A Children's Treasury of Players Picked #4 Overall

Only a few busts really. Robertson and Smith are pretty much the only ones this decade that haven’t developed into something ‘ok’. Not everyone there is dominate, but I can’t lie, I’m a fan of the Draft separate of my fanhood for the Hawks, and this opportunity for them to pick this high is pretty exciting.

I want either Monroe, Smith, Mays or Crabtree, probably in that order.

I just feel OT is clearly our biggest need and concern for the future, above even Quarterback. I will be surprised if we draft a QB honestly, to me it just doesn’t make sense for us to do. I have a hard time believing Seattle will pick in the top 5 too many more times with the rest of this core group of players, I could be wrong, but we have the talent to compete now.

With Jones’ injury, age, and decline you have to acknowledge the fact that our line is a drastic NEED in my opinion. A blue chip tackle can play now and for years, plus improves our depth, which has clearly been a problem for us recently.

S would be nice, but I just don’t see it unless we trade down, which I just don’t see happening unless we get a good enough offer, which to me has to be a 2 late round 1sts. Or a 1st and 2nd from a team in love with a QB or Crabtree.

For some reason this is really exciting to me.

and it’s obvious to me..

from the looks of it, most people feel that not taking advantage and drafting a QB is detrimental to our team because Hasselbeck is far from a lock to play next year, or for that matter the next couple, or at least in a positive way.

So if that is in fact the case, and we draft a QB, a series of events will then have to follow

we

A. have hass on the team still, or we cut him. either way it’s money. risk of keeping is injury and regression, financial if we keep 2 qbs at high salry. risk of cutting is financial and risk of inexperience.
 
B. are still relying on Walter Jones to be effective next year, for either Hasselbeck, a rookie, or more likely a decent veteran. to me the line has been our biggest weakness.

C. we are paying a top 4 QB to likely sit, and even if he starts, are taking a risk.

and finally

D. which to me is what we forget, that we still have a core group of players on this team th at are getting paid money to win. Trufant, Peterson, Tatupu, Jones, Hasselbeck, J.Jones, Branch.. are all not playing for cheap, and most are either in their prime, passed it, or getting close.

to me we have clearly shown interest in developing our line with picks like simms, spencer, wrotto and willis.

none of them have developed at the rate we want, and therefore our line has suffered.

throw in the fact we have a 33 yr old guard in Wahle

to me we have no guaranteed playmakers on our line in terms of a linchpin tackle or guard that can give much help, to me, if we miss out on a top talent on the Oline, we are risking the development of our QB of the future, and also to me admitting that we are no longer trying to win this year or next, but that we are ok with paying huge salaries to players on a team that would then be rebuilding.

The Seahawks 2009 NFL Draft

Fact: The #4 pick will demand about $10M/yr over 5-6 years. The #10 pick will demand about half that, and the #20 pick about half of that, or $3M/yr.
Fact: Seattle is a small market team with the 24th ranked team salary at about $99M. That means only 8 teams have a slightly smaller team salary, and league leading Dallas spends over 50% more on player salaries with a total of over $150M.
Fact: The highest paid players on the roster are Marcus Trufant, Matt Hasselbeck and Patrick Kerney at $8.1M, $6.7M and $6.6M, respectively. They are followed by Wahle, Jones, Locklear and Peterson all in the $5M+ range.

Team Need: Everyone seems to agree that Seattle needs a long-term replacement for Walter Jones and a premier wide receiver. I agree completely, however, we can’t afford to spend $10M/yr on a rookie, and we have other needs such as Safety and Corner where we got ate up. We may be stuck with our running back situation due to multi-year contracts. And then there is QB.

Fact: Hasselbeck is 33 with 2 years left on his contract and has been injury prone lately. Wallace is a solid backup and also has 2 years left. Frye is a free agent now and is third string for a reason. Could there be a better time to draft the future franchise QB? If not now, when? The only issue is who, and at what price. (For my money, I’d rather take a chance with a second or third round pick of Mark Sanchez at a much smaller salary commitment and give him 2 years under Hasselbeck than spend big money on the higher rated QB’s, but I would pull the trigger on someone in the 2nd or 3rd round)

Opinion: Most mocks have the Lions and Rams taking an OT at 1 and 2, although some suggest Stafford to the Lions at 1. If the Lions don’t take him, some mocks have KC taking him at 3. This draft is said to be pretty deep with talented OT’s, but that is also the position of most need throughout the league. No less than 9 teams need a starter out of the draft or through free agency. For that reason, five, six or even seven OT’s could go in the 1st round, meaning a high second round pick may only net the 6th, 7th or even 8th OT. As a result, I expect a run on OT’s again. Since OT is the number one need for all three teams picking ahead of us, and since the Rams and Chiefs can’t be guaranteed of another shot at a great prospect in the second round, I expect them to take the 3 premier OT’s, Smith, Monroe and Oher. Consensus is that there is a drop off in potential after those 3. If they do as I suggest, I think there is a chance of trading down as someone may want to move up to nab Stafford. I’m thinking specifically of the Niners at 10. QB is really their most pressing need. They won’t need to trade up for Bradford, in fact he’d be a reach at 10, but they may covet Staffords cannon arm. Trading down to 10 should net their 2nd pick at 53 as a minimum (maybe more). We should be able to net a stud CB like Vontae Davis or FS like Taylor Mays at 10, then either grab the best wide receiver on the board at 37, Jeremy Maclin (my favorite if he’s still around), Juaquin Iglesias or Percy Harvin, OR dive into the OL pool for a tackle or guard. At 53 we could go QB, WR, OT, DT or OLB, depending on what we did at 37 and the best available player.

Conclusion: Since we don’t even know for certain which underclassman will declare for the draft, and since intangibles measured during interviews or at the combine play a big part, trying to pick specific players is futile. The sound strategy however, would seem to me to be obvious. Try to trade down again, and garner extra picks in the 2nd through 4th rounds. Despite the conventional wisdom, use the first pick to shore up the secondary, get 2 or 3 solid players for the price of 1, and maybe even have money for a free-agent prospect. I would add that I’m not convinced yet that Wallace can’t be as good (or better) as Hasselbeck (the old Hasselbeck) given more experience, but with only 2 years left on each of their contracts, we have to have a plan for the future.

I would also let Leroy Hill go to free agency and play Heller or Lewis (if retained) or a rookie in order to make salary room. We can’t afford to spend 15% of the entire payroll on 3 linebackers.

If we are stuck with #4 and can’t trade down, we’d have to go with the best player at their position, a dominant physical freak of nature. The only guys being talked about like that are USC FS Taylor Mays and Wake Forest OLB Aaron Curry. With all due respect, I don’t see a Jake Long among the OT’s, or a Julius Peppers among the DE’s. If we have to make a rookie the top paid player on the team, he better be special. Despite what the boards say, I’d take Taylor Mays. He can be an immediate starter, and seriously upgrade both pass and run defense and he hits like a freight train. Adding Aaron Curry to two probowl linebackers would be great, but not so great when opponents effectively pass over them. I don’t see Michael Crabtree being the dominant receiver in the mold of TO, Chad Johnson or Fitzerald, in spite of his great success at TX Tech. I’ve seen a few underclassman during the bowl games who do fit that mold (Dez Bryant-OK St) and who will be coming out next year.