Seattle Seahawks made a mistake in Round 1

The Seattle Seahawks filled a need when they selected Germain Ifedi, but this selection has “draft mistake” written all over it.

With the 31st pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks selected Germain Ifedi out of Texas A&M. Ifedi is a massive human at 6 ft 6 inches and 324 pounds and has very long arms, but that doesn’t make him a good offensive tackle.

I won’t lie, I do not like this pick at all. I trust John Schneider and Pete Carroll as much as anyone, but their track record with offensive lineman is far from stellar. In fact it is quite poor, and I believe they just made another mistake.

Ifedi was on my list of players I didn’t want Seattle to draft. He’s heavy footed and very slow in his lateral movement. He’s also lazy with his footwork and tends to lunge at defenders. That’s just a really bad combination.

Ifedi’s college tape is a mirror of Justin Britt’s. Powerful run blocking paired with awful pass blocking. When I studied his college tape pre-draft, he reminded me way too much of the fat version of James Carpenter.

Here a quote from my draft profile on him:

"Sadly, Ifedi reminds me far too much of James Carpenter to get excited about. When I see him mocked to Seattle in round 1, I just cringe. His footwork is poor, he’s lazy with his technique, and he is too much of a belly bender. That is simply a bad combination."

And it isn’t just me. Here is Dang Brugler from CBS:

"Retreats too much off the snap and gets lazy with his feet. Heavy leaner with a bad habit of lunging at the waist in his pass-sets… Tall pad level and plays with hip tightness, struggling to bend consistently at his knees. Late and wild hands, allowing rushers to attack his body and jolt him. Unreliable mechanics and poor hand placement, hugging defenders."

And while we’re at it, here’s Lance Zierlein from NFL.com:

"Tries to snatch with hands and hang on rather than securing blocks with leg drive. Inconsistent depth of pass sets opens up edge… Uses more of a kick ­stomp than fluid kick­ slide. High pad level on down blocks limits leg drive to secure. Passive vertical pass sets allow easy pocket squeeze. Needs to eliminate habit of leaning into blocks."

Sound familiar? It should. The Seahawks have now drafted three offensive tackles in 7 years in rounds 1 or 2. Two of them failed at OT and had to be moved inside. Now they’ve drafted a 3rd with exactly the same profile.

Call me a pessimist if you wish, but there is nothing about this draft pick that I can get excited about. I’ll root hard for him to go out and prove me wrong. Hopefully he will, but his tape doesn’t give me reason to be optimistic.