Seahawks 2024 7-round mock draft features two big trades and more steals than Ichiro

The Seattle Seahawks pull off not one but two of John Schneider's trademark trades in this mock draft. They also manage to add more quality beef than The Butcher's Table. 2,987 pounds of grade-A NFL-quality football players, to be exact.

The Seahawks have, shall we say, more than a few needs to be addressed in this draft. Their biggest need, by far, is at guard. They could still add a quality player from the available free agents, that's true. But when you have just two guards on your roster with a total of 11 games and 762 snaps on their resumes, you need to add some players. That was my first goal in this draft.

My second goal was depth across the board. When you go 9-8 in back-to-back seasons, the key to improvement won't be found at one position. Now consider this: of the nine free agents the Seahawks added so far in 2024, seven are on one-year contracts. Only tackle George Fant and safety Rayshawn Jenkins signed multi-year deals, and both were only for two seasons. So the Hawks have a lot of roster building to do. You do that with draft picks and lots of them.

The Seattle Seahawks add three draft picks with their first big trade

Technically, I added five draft picks with my first fake John Schneider move. I traded two picks and a player away to make it happen, though, so my version of the Hawks came out three picks ahead in the deal. Thanks, fake Baltimore Ravens, I could have done it without you! As with my previous mock drafts, I used Pro Football Focus (subscription required for my selections. You can run three-round mocks, view their complete big board, and access quite a few tools for free on the site. Just sayin'.

Now this trade wasn't nearly as spectacular as the five-for-one deal I pulled off in my first mock draft for 2024. Maybe PFF got stingy; I don't know. Nevertheless, I'm happy with the result. I traded the 16th overall pick, the 118th (from the fourth round), and Dee Eskridge to the Ravens. I'll get back to Eskridge, don't worry. In return, I received the 30th, 62nd, 93rd, and 113th selections, and the Ravens fifth-round pick for 2025. Yes, it's a big drop from 16th to 30th, but I got back into the second round, added a third-rounder, moved up a few spots in the fourth, and picked up another pick for next year.

Sure, fifth-round picks usually don't pan out. But for every Jimmy Staten or Korey Toomer, the Hawks have found a Luke Willson or a Quinton Jefferson. Solid players that contribute. Or maybe a Riq Woolen, or either of last year's two fifth-rounders, Olu Oluwatimi and Mike Morris, who could very well play key roles this year. Then there's Michael Dickson, Richard Sherman, and Kam Chancellor. So sure, it may be worth next to nothing. Or it could be a future Hall of Famer. Of the 15 fifth-rounders John Schneider drafted through 2021, three are HOF-worthy players. I'll take those odds.

As for Dee Eskridge, yes, the team just gave him a new contract. He's more valuable to the team now, at least potentially, with the new league kickoff rule in place. But as Lee Vowell wrote, he can only make a big impact on the team if he stays healthy. He simply hasn't been able to do that for Seattle. In three seasons, he's never managed to get into more than 10 games a year. Trading Eskridge would shave $1.03 million off the Seahawks' cap as well. Considering their current cap is at $2.03 mil, that would be a major improvement. Besides, I have his replacement at pick 113.