Seattle, WA
Want to know who Seahawks will draft? Look to the Senior Bowl
We’re simply over a month from the 2023 NFL Draft, and everybody is raring to see what the Seahawks will do will do with their vital draft haul.
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You possibly can verify the most recent mock drafts, pay shut consideration to professional day attendances, or possibly even try to make sense of coach Pete Carroll’s draft day clues. However is there a greater option to slender down the sector of gamers Seattle may very well be involved in? There must be a pattern that may shed a bit of sunshine on their preferences in recent times.
Prime 30 pre-draft visits appear to be an excellent place to start out looking for a correlation, however these don’t flip up a lot outdoors of some undrafted free agent signings. It seems, although, that the Senior Bowl is the place you wish to look if you’d like some names that the Seahawks are in all probability conserving shut tabs on.
The Seahawks have drafted 12 gamers that had been on Senior Bowl rosters within the final three years. The Senior Bowl sport itself is an All-Star showcase the place scouts, basic managers and coaches can see the premiere expertise out there, but it surely’s the drills all through the week the place they’ll actually get to know the prospects they’re contemplating.
Seahawks GM John Schneider defined the wealth of data they’re in a position to collect on the occasion again in 2019 on Sirius XM’s Movin’ the Chains with Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan.
“Who’re the individuals and what makes them tick?” Schneider mentioned. “Why do they wish to be nice? How are they going to compete with the opposite guys already in your locker room? Whenever you watch these guys down right here (on the Senior Bowl), you may watch how these guys compete in each side of what they’re doing, see in the event that they’re appearing like professionals. Or do they act like they’ve bought all of the solutions?”
One other bonus for the Seahawks in relation to the Senior Bowl is that certainly one of their former scouts, Jim Nagy, is the occasion’s government director. He is aware of the qualities Seattle appears for in a prospect, and Schneider has famous how that has been useful to the Seahawks prior to now.
Right here is how the Senior Bowl has been represented within the final three Seahawks drafts:
• 2020: LB Darrell Taylor, G Damien Lewis, DE Alton Robinson, TE/DE Stephen Sullivan
• 2021: WR D’Wayne Eskridge, CB Tre Brown (the Seahawks had simply three draft picks that 12 months)
• 2022: OT Abe Lucas, LB Boye Mafe, CB Tariq Woolen, CB Coby Bryant, DE Tyreke Smith, WR Bo Melton
This 12 months, there have been stories of Seahawks visits with 5 gamers who had been on the Senior Bowl roster:
• Ohio State OT Dawand James, WSU LB Daiyan Henley, Kansas State CB Julius Brents, Boise State S J.L. Skinner, Minnesota C John Michael Schmitz
Nagy, who can be a daily visitor on Seattle Sports activities’ airwaves throughout draft season, highlighted two of these gamers when he joined Bump and Stacy final week.
Seahawks Draft: Senior Bowl’s Nagy on C Schmitz, LB Henley
First, he raved concerning the 6-foot-3, 301-pound Schmitz, who earned AP All American and all-conference honors final 12 months.
“He’s what you’re on the lookout for at middle,” Nagy mentioned. “He’s performed a ton, he can deal with it mentally, he’s an excellent communicator, he’s robust, he’s sturdy, and he’s robust. That’s in all probability the most important factor for me. Yearly we’ve guys that present up right here in Cell and at completely different ranges of the board are higher than I believed they had been. Schmitz is that man.”
The opposite title that Nagy introduced up was Henley, who checks in at 6-1 and 225 kilos, ran a 4.54 in his 40-yard sprint and was the primary finalist for the Butkus Award (high school linebacker) in WSU historical past.
“I feel he matches what I take into account a Seahawks linebacker,” Nagy mentioned. “He’s only a run and hit man. He’s bought the construct; I imply the man’s constructed to play linebacker. Daiyan was eligible to play within the Senior Bowl a 12 months in the past in Nevada. The tape was simply OK. We had a late, late draftable grade on him. He transfers as much as WSU, made an enormous bounce. To me, I’m pondering glass half-full with a participant. I feel that stuff’s going to return alongside. What you may’t coach is the size. He’s lengthy, he’s explosive, he runs, he hits, he can blitz. I feel the man’s going to be a extremely good starter within the league.”
If current historical past is any indicator, various these Senior Bowl invitees shall be listening to their title known as by the Seahawks on draft day.
Will Henley and Schmitz find yourself in Seattle? Except you’ve cracked the code to fixing Carroll’s draft day clues, we’ll have to attend and see what occurs April 27-29 because the picks roll in.
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