3 first-round mistakes that continue to haunt Seattle Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks, like every professional team ever, has made some horrible first-round picks. The last few picks, such as Jordyn Brooks, Charles Cross, and Devon Witherspoon, have been fine, but in the years just before Brooks things were not so good. Seattle whiffed on many early choices.

Some of these choices have set the team back for several reasons. One reason is that the player was injured which kept them from reaching their potential. Another is that simply the player should have never been taken in the first round. In another situation, it was a player that was passed on to choose the one Seattle did.

The three players that follow were whiffs. This helped put the Seahawks in a position to have to rebuild a bit in the 2022 offseason. Hopefully, now that general manager John Schneider is fully in charge of roster decisions, the team won't miss as much as it did in the late 2010s.

Three recent first-round picks the Seattle Seahawks can call duds

Germain Ifedi, offensive tackle - 2016 draft, pick 31

Seattle could have had Chris Jones, defensive tackle

Unfortunately, this pick has more to do with who Seattle didn't take than who they did. Was Ifedi worthy of a first-round choice after all? No. In fact, he could be out of the league in 2024. But he wasn't awful during his four years with Seattle after first starting as a guard and then moving to tackle. And for anyone complaining Seattle never spent draft capital on an offensive lineman when Russell Wilson was wearing a Seahawks uniform, Ifedi was a first-round choice.

But he pales in comparison to Chris Jones. Jones was not chosen until the second round. In hindsight, the Seahawks were not the only team to overlook Jones; almost every team did. No player taken in the first round after pick nine has ever been named First-Team All-Pro, for instance. Only four players between picks 10 and 31 have ever made a Pro Bowl.

But Jones is a different breed altogether. He is still playing his best football even though he has spent eight years in the league. He has also helped his team to three Super Bowl victories. He has been named First-Team All-Pro in the past two seasons and hasn't missed making the Pro Bowl since 2019. While Ifedi was not Seattle's worst first-round choice ever, he also wasn't the likely future Hall of Famer that Chris Jones is.