Three Senior Bowl Interests for Seattle

My buddy Michael Lombardo from Scout.com has the names of three players the Seahawks met with during Senior Bowl week. Now, the whole "Team X met with Player Y" thing is generally overheated by the media, but it’s a good time to start getting a collection of players together to anticipate, to a greater or lesser degree, Seattle’s specific interests. If any of these names pop up at the Combine as well (I’ll be going from the 18th though the 22nd) we can start to put a few things together. Well, maybe.

Anyhoo, here are the guys who confirmed with Michael that they talked to Seattle:

Hawaii DE David Veikune: 6-2, 255. 10th-rated DE per NFLDraftScout.com. Showed impressive effort, especially against Michael Oher, during Senior Bowl week. He’s a possible 4-3 end or 3-4 ‘backer (not unlike Everette Brown, who I recently interviewed for a Washington Post story) who put up nine sacks and 16.5 tackles for loss in his senior season. Projected as an early second-day guy, but we’ll see what the Combine tells us.

Connecticut CB Darius Butler: 5-10, 178. Undersized, and NFLDS compares him to Ronde Barber. Here we go again? Well, maybe. Started every game but one in his collegiate career, so there’s that as well. Ruskell likes him some guys with as many starts as possible. Kind a tweener/zone-corner/free-safety type. Haven’t watched him yet, but I will, as Butler sounds like a fit. His stats are misleading since he’s not often targeted, though he had 37 tackles and four pass breakups in 2008. His uncle played in the NFL, and Willis McGahee is his cousin. Deion Sanders sought Butler out to participate in one of his camps, which says something to me.  You may or may not like Deion’s act (he’s grown on me), but I wouldn’t question his ability to spot talent at the position. Probable second-round pick, though he’s on a few sleeper lists as a potential first.

Ohio State WR Brian Robiskie: 6-3, 207. This one made me happy. Robiskie’s another prospect with family ties – his dad Terry played in the NFL for five seasons and has coached receivers at the pro level for a long, long time. Here’s a nice article about their relationship. Robiskie the younger is a First-Team Academic All-American and a Biletnikoff Award semi-finalist who caught 37 balls for 419 yards and eight touchdowns in his senior season, and 55/935/11 in 2007. Not bad for a team that isn’t exactly Quarterback U just yet. Many observers saw him as the most polished and route-correct of the receivers at the Senior Bowl. Top-end speed is lacking, but beggars can’t be choosers and the Seahawks are relying on a big bag of I Don’t Know at the position. Second-round projection at this point, and I don’t know if he’ll zoom up at the Combine. I like him as a hidden value guy and a player who can make a quick difference. And I'm of the opinion that the Seahawks have too many positional needs to make the big splash on Crabtree when there are some nice receivers later on.