CBS Sports says hold my drink on Seattle Seahawks draft ranking

Just when you think it is safe to go back in the Seattle Seahawks water, CBS Sports says Seattle's 2023 draft was bad. Really bad. But why?

CBS Sports writer Ryan Wilson ranked all 32 teams' drafts. The best draft, per Wilson, was the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers have mostly been lauded for their draft so being number one overall on Wilson's list seems OK. The Dallas Cowboys were ranked last.

But compared to other teams, Wilson thinks the Seahawks made poor choices. In fact, he ranks them 29th overall. Mind you, I am a bit biased being a Seahawks fan, but generally speaking, Seattle has received glowing reviews from nearly any other site.

CBS Sports has Seahawks 2023 draft ranked far too low

ESPN's Mel Kiper even thought Seattle had one of the two best classes in the 2023 draft. Plenty of other sites - just Google them! - gave Seattle an A grade overall. But 29th overall? I mean, what?

And the reason Wilson thinks the Seahawks had the fourth-worst 2023 draft is, as he points out several times in the CBS Sports article is "we're comparing where we had each draft pick graded with where they were actually selected." He repeats the mantra several times because he anticipates people will be upset by the rankings. Heck, the article even puts in bold a couple of times how the rankings came to be.

But here is the thing. I get that Wilson knows he is going to upset some people with the rankings (that should never be the point of any writer's article anyway) but basing rankings on where CBS Sports thought the players should go prior to the draft is meaningless. It's meaningless because it completely takes away what a team needed before the draft and how good the players are that fill those needs. Heck, that's the actual point of having drafts.

The weight given by CBS Sports is also weird. For instance, the New England Patriots mostly took players who were under where CBS Sports had the player ranked, yet the Patriots ranked 30th overall. The article does rightly point out that drafts can't be judged after only a few days but must be judged over a few years. This is true but also a copout. It's OK to be wrong and in CBS Sports' case saying the Seahawks had the fourth-worst draft in 2023 is also wrong and that will be borne out over the next few seasons.