I found it interesting that the Seahawks are reportedly having an official-30 visit with Missouri defensive end Zion Young.

It’s understandable why they’d want to bring him in. Young’s interviews are a little bit strange and in December he was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, speeding and a failure to properly affix a license plate to his vehicle.

His Head Coach Eli Drinkwitz addressed the issue at the time, saying, “You know, disappointed with the actions of Zion Young, and the decision-making that he had as a team captain and player.”

These official visits are often an opportunity to find out about a person and how they’d fit in your building. Young is certainly someone you can imagine teams will want to meet with to get a better picture of who he is.

Beyond all this though there’s something else I want to discuss — Young’s lack of speed.

We know the Seahawks place a lot of emphasis on defending the run. However, they already have a very stout defensive line in that regard. What they don’t have are enough quick wins off the edge. They don’t have enough speed.

Yes, eventually DeMarcus Lawrence will need to be replaced. There’s still no clarity either on whether he’s retiring or not. That might, in part, be one of the reasons they’re doing their homework on Young.

But even then, I still worry about his lack of speed.

Reportedly he ran a 4.77 forty and a 1.72 10-yard split at his pro-day, weighing in at 267lbs. When you account for pro-days typically providing optimal testing environments, the times are often a little bit quicker than reality. However, let’s just take this 4.77 forty and 1.72 split on face value.

That’s a slower split than LJ Collier managed (1.68) at 283lbs.

Over 10-yards he was also in the same ballpark as the following offensive linemen:

Parker Brailsford — 1.70 (289lbs)
Monroe Freeling — 1.71 (315lbs)
Spencer Fano — 1.72 (311lbs)
Sam Hecht — 1.73 (303lbs)
Max Iheanachor — 1.73 (321lbs)
Micah Morris — 1.73 (334lbs)

Regardless of how physical you are in college, or stout against the run, it’s a hard sell to invest a high pick on a 267lbs defensive lineman whose burst is similar to that of Kansas State’s 303lbs average athlete center Sam Hecht.

Let’s look at max-speed data from GPS tracking for the  2025 college football season. This is how fast players were on the field during games.

Here’s the max speed recorded over 0-10 yards for some of the pass rushers in this draft:

Malachi Lawrence — 16.1
Cashius Howell — 16.0
Gabe Jacas — 15.6
Romello Height — 15.5
Joshua Josephs — 15.2
TJ Parker — 15.2
Zion Young — 15.1
Dani Dennis-Sutton — 14.8

Now let’s look at the number of ‘max speed plays’ (measured at plays over 16mph) the same players made over the course of the 2025 season:

Malachi Lawrence — 17
Dani Dennis-Sutton — 10
Romello Height — 9
TJ Parker — 9
Cashius Howell — 6
Joshua Josephs — 5
Gabe Jacas — 4
Zion Young — 3

So while Dani Dennis-Sutton showed a real lack of burst over the first 10-yards for Penn State, he was still making plays chasing down ball-carriers fairly often, reaching speeds over 16mph. Zion Young is slower than his peers over the first 0-10 yards and he isn’t getting any quicker in his acceleration after.

It was a similar story at the Senior Bowl. Young was the 21st fastest defensive lineman in Mobile, even ranking below multiple defensive tackles. His max speed of 15.04mph was again slower than LJ Collier at his Senior Bowl in 2019 (15.24mph).

Like Collier, Young had an excellent Senior Bowl week. If you watch the cut-ups of his 1v1 reps and scrimmage plays he showed excellent technique, awareness, plenty of counter moves and he looked the part. Collier did exactly the same thing.

Remember Darius Robinson? Two years ago he also had a great Senior Bowl and was taken in the first round by Arizona. He too excelled at Missouri, had strong run-defense grades (81.4) but simply hasn’t been quick enough in the NFL to impact games regularly.

He was the 24th fastest defensive lineman at the 2024 Senior Bowl, with a max speed of 14.31mph. He’s slower than both Collier and Young — but he was also 286lbs in Mobile. Robinson ran a 1.73 10-yard split at his combine, 0.01 seconds slower than Young’s.

It’s not enough to just be really amped, strong and play with your hair on fire. You need burst and you need to be able to challenge with speed.

I would argue if you’re looking for toughness, strength and a grizzled mentality — you’re better off shopping in the veteran market as the Seahawks did with Lawrence, or waiting in the draft. Do you need to spend a top-40 pick on someone whose main calling card is ‘run defense’?

If Lawrence returns, the main thing the Seahawks need to do is replace Boye Mafe. It’s possible they wait until after the draft to do that with a veteran such as Von Miller. They might look at the draft too and the speed numbers speak favourably for Malachi Lawrence and Cashius Howell. If they can provide quick wins in the pass-rush, that can really help bolster this team for 2026.

Again — does an already good run-defending D-line need more of the same? Or does it need to upgrade the area where it’s weakest? And that’s clearly a lack of quick-wins and pure speed.

Lawrence’s run-D grade is only 66.2 and Howell’s is a 73.6. It’s perhaps worth noting that in his final year at Auburn, Derick Hall’s run defense grade was a paltry 60.9. It was only a 69.9 for the Seahawks in 2025. So I’m not sure it’s necessarily the be-all and end-all here — given most people expect Hall to get a contract extension and see him as a core member of the team.

Still, we’ll see what happens. Doug Baldwin retired from the NFL in May, after the draft, possibly at the team’s request to avoid tipping their hand in a 2019 draft where they spent picks on DK Metcalf and Gary Jennings. If Lawrence is planning to call it a day, it might serve the Seahawks to make that announcement after the draft.

That would place a further emphasis on needing someone who can fill the massive void he will leave. I’m still highly suspicious that a rookie is up to the job of replacing Lawrence — particularly one like Young who is hardly a perfect example of ‘smart, tough, reliable’ given his actions in December.

Watching Young’s Senior Bowl stuff is a pleasure. It’s how you want defensive ends to play when it comes to intensity, physicality and repertoire. If he was running a 1.63 split (the same as DeMarcus Lawrence) and had perhaps shown excellent agility too (he hasn’t done any jumps, a short shuttle or three-cone pre-draft) he would be a more tempting proposition with Seattle’s first pick.

Instead he just looks like someone who isn’t quick enough to be interesting and has some baggage attached that he will need to address with all teams.

A final point — the Seahawks would do well to learn from the 2019 experience. They felt obliged to take a defensive end due to the fact they had just traded away Frank Clark two days before the draft. They took Collier when Rashan Gary and Brian Burns were taken off the board early.

As a consequence, they missed out on a bunch of other good players at lesser need positions. It isn’t hindsight to mention now the likes of Deebo Samuel, Elgton Jenkins or Erik McCoy — all blog favourites. And if they’d taken DK Metcalf earlier, that would’ve opened up the possibility of perhaps drafting another blog favourite — Zach Allen — who was selected one pick after Metcalf.

It might be alluring to solve a need like a Lawrence replacement, either for now or the future, by addressing this early. I would rather invest in other positions than use a high pick on someone who feels very similar to Collier, only with a recent DWI arrest attached.