As we approach the 13th draft of the Pete Carroll-John Schneider era, it’s a great time to look back on the results of their previous drafts for the Seattle Seahawks. Sure, there were some stinkers, but there were far more winners than losers.
If you don’t believe me, just ask ESPN which recently Seattle as having the best draft value of any NFL team since 2012.
It’s become a popular game to doubt the Seahawks brain trust on Draft Day lately. Yes, there were certainly some, shall we say, less than productive drafts. But we’ve covered that territory already. Today we’ll focus on the hits – and there were a lot of them.
I started with the career values of players as determined by pro-football-reference.com. I’ve linked to their methodology before, but for those mathy-curious, here it is again. The tl;dr version is that it’s a quick way to compare the value of athletes across positions.
Which are the five best draft class for the Seahawks since Pete Carroll and John Schneider came to Seattle in 2010?
One note; for the draft, PFR adjusts the career approximate values compared to what’s shown on their individual pages. It’s the same adjustment for every player, so for our purposes, it evens out.
I also considered the average value per year; otherwise, a player like Jordyn Brooks would have less value than Robert Turbin, simply because he’s played fewer years.
Alright, them’s the rules. Time to look at the five best Pete Carroll and John Schneider drafts.
Seahawks fifth-best draft: 2015
This was a very tough call. I mean, it’s hard to say the draft that brought you DK Metcalf in the second round isn’t one of your top-five achievements. But Metcalf literally provided half the value of those 11 picks. Cody Barton, Marquise Blair, and Phil Haynes may yet prove to be extremely valuable. Travis Homer has already paid some dividends. But overall, this group isn’t as solid as the Seahawks class of 2015.
That group is led by the perennially underrated Tyler Lockett. You don’t need a reminder of how great he is, I know. But just in case, 36 touchdowns and over 4,000 yards in the last four seasons is pretty darn great. We all really want to see him stay in Seattle, but finances play a huge role in keeping even your best players, as we all painfully know.
Finances are exactly why Frank Clark has been in Kansas City for the past three seasons. All he’s done is make the Pro Bowl three straight years, and that’s after he recorded 32 sacks for the Hawks in his last three seasons in the Emerald City.
Lockett and Clark are definitely the stars of 2015, but guard Mark Glowinski isn’t that far behind. Pro Football Focus ranked him as the fifth-best guard in the league last year, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Outside of his sophomore season, Seattle wasn’t able to get the best performance from Glo, but the offensive line hasn’t exactly been a nexus of performance for the Seahawks.
Other than those three, the ‘Hawks 2015 draft produced virtually nothing. Despite the great production of the stars, the average annual value of the 2015 draft class is 2.46 points. Still, when you get four Pro Bowl seasons and 17 seasons of starts out of a possible 21, you identified some real talent. And that’s kind of the point of the draft, right?
Below you’ll see the key players from each draft with their average annual value.
Tyler Lockett AAV 7.57
Frank Clark AAV 6.43
Mark Glowinski AAV 4.71
Seahawks fourth-best draft: 2020
To be honest, I surprised myself with this ranking. And if you can’t be honest with your fellow 12s, who can you be honest with? Yes, Jordyn Brooks is an absolute beast, but aside from him, who else did the Hawks pull in 2020? Seriously, who can compete with the man that racked up 184 tackles, a new Hawks record? Oh, I am so very glad you asked!
Guard Damien Lewis actually posted a higher average approximate value than Brooks. Calm down, 12s. I’m not even implying that Lewis is better than Brooks. But Lewis was an immediate starter for the Seahawks and has been an excellent run blocker. For now, Glowinski is better, but when your third-round pick is your starter from day one (when healthy), that’s a solid pick.
The other standouts from the 2020 draft all come with caveats, addendums, and “yeah, but”s. Exhibit A: Darrell Taylor only produced 3 points of career approximate value compared to Lewis’ 14 points. Yeah, but he missed his entire rookie season, and he was working in a defense that thought dropping Al Woods into coverage was smart. See how that works?
Defensive end Alton Robinson was only on the field for 29 percent of the snaps as a rookie, yet posted four sacks, the fifth-highest total on the 2020 Seahawks, and second only to Carlos Dunlap in sacks per snap. As with so many defenders (see Jamal Adams), his production dropped in 2021. With Cliff Hurtt taking charge, I expect we’ll see Robinson’s numbers rebound, along with many others.
Both Deejay Dallas and Freddie “How Does He Get So Open” Swain made key contributions to the Hawks. I know, I’m making a lot of projections here, but when you’re talking about players just entering their third year, you’re going to have to make some projections. After all, Tyler Lockett didn’t really break through until his fourth season.
With the exception of Stephen Sullivan, every 2020 draftee had some positive impact on the ‘Hawks season. And even the seventh-round pick Sullivan was active last year, albeit with the Panthers. The average value of the 2020 class is 2.69 points.
Jordyn Brooks AAV 5.50
Damien Lewis AAV 7.00
Seahawks third-best draft: 2011
Wait a minute. I’m only ranking the draft that completed the Legion of Boom as third-best? Not only did 2011 bring the loyal 12s cornerbacks Richard Sherman and Byron Maxwell, but also the criminally overlooked K.J. Wright. It took Maxwell a few years to take his place in the LOB, but Sherman was an immediate force, as was Wright.
As with so many great players – okay, just about all of them – Sherman, then Wright eventually were forced out by contract considerations. Wright’s departure in particular pointed the way to the future. But he was still a great pick.
I should probably mention that the ‘Hawks first pick that year was pretty good, too. O-lineman James Carpenter started nine games at right tackle as a rookie, then moved to left guard for the next 10 seasons.
And at the opposite end of the draft, Seattle found linebacker Malcolm Smith with the 242nd selection. Smith’s best year in Seattle was in 2013, but he’s still playing, appearing in 15 games for the Browns. 134 games, 62 starts, and 500 tackles isn’t too shabby a stat line for a seventh-round pick.
In fact, that was the strength of this draft, the talent that Carroll and Schneider found in the later rounds. Wright was a fourth-round pick, and Sherman was famously not taken until the fifth. That has become something of a theme for the Seahawks, as all good 12s know.
We also know that’s a two-edged sword, as all too often Seattle has had to salvage their drafts with solid late-round picks to make up for questionable first-rounders. That’s a story for another time, though. The 2011 draft averaged 3.18 points.
That’s actually a fraction better than my choice for the second-best draft, but when you see the names attached (and you can probably guess them), you’ll see why I bumped that group ahead.
Richard Sherman AAV 8.82
K.J. Wright AAV 5.82
James Carpenter 4.36
Seahawks second-best draft: 2010
I know, 12s, I know. Pete and John’s first draft was an absolute classic, and here’s this idiot saying that it’s only second-best? The draft that immediately established the Seahawks brain trust as one of the best in the league? The draft that laid the foundation for the Legion of Boom, the defense that stole every last bit of oxygen from even the best offenses, not the best?
Well, as a matter of fact, no, it isn’t. I know, this is the draft that brought Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor to Seattle. Tackle Russell Okung was the first pick of this party, and all he did was protect the blindside of his QBs for 131 games.
Oh, and I should probably mention there was this receiver by the name of Golden Tate who racked up over 8,000 yards receiving in his career. Not much there, right, other than one of the greatest safety duos in league history, plus two very good starters whose careers lasted over a decade.
What drops this draft to second place, as incredible as it was, is the fact that outside of those big four, there was very little value in the draft. Sure, you could argue when you get players like Thomas and Chancellor, you don’t need any other value. And the Seahawks cleaned up when you add Okung and Tate to that tandem.
But of the five other players drafted in 2010, only defensive back Walter Thurmond had any appreciable value. That’s firing too many blanks in comparison to the talent that Carroll and Schneider brought to Seattle with their best draft. Despite those misses, the 2010 draft averaged 3.13 points.
Earl Thomas AAV 8.20
Kam Chancellor AAV 6.13
Golden Tate AAV 5.27
Russell Okung AAV 5.09
Seahawks best draft ever: 2012
Come on now, admit it. At least three of you knew this was going to be my pick as the best draft of the Carroll – Schneider era. Well, make that the best draft ever by the Seahawks. After all, it isn’t every draft that brings you the best quarterback in franchise history and the best linebacker, now is it? Yes, by definition we know that’s true, but let’s not get all pedantic about it.
It’s more than a little bittersweet to name this the best draft in history, as both of our absolute sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Fame stars are now with other teams. The names Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson propel this draft past all the rest. Yet they were far from the only talent the football gods bestowed upon the Hawks.
As great as that duo is, the first pick of the 2012 draft was Bruce Irvin. No, he isn’t going to be in Canton unless he buys a ticket, but he’s had more than a solid career. He was never a monster like Wilson and Wagner, but he did post eight sacks as a rookie despite getting zero starts. He had 8.5 sacks in 2019 and came back home to the Hawks in 2020, but injuries prevented a happy homecoming. He was still a solid pick, even in the first round.
The Seahawks continued their seventh-round magic with guard J. R. Sweezy. He never made the Pro Bowl, but he did get 104 starts out of 117 total games over eight seasons. In his second season in Seattle, Sweezy sat out seven snaps in one game and one snap in another. He only missed four plays over the next two seasons.
There’s a lot to be said for consistency, and Sweezy was consistently good. The average score for the class of 2012 was 4.35, miles beyond the average of any other Hawks draft class. That’s what happens when you have incredible talents like Wagner and Wilson backed up by a strong group like Sweezy and Irvin.
Russell Wilson AAV 12.50
Bobby Wagner AAV 11.00
J.R. Sweezy AAV 5.88
Bruce Irvin AAV 4.00
As I wrote earlier, it wasn’t easy to skip over the 2019 draft. After all, it did bring us DK Metcalf. Even with the uncertainty surrounding Rashaad Penny – is he really this good, finally – the 2018 draft gave us Rasheem Green and Michael Dickson, the best punter since that Ray Guy guy. I admit I have a soft spot for the 2017 haul with Shaquill Griffin, then both David Moore and the great Chris Carson in the seventh round. I don’t think we’ll ever match the 2012 draft, but if we can slide the 2022 draft in the top five, we’ll all be happy little 12s.