Seahawks draft profile: Tee Higgins would be another weapon

The Seahawks need a defensive gem or two in the draft but if the right skill player is available, Seattle could choose a guy like Tee Higgins.

In a way, I have been waiting to write this piece for several years. You will understand in just a minute. I am a Seahawks fan, of course. But I am also a fan of where I went to high school five million years ago. That is a place called Oak Ridge High in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It also happens to have been the place Tee Higgins went to high school as well (though a well bit after my time there).

Higgins moved on to Clemson University where he put up excellent receiving numbers while maybe not running the most complex of routes. Like D.K. Metcalf in last year’s draft, Higgins’ lack of running a thousand different patterns doesn’t mean he can’t; It means he wasn’t asked to do so.

Higgins has been successful because he is simply more physically gifted than those he plays against. He is six-foot-four-inches and 200 pounds and quick. He can outjump most defenders. In fact, when he was in high school some speculated he was a better basketball player than football player. This wasn’t meant as a slight. Higgins was simply great at both.

For the Seahawks to be able to draft Higgins a few things would need to happen. He would need to fall most likely into the second round. Seattle would need to make the decision to take a skill player over a greater position of need. And Higgins would, therefore, need to be the best player available.

Higgins does have some extremely interesting attributes for Seattle, however. He would not need to come in and be the number one or two receiver; He would have a little time to learn what it means to be in the NFL and bulk up some. But he is a big target in the red zone and coupled with Metcalf and Tyler Lockett would make for a potentially explosive wide receiver group. Russell Wilson would love that.

The drawbacks to Higgins currently are he needs to gain a lot of strength because NFL defensive backs would simply push him around off the line and make him moot. Also, one should not expect Higgins to make the same first-year jump that Metcalf did. Sure, he is the same height but definitely doesn’t have the same strength. Yet anyway.

Still, the Seahawks having a group that includes Lockett, Metcalf and Higgins to throw to is awfully enticing. There used to be a time when general manager John Schneider chose the best player available to him in the early rounds. If Higgins is still around in the second round when Seattle has two picks, Higgins could be a Seahawk.