly. Every UDFA, futures contract, every dirt cheap 2nd chance guy with a foot out of the league is part of the draft process.

 

[kearly]

To DAvidSeven (my phone sucks for quoting) . The bengals are one my favorite drafting teams. But AZ has been blowing picks as bad or worse than Seattle the last three years. Arians and palmer have masked a lot of issues.

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

I've always thought Seahawks should have kept Clinton McDonald.

I mean, how much did it take to keep him?

 

[Grahamhawker]

My son brought the drafting issue up a while back. Especially regarding the offense.

Think about it; these are the players that have stuck the past 5 drafts. ? , because some are still -?

2011-none

2012- (2) RWilson, Sweezy

2013- LWillson (?)

2014- PRichardson (?), Britt(?)

2015- (1) Lockett, Glowinski (?), Sokoli (?)

3 consistent contributors to the offense in 5 years...has to be well below average.

 

[Chawker]

One position I hope they take a real close look at this off season is at DT. 1st 2nd or third round.

 

[hawkfan68]

The Seahawks have spent a number of resources in drafting DBs throughout PC/JS tenure - they drafted Maxwell, LeGree, Thurmond, Lane, Winston Guy, Simon, Smith, and Pinkins. Some of them are no longer with the Seahawks but the Seahawks did draft them.