3 questions for Seahawks that got emphatic answers during the draft

There were so many questions for the Seattle Seahawks heading into this draft. The 12s got emphatic answers to these three.

The first question - and answer - is obvious. Are the 12s crazy? Uh, yeah. Also pretty crazy that Detroit had 700,00 people attend Day 3 of the draft. The NFL will never allow Seattle to host, as they know the attendance would shame every other city into total submission. Probably 900,000 +, and that would just be on Thursday night. Saturday? Fuhgettaboutit. The crowd would stretch from the Space Needle/City Center past the VMAC. You know, in Renton.

As for the real questions the Seahawks had to answer in this draft, the 12s got the most emphatic answers possible. Not the silly stuff, like who would announce the Hawks fourth-round pick. We all knew it would be Dortmund champions, striker Karl-Heinz Rielde, and left-back Marcel Schmlezer, right? I liked the announcement almost as much as the selection itself. Okay, enough silliness.

Seattle Seahawks gave bold answers in the 2024 NFL Draft

Are guards over-drafted?

Apparently not, no. Hawks GM John Schneider got some heat a few weeks ago when he said that guards tended to be over-drafted and overpaid in the NFL. I mean, he got a lot of heat for it. A Google search comes back with 287,000 results, so yeah, people talked about it a lot.

So of course, Schneider used his second pick of the draft on guard Christian Haynes. The funny thing is, Schneider confirmed his statement with this pick. Haynes was widely viewed as the best pure guard in the draft, yet the Seahawks didn't trade up to get him. The personnel group was confident he would be waiting at pick 81 and landed a true gem for Seattle.

Can Schneider draft the right players on his own?

If it wasn't that clear before this draft, we can all see that Schneider was always in charge on draft day. He has said that Carroll would give him input on virtually every pick, at times interjecting how he really liked this guy or that, but that the former head coach only overruled the GM once or twice in all their years together. The Seahawks have typically looked at defense first in the past 14 years, and year 15 was no different. After all, it's no accident that the new head coach in Seattle was the NFL's best defensive coordinator in 2023.

You tell me, does this 2024 draft look that different from the past two years? Last year, the Seahawks took the best available defender with their first pick. Just as Devon Witherspoon was a transformative player as a rookie last year, Byron Murphy II will have the same kind of impact this year.

With their next pick, the Hawks switched to the offensive side of the ball. Yes, there's a big difference between Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Haynes, but there's a big difference between pick 20 and pick 81, too. In 2023, the Hawks added depth at spots with solid starters, taking an edge rusher and a running back. This year, they drafted a linebacker and a tight end. Same draft plan, the same guy in charge.

Can the Seahawks compete in 2024?

Based on this draft, I have to say the answer is yes. Yes, many more factors will drive that answer than one year's draft class. Little things like all the existing personnel, coaching, stuff like that. But one thing that stands out about the eight players Seattle added in this draft. Over and over for every player, you hear phrases like "plays with anger":

All eight of these guys have been described as "football players". Well, obviously, but football players in the sense that they don't care about stats or scheme or position, they just want to play ball. You'll hear similar statements from the players themselves.

As for the mentality of the team moving forward, Schneider and Macdonald couldn't have set the tone for the new Seahawks any better. So the delivery might not have been perfect. Schneider has outsmarted a lot of GMs, the same as Macdonald has outsmarted opposing offensive coaches. The shirts are throwbacks to when every gas station had a mechanic in the shop. You can't say Schneider is wrong, just lucky to know a place that still has a mechanic, I guess. But as Macdonald said, they - and the team - will be going to work every day.

That's how championships are won. Think of the LOB teams. They played with anger - Richard Sherman, most definitely. They played physical football - Kam Chancellor, anyone? They worked just as hard on the first play as the last - Marshawn Lynch rings that bell and the seismograph. The 2024 draft class fits that mold and has the right leadership to push them to the top.

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