Firstly, please welcome Kip Earlywine back to the blog. His latest article is now available so check it out by clicking here.
Mike Mayock said via conference call today that Cincinnati pass rusher Walter Stewart would be a top ten pick if healthy. It’s an interesting angle. I’ve posted his tape vs Pittsburgh above. I’ve not spent a great deal of time studying him, in part due to the injury issues. For more information, check out this piece by Jeff Darlington. Essentially, he has a rare back issue that could end his career before it’s really begun.
Mayock also mentioned today that he’d “bang the table” for Alec Ogletree as a top ten pick without the off-field issues, claimed Sheldon Richardson had “the movement skills of a linebacker” and projected Barkevious Mingo to go in the 25-40 range. Could he be an option for Seattle as another LEO prospect? Is he too similar to Bruce Irvin? Mingo might actually be a great option for Gus Bradley and Jacksonville at #33, presuming they go defensive tackle at #2.
Matt Barkley will not throw at the combine. This isn’t a surprise. In fact, I’m not sure why initial noises suggested Barkley would throw. He had nothing to gain aiming to unfamiliar guys in shorts in an unnatural environment, particularly as he’s still recovering from a shoulder injury. Instead, he’ll throw to Robert Woods at the USC pro-day. Wise decision.
Tony Pauline has updated his top-160 draft board today. A great sign of the depth available this year is the fact Pauline ranks Steadman Bailey and Robert Woods at #68 and #69 respectively. For me, Bailey is a fantastic and underrated prospect. I’ll have a piece about him on the blog tomorrow. He’s a top-40 player for me. I totally underestimated him during the season.
Danny Kelly at Field Gulls has put together a piece on what the Seahawks might be looking for during the combine work-outs: “Weeding through the vast amount of numbers won’t be easy, but here’s a quick little refresher course on what to keep an eye on, as it specifically relates to the Seahawks and their unique and mysterious grading scale.”
Dan Kadar at Mocking the Draft has an updated mock draft. The Seahawks take an interior pass rusher with upside. A player USC recruited during Pete Carroll’s tenure. And a guy who could continue to boost his stock at the combine this week.
Adam Schefter reports that Eddie Lacy won’t work out at the combine. A bad hamstring is not good news for a running back with first round potential:
After injuring his hamstring last week, Alabama RB Eddie Lacy now hopes to perform all drills at Alabama’s Pro Day on March 13. No combine.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 18, 2013
Gil Brandt names his top-25 players for the 2013 draft. No quarterbacks are named. The Seahawks pick at #25 with DeAndre Hopkins listed as the 25th best player. Interestingly, Sheldon Richardson is only at #19. I’d also argue Keenan Allen (#13) is too high and Eric Fisher (#22) is too low.
Albert Breer has a great piece on the changing ways of the combine and wonders if competitive drills are part of its future. The draft is becoming increasingly popular, and not just among over-anxious 20-year-old’s with self appointed ‘Senior Analyst’ titles. The combine is getting to be as big a deal as the draft itself. And as more and more people tune in, expect it to continue to adapt to a wider audience.
New Kansas City Chiefs GM Jon Dorsey had some high praise for Russell Wilson this week: “The most impressive interview I’ve ever had in the last 25 years of doing this? Russell Wilson. Wasn’t even close. You could feel that guy as a person, how strong he was, how intellectually deep he was, how mentally tough he was, that he had the charisma to lead other players. I always try to look at kids like I’m in the locker room and I’m a teammate. It was easy to see this guy leading a team.”
I’ve had a few people ask about a ‘big board’ type post and I’ve always been loathe to do those. Nothing makes me tune out more than hearing people refer to their ‘top-300 boards’ like anyone really cares who they have ranked at #277. For example, you will probably find the following sentence on a website such as B******r R****t shortly after the draft: “This is a bad pick because he’s only the 7th best safety on my top 300 board.”
Instead I decided to just throw down a list of my favourite players. I’m not going to pretend that I know who the 9th best punter is in the 2013 draft. I might even have missed a couple of names I’d want on there. These are a few guys that I like. There’s no specific order even though some of the more familiar names are at the top. I didn’t include certain positions — there’s only one quarterback because the Seahawks don’t need a quarterback, there’s no left tackles because the team doesn’t need a left tackle. There are a few safety’s listed but they are guys not necessarily going to go in the first or second round.
PREVIOUS POST:
“Who do you feel is the #1 guy we NEED to get? Regardless of the round..”
Ask, and you shall receive. I know it’s an impossible question to answer, but this is a great way to ponder it. All these guys should be on the Seahawks’ radar throughout the first couple rounds. Plus it gives me some guys to go checkout. Thanks Rob!
20-year-old “senior analysts…”
Hehehe
There has been a lot of conversation on here about Henry Melton and Randy Starks as possible free agent targets. What about Glenn Dorsey? Coming out of LSU, he was exactly what Seattle needs NOW. Unfortunately for him, he got stuck with a 3-4 defense that didn’t allow him to utilize his strengths. To me, he is was one of the worst scheme matches (or mismatches) in recent memory.
I think Rob mentioned that he doesn’t really generate pass rush from the 3.
Sure, but he also showed precious little whether he was playing in the 3-4 or the 4-3. It’s perhaps a stretch to expect he’ll suddenly explode in his 28th year by a mere scheme switch.
There are some scary-underrated players in this years draft. Micah Hyde is one of my favorite big corners this year, and he’s not even in Pauline’s top 160. No Armonty Bryant or Courtney Gardner either. I don’t think I’ll ever watch the late rounds with more suspense than I will this year.
Good year for the Hawks to have a ton of picks then!
Some mocks have Barkley going in round three. Is there a point where you’d take him in that area, even though we have Wilson, just for the value? Either as a backup or as future trade value?
I’ve never been high on Barkley as an NFL passer but I don’t see him slipping passed Andy Dalton range. I really think he’ll be a first round pick. Just have no clue where in rd 1 he gets picked.
He won’t go in round three. He’ll be long gone by then.
That Walter Stewart film is impressive. I’ll be really curious where he goes on draft day. I’m no doctor, and I don’t play one on TV, but missing part of the bone that makes up the circumference of a single vertebrae doesn’t sound like it should be a career ending discovery. Just seems like with today’s advances in medicine and protective equipment, they should be able to provide him with some form of neck support to reduce the chances of injury.
The dude played an entire high school and college career without incident. Where are most people projecting he’ll go? 2nd? 3rd?
I am neither a Neurosurgeon or an Orthopaedic surgeon but I am an Oral Maxillofacial surgeon and I routinely treat patients with concomitant facial and cervical injuries so I feel like I have an some inside knowledge to an issue like this.
#1 at the trauma hospital I work at the two specialities share call, one service one night and the other service the next. They do things a little differently and I would not say either is better than the other.
#2 the team physician was put in a dangerous position, if he let stewart play after finding this congenital anomaly and the poor guy gets hurt then he would have been sued terribly. So he made the safe call and forbid the guy from playing.
#3 Things totally change at the professional level and the doctor will no longer be held accountable for the decisions a grown professional player makes.
If he is cleared by the physicians of pro teams then I am confident the risks are low.
If he has cervical spina bifida and an anterior C1 fracture, I can’t imagine any doctor medically clearing him. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Its funny but well before this time last year you posted a video of a guy I had never heard of named Bruce Irvin. I watched the highlight video of Irvin and was mesmerized. What a pass rusher. I figured there was no way he was gonna fall to the Seahawks out of the top 10 and yet they picked him in the end at 15. His tape was better than anyone in this draft class by far. On various forums I see almost a disappointment in the way Irvin played this year as if people had to have a Aldon Smith type production. His tape is nothing like Mingo. He is 10 times the player Mingo will ever be lets all keep this in perspective.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I would do absolute backflips for Ogletree at #25. He moves like a safety, looks like a defensive end and hits like a linebacker. The actual impact of his DUI is a very interesting topic. You have to think there’s going to be scouts in war rooms that will have the same opinion of him, incident or no incident. Yet on the other side, team presidents, personal directors and owners probably sweat a bit more when the invest big dollars into a guy who’s had iron rings slapped around his wrists recently, especially with a guy like Goodell in power.
Take Ogletree at #25 if god willing he’s there, then take your highest rated d-lineman or wide receiver with the next pick. I read an article saying first round trades will likely be rare this year, but given what you were saying about the overall depth of this draft, Day Two, particularly in the 32-50 range, I could see trades galore as teams hope to grab a guy they had pegged as a Day One talent.
Oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man I can’t wait for the draaaaaft..
Nice to see you like Travis Long, as a coug fan I’ve watched him alot over the years. Great player, high motor, good work ethic. I wouldn’t mind the hawks drafting him in the 3rd or 4th round.
Really like him. The knee injury dents his stock but I’d take a chance later on in the draft.
Rob,
curious about what you think about Da’Rick Rogers as a player? I really like him.
Also, do you think Chase Thomas could play for us? I really like his game. I envision kind of a platoon situation between him and Malcolm Smith that has Thomas pass rushing on those downs. I don’t know if he’ll run fast enough to be a Hawk but he is in the height/weight range for LBers that Schneider has cited in the past.
I was really disappointed watching Thomas at the Senior Bowl and many reports said he struggled in the work outs too. I’m going to go back and review the tape again. As for Rogers… it’s hard to get too excited. The guy basically devised his own downfall at Tennessee and it’s impossible for me to say that he’s changed or not. Teams will interview and investigate the heck out of him. I can only guess on what the outcomes of those reports will be. Clearly talented, but not much use if he wastes his talent. And my big concern with guys like that isn’t that he’ll fail individually, it’s whether he’ll bring others down with him in the process.