It is time for Seahawks to shift to plan B for solving the pass rush

Other draft picks

AJ Epenesa, Curtis Weaver and Jonathan Greenard would all make solid base ends. The only issue I have is that we already have two young base end prospects on the roster in Rasheem Green and LJ Collier. Green quietly had a phenomenal season last year, in his limited snaps he had a top tier run-stopping grade amongst defensive ends. He also had 4 sacks last year. So, the need we are searching to remedy would be filling the LEO (pass-rushing specialist).

The only two early-round players who would fit that position grouping and fit as a prototypical Seahawk would be Julian Okwara and Jabari Zuniga. I have 3rd round grades on both players. Both are very raw; both are very athletic, and both will need a year or two under their belt before they are solid contributors. Not optimal early-round draft choices for being in a Super Bowl windows.

The final nugget of information I will part with you. The defensive line typically has one of the longest learning curves amongst players moving from college to the pros. The schemes and playing styles are so vastly different it takes years for most of those players to have any semblance of the production translate. So, drafting most defensive lineman would not be an immediate remedy regardless of draft strength.

This is why I have us taking a couple of stop gate players on the defensive line. Bring in veteran leadership in Michael Bennett and Everson Griffen to coach up the young players. Draft a young LEO in Okwara or Zuniga. Give them a year or two as a rotational piece before throwing them into the deep side of the pool. I spoke with a talented draft evaluator about the 2021 defensive line class and he believes next year’s defensive line crop has very high potential to be a strong class. The stop gate players will get us through another season, and we can re-evaluate next year.