Seahawks look to move down in NFL draft, willing to deal in NFC West
RENTON, Wash. — The defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks are hoping to commerce down in this 12 months’s NFL draft — even when it means doubtlessly sending a quarterback to a rival division.
“It’s no secret with us,” common supervisor John Schneider mentioned Monday throughout his annual predraft information convention alongside coach Mike Macdonald. “We have four picks, so we’ll be looking to move back.”
That a lot was extensively assumed. The Seahawks’ 4 picks, which embody the No. 32 choose, are the fewest in the NFL. They even have a protracted historical past of buying and selling again in the primary spherical or out of it below Schneider, and so they’d logically have as a lot incentive as ever to achieve this in this 12 months’s draft, which isn’t thought-about top-heavy in expertise.
More revealing was Schneider volunteering that the staff shouldn’t be opposed to making offers inside its personal division. He then mentioned he’d achieve this even when he knew one among Seattle’s NFC West counterparts was transferring up to choose a quarterback.
That is noteworthy given how generally the Arizona Cardinals have been linked to Alabama‘s Ty Simpsonextensively thought-about the second-best quarterback in this class behind Indiana‘s Fernando Mendoza. Arizona’s picks embody Nos. 3 and 34. The New York Jetsone other staff that may very well be in search of a quarterback, personal the thirty third choose.
According to ESPN Research, there have been 35 draft-day trades between division opponents in 24 drafts because the NFL realigned in 2002. Since Schneider grew to become the Seahawks’ common supervisor in 2010, he is solely been part of one such commerce — with the San Francisco 49ers in 2017.
“We’ve talked within our division,” Schneider mentioned. “That was kind of frowned upon for a while, like you don’t trade within your division. Everybody in our division, we would trade with. We have good relationships with all three of those teams. You’re maneuvering around the board to try to help your team no matter what. So, when you look at it through that lens, you’re basically not concerned about [helping another team]”
Speaking typically in regards to the enchantment of the thirty second choose in any draft, Schneider famous that — as with the contracts for each different first-round choice — it comes with a staff possibility for a fifth 12 months.
The final time the Seahawks owned the thirty second choose as reigning Super Bowl champions, they traded it on draft night time in 2014 to the Minnesota Vikingswho moved up eight spots to choose quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.
Schneider additionally traded again in the primary spherical at the least one time in 2012, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. The Seahawks did not have first-round picks in 2013 or 2015. In the previous 5 drafts in which they’ve owned one, they’ve stayed put — though that hasn’t been for lack of curiosity in transferring again.
Schneider mentioned negotiations towards draft-day trades aren’t as straightforward now as a result of groups assign their very own values to every choose as opposed to how everybody used to work off the identical chart popularized by Jimmy Johnson.
Starting this 12 months, the time in between first-round picks will drop from 10 minutes to eight. Schneider does not see that impacting trades, noting that negotiations have a tendency to occur earlier than the staff that might be transferring down is on the clock.
“No, I think that you’re usually ahead anyway, you’re a couple picks ahead,” he mentioned. “That extra two minutes is not going to make a difference in terms of trading or moving around, that sort of thing. Everybody tries to line stuff up. You try to do it this week, but really, people get serious Thursday morning, throughout the day, talking on the phone, talking about trading up, trading down and all that.”
The Seahawks have made at the least eight picks in all however one among their 16 drafts below Schneider. In addition to No. 32, their different picks this 12 months are Nos. 64, 96 and 188. They gave up fourth- and fifth-round picks ultimately 12 months’s commerce deadline to purchase vast receiver/kick returner Rashid Shaheed from the New Orleans Saints.
“I think there’s a lack of depth in this draft,” Schneider mentioned. “I thought our scouts did a great job in the fall of identifying that, and that allowed us to be a little bit more willing to give up the fourth- and fifth-round draft pick. But no matter what draft you’re in, what year, it’s our responsibility to the organization to be able to find true Seahawks all the way through it. So, that means if we did have that fourth or fifth or we’re moving around and we acquire more draft picks, we’re still going to be focused on making those guys true Seahawks.”
