Even with a pair of compensatory picks, the Seahawks will have to move down in the NFL draft to try and fill in a massive gap in their draft order.
With the compensatory pick announcement yesterday and the necessary coin flip complete, the NFL draft order is now set. As excited as we are for the Seahawks to get those extra third-round picks, the massive gap behind them something the Seahawks will have to address.
#Seahawks 2017 draft picks:
— Aron Yohannes 🇪🇷 (@AronYohannes) February 24, 2017
RD1: 26
RD2: 58
RD3: 90, 102, 106
RD6: 210
RD7: 226
📰 | https://t.co/KyMd9dM003
Seattle has five of the top 106 picks, then they don’t have any of the next 104. That’s more than 3 players per team between Seattle draft picks. Ya, that’s not going to work.
Large gaps like that in the draft can be a major problem. You’ll see player drop much further than you expected and runs of a certain position where you need a guy. A huge gap in the draft order like that will prevent a team from being able to adapt to the dynamics of the draft.
To fix this issue, we can expect the Seahawks to trade down at least once on the first couple of days of the draft. It is even more likely that see see them move down multiple times before Day 2 of the draft is complete.
Everyone seems to be expecting John Schneider to package those new third-round picks to move up in the draft, but I don’t see it. I think they’re much more likely to move down and work to acquire picks in rounds 4 and 5.
Plus, there is the issue of the Seahawks only having 7 draft picks. Schneider has averaged 9.4 players drafted per year since he joined the Seahawks.
Seahawks have used at least 9 draft picks in all but one PC/JS draft
— bahvoom (@_BVM) February 25, 2017
2010: 9
2011: 9
2012: 10
2013: 11
2014: 9
2015: 8 (plus Jimmy)
2016: 10
Next: Draft target: RB Samaje Prine
The Seahawks need to improve their overall depth at almost every position. That isn’t going to happen if they move up in the draft order and only end up with 5 players. Schneider is going to be very active during the draft this year, and adding additional picks will be one of his top priorities.