Undrafted rookie Ahlers has inside track on Seahawks’ 3rd QB job

By Bob Condotta / The Seattle Times

RENTON — The Seattle Seahawks made clear how comfortable they feel about their quarterback position when they decided not to use any of their 10 picks in the draft last month to add to the duo of Geno Smith and Drew Lock.

Not that they didn’t think about it. Had Florida’s Anthony Richardson been available at five, they may have had a tough decision. With Richardson gone (as well as Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud, whom the team never figured would be available), they had what they portrayed as a relative slam-dunk to take cornerback Devon Witherspoon of Illinois.

Maybe to the surprise of some, the Seahawks passed on the rest of the quarterback field, thinking none were worth adding to the mix to take away reps from Lock, who at just 26 years old is a player they think has a lot of potential.

When the Seahawks re-signed Lock on a one-year deal worth up to $4 million, they essentially committed to him as the backup and they want to give him as much work as possible in camp and preseason.

Still, the Seahawks are certain to have a third quarterback on the roster — at least on the practice squad if not on the 53-man as they did last year with veteran Sean Mannion.

They added the then-30-year-old Mannion in camp last year and kept him on the practice squad all season, liking his veteran presence in the meeting room and familiarity with the offense of coordinator Shane Waldron. The two were together with the Rams.

This year the Seahawks have taken a different approach. Earlier this week they signed undrafted free-agent rookie Holton Ahlers of East Carolina as the third quarterback on the 90-man roster behind Smith and Lock.

Ahlers, 23, was one of four quarterbacks they had in for rookie minicamp this weekend.

But the other three were tryout players — Jack Coan, who played at Notre Dame and Wisconsin and with San Antonio of the XFL, as well as Reece Udinski of Richmond and Connor Degenhardt of Division II New Haven.

As might be expected, it was the QB actually on the 90-man roster — Ahlers — who appeared to get the bulk of the work in team sessions during minicamp and went first in the rotations during drills.

Ahlers, a 6-foot-3, 227-pound left-hander, impressed during a seven-on-seven late in Saturday’s workout with three on-the-money completions, one a deep pass to E.J. Hicks, a tryout receiver from North Carolina Central who had a handful of catches throughout the day.

“He seems really confident in himself,” coach Pete Carroll said after Friday’s practice.

Ahlers certainly has some reasons to be as his bio is littered with impressive collegiate numbers.

Ahlers was not only a four-year starter at East Carolina, with 50 starts, but a four-time team captain, setting 10 school records while also finishing seventh in total yards in FBS history with 15,379 (13,933 passing, which ranks 11th in FBS history, and 1,446 rushing) and also accounting for 122 total touchdowns (97 passing and 25 rushing).

As Carroll gleefully noted, Ahlers was just as prolific in high school, starting all four years at D.H. Conley High in Greenville, N.C., where he was third in state history with 201 total touchdowns (145 passing and 56 rushing). That included throwing for 61 as a senior.

“Come on,” Carroll smiled. “You never heard of anybody throw 61 touchdowns.”

As Carroll also noted, Ahlers worked out of a spread no-huddle offense at East Carolina, in sharp contrast to the prostyle offense he’ll be asked to learn with the Seahawks.

“He’s got some transitions to make because our style is different than what they played,” Carroll said. “They were coming up with plays off the sidelines all the time. No huddle and all that. But he’ll be fine with it. He’s making transitions. But he’s exciting because it’s kind of like the intangibles that you know are there because you’ve been successful for a long time at the position.”

The offense this weekend featured one familiarity — receiver C.J. Johnson, who played with Ahlers at D.H. Conley and East Carolina and was also signed this week as one of the Seahawks’ 25 undrafted rookie free agents. The 6-1, 225-pound Johnson caught 79 TDs in high school and another 21 in college playing alongside Ahlers.