Reportedly the Seahawks have had official-30 meetings with Jalon Kilgore and AJ Haulcy. They had a zoom meeting with Emmanuel McNeil-Warren.
Does it mean anything?
It’s something I wanted to spend a bit of time on today. Although Ty Okada played well when he spelled Julian Love and Coby Bryant during the 2025 season, it doesn’t mean he automatically will be promoted into a starting role now that Bryant is in Chicago.
There’s also another angle to look at — the dilemma of trying to combat the Rams.
In week 16 the defense gave up a franchise record 581 yards, including 457 from the arm of Matthew Stafford. In the NFC Championship they gave up another 457 with Stafford throwing for 357 more.
The lack of any quick pressure, good pass-pro and Stafford’s ability to get the ball out all had an impact. What about Seattle’s second level defense though?
According to PFF, Ernest Jones was targeted 11 times in coverage, giving up eight receptions for 121 yards. Coby Bryant gave up three receptions on four targets for 83 yards and a touchdown (he left the week 16 game in the fourth quarter with an injury). Ty Okada wasn’t targeted in the NFC Championship game (he only had two snaps) but gave up a 41-yard reception in week 16.
This is a lot of yardage pinned against these three individuals. Of the 814 passing yards conceded, they were responsible for 245 — or 30.1%.
In highlighting this, let’s also note that Devon Witherspoon gave up 221 yards on his own in the two games and nobody is putting a ring around his name for an upgrade. But I think it’s worth wondering if the Seahawks are digging around safeties in this class to see if anyone could be inserted to improve the issues faced against the Rams.
Are they exploiting Jones in coverage? Is there an issue with the space between him and two-high safety looks? Is there a player who can cover ground, take some of those routes away and perhaps even add more of a fear-factor to any receivers running across the field?
Jones is too important to feel like he’s a problem to be solved but can he be helped?
It’s also worth noting that every team has a whole summer to look at those two Rams games. The Seahawks might find that other opponents have done their homework when the new season kicks off.
McNeil-Warren was the #1 graded safety in coverage in 2025 (92.0) just ahead of Dillon Thieneman (91.2). It’s a shame there’s no chance of Thieneman lasting to the Seahawks as he feels like an ideal prospect to fit this scenario. His combine workout was incredible, showing transition ability and change of direction at a level of a lot of top cornerbacks over the years.
You can’t say the same for McNeil-Warren, who looked stiff and struggled to back-pedal and change direction. There’s a clear athletic difference between the pair, highlighted by Thieneman’s 4.35 forty and 41 inch vertical, compared to McNeil-Warren’s 4.52 and 35.5 inch vertical.
Even so, the grade is the grade. McNeil-Warren was also the top ranked safety for coverage in zone, which the Seahawks run 77.5% of the time.
AJ Haulcy was ranked 10th for coverage at 88.6. He might not be the fastest player but given he operated at free safety, which doesn’t feel like an ideal match for his profile, he still excelled. All three players can also pack a punch as hitters.
Jalon Kilgore’s coverage grade was only a 65.3.
I do wonder if a situation could occur where they imagine a role for a certain player, potentially thinking they can add a fresh dynamic to the back-end of the defense. They might see a situation where adding a certain type of safety to the defense can help combat issues they saw not only vs the Rams but also against the Buccaneers when Julian Love was out injured.
That could be with a high pick if the right player is available.
It’s also worth adding that McNeil-Warren and Haulcy in particular both appear to have personalities that very much fit the Seahawks. Kilgore looks like a dude, too.
Another name to keep an eye on could be Jadon Canady at Oregon. A true slot for the Ducks, I really liked his tape and immediately thought he could be a viable option to convert to safety, just as Bryant did back in the day. Canady is being overlooked by many.
Don’t read too much into pro-days
With this being such an underwhelming quarterback class, we’ve not had the typical social media hype when a player does the ‘throws across his body in shorts’ thing for a nice video.
This has seemingly been replaced with ‘massively overreact to 40 times at pro-days’.
The typical rule of thumb is to add about 0.08-0.10 seconds to any pro-day time. These events are not set up for the players to fail. Most run on fast tracks.
In the last few days alone we’ve had a huge reaction to Jermod McCoy running a reported 4.38. He’s 188lbs and expected to be a first round pick at cornerback. That time shouldn’t be a surprise. If you tack on even 0.08 seconds for the pro-day tax, suddenly it’s in the 4.45 range which is hardly problematic but certainly doesn’t warrant the reaction we’ve seen on Twitter which made you feel like McCoy was about to reinvent the position.
That run is certainly not enough to overlook the fact he hasn’t played football for 18 months and hasn’t shown anyone in the league he’s twisting and turning with ease or transitioning and changing direction like you’d hope for such a highly touted player. He chose not to attend the Senior Bowl or do anything at the combine despite the fact he tore his ACL in January 2025.
Today I’ve been reading things like ‘D’Angelo Ponds is a top-15 player in the draft’ because he ran a reported 4.31. He’s 182lbs. He should be running a fast time. It’d be a major issue if a player at his diminutive size wasn’t quick.
Everyone seemingly ran very fast at Indiana’s pro-day, which should raise at least a little bit of suspicion about the track. Again, if you add the pro-day tax, suddenly a 4.39-4.41 is in the ‘good not great for his size’ bracket.
Quinyon Mitchell had an amazing Senior Bowl, ran a combine 4.33 at 6-0 and 195lbs and was still only drafted 22nd overall. So let’s hold back on the talk of Ponds’ forty time meaning much of anything. Like I said, it would’ve been a major shock if he didn’t run well.
Like everyone else, I like Ponds’ tape. I gave him a glowing review when I wrote him up (see the scouting notes tab). But we can’t pretend the size isn’t an issue unfortunately.
