The Seattle Seahawks need to find interior offensive line help early in the 2025 NFL draft. That is not breaking news, of course. The issue is that the same sentence could have been written over the last 10 years, just with the year of the draft changed. 12s are still waiting for the team to fix the problem aggressively.
It is also unlikely that general manager John Schneider will take a guard or center in the first round in this year's draft, either. Choosing a pure center is entirely out of the question. Schneider has also been open about his thinking that guards are overdrafted and eventually become overpaid. He isn't going to change his mind suddenly.
This means that Seattle will likely choose the best player available when its first-round turn comes up. That strategy is not a bad one, but it still fails to address the team's most glaring weakness. For instance, if the Seahawks see a wide receiver as the best available at pick 18, then 12s will probably start buying jerseys with a rookie wide receiver's number on them.
Seahawks might get to avoid deciding whether to choose Tetairoa McMillan in the 2025 NFL draft
One might argue that the best player available for Seattle could be the extremely athletic offensive lineman Grey Zabel, but most of the time, that title refers more to a non-lineman player. Maybe Seattle could take Zabel, but instead selects a cornerback or linebacker.
As stated above, wide receiver could also be an option, but one recent rumor from the NFL Network's Ian Rapoport suggests a potential Seahawks pick may be gone before the team has a chance to take him. Rapoport said on an episode of The Insiders that Arizona wideout Tetairoa McMillan might be the first skill position player off the board.
He said, "I would say based on my thoughts right now, based on the teams that I've spoken with. I wouldn't be surprised at all if T-Mac is a top-10 pick, maybe just a little bit before (running back Ashton) Jeanty."
If Schneider and the Seahawks are set on taking a wide receiver in the first round, the player shouldn't be McMillan anyway. At least if another team selects him, Seattle would not have the chance to make the mistake of taking the receiver.
Seattle does arguably need a wideout in the first two rounds of the 2025 draft because DK Metcalf was traded this offseason, and Tyler Lockett was released. Their replacements, Cooper Kupp and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, are both over 30 years old and don't have a lot of years left to play.
McMillan was productive in college and is huge at 6'5" and 212 pounds, but there could be odd issues with choosing him. His size resembles Metcalf's, but his speed doesn't. McMillan is not slow, but he's not as fast as Metcalf. He would be seen as a pure replacement for the traded receiver, and those expectations are too high and could cripple his growth.
There is also some question about his love of football. Schneider values that highly. McMillan would bring a risk that the Seahawks do not need when they could take Zabel, who is almost certain to help fix Seattle's worst problem.
Seattle might also have a chance to choose Texas's Matthew Golden, too. If the choice is between McMillan and Golden, the Seahawks should go with Golden. He is smaller, but likely to be much more consistently explosive with his elite speed.