It seems Seattle Seahawks fans are satisfied with the team’s 2019 draft.
The NFL draft took place last Thursday through Saturday, and the Seahawks were one of the most active teams when it came to trading. Seattle began the draft with just five picks, including a pair of first rounders. Seahawks general manager John Schneider then executed a series of trades that saw Seattle use just one of the first-round picks, but finish with 11 selections overall.
Seattle addressed some of its needs. It used its remaining first rounder on a defensive end, picking TCU’s LJ. Collier to help fill the void created when Frank Clark was traded to Kansas City. The Seahawks also picked up three wide receivers, including physical phenomenon D.K. Metcalf from Ole Miss, to help guard against the possibility that Doug Baldwin will be forced into retirement because of injuries.
That said, Seattle’s draft was lacking flash, as Metcalf was the only player with much buzz who the Seahawks selected. Collier and second-day selections Marquise Blair (safety, Utah) and Cody Barton (linebacker, Utah) were considered slight reaches for where they were drafted, and linebacker in particular was not thought to be a position of need for Seattle.
So with all that in mind, this week we asked the readers to grade Seattle’s draft. Here’s your marks:
POLL: What grade do you give the Seahawks for their 2019 draft? Full context, including a list of all of Seattle’s picks and an examination of what the Seahawks did, here: https://t.co/YnvN79PVRi
— Nick Patterson (@NickHPatterson) April 29, 2019
Roll it all together and more than half the voters — 58 percent — gave Seattle a solid passing grade of B. A fair number of voters — 24 percent —gave the Seahawks a top mark of an A, while 14 percent handed out a middling mark of C. Just 4 percent deemed Seattle draft either a D or an F.
These grades are largely in line with the reaction from the national media, as most outlets had the Seahawks in the B range. When analysts deviated away from B, they tended to edge higher, mainly because of the value of Seattle’s added picks when trading down, and it seems the voters concur.
It’s hard to get too excited about a draft when the highest selection is 29th overall and there’s no name quarterback taken. I’ve heard a fair amount of talk about how Seahawk fans are kind of left out of the NFL draft hoopla because of Schneider’s penchant for trading down and even out of the first round — what point is there of having a first-round draft-day party if more likely than not the team isn’t going to end up picking in the first round?
But then, how much of that excitement is warranted, anyway? No one really knows how well any team did in the draft, and it’s going to be years before we can make an intelligent evaluation of how a team did with its draft.
So maybe a B grade is as appropriate as it gets.
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