Greetings Fellow Seahawks Fans!

It's that time of year when we all look forward to any Free Agent Signings, Trades or other news that involved our Hawks, while we wait for Draft Day in April. While we are on the Subject, Allow me to plug the "Armchair GM Challenge" that my man @JohnPGilbertNFL puts together every year. John does a fantastic Job, Setting things up so we can all play GM and take our best shot at Guessing Which Players the Seahawks will Draft! In my neighborhood, I'll be setting up a Draft Party to kick off this aforementioned contest between a group of my friends and neighbors. It was a fun time and a great way to draft some more casual fans into the offseason conversations and get them to learn a little more about the game and the team. (Shameless plug is over)

If you're one of the 8 or 9 people reading this, I say Thank You! AND I assume you must be a rabid Seahawks Fan! Now, on to the article!

In this Scenario, The Bears have already drafted DT Jalen Carter with the 1st overall pick and the Cardinals have taken DE Will Anderson Jr. with the 3rd pick. Houston and Indy have each taken a QB, whichever two of the top four (Anthony Richardson FLORIDA, Will Levis KENTUCKY, CJ Stroud OHIO STATE or Bryce Young ALABAMA) so, having seen their top two Targets already come off the Board, JS and PC decide to trade down the 5th pick for more picks. In that Scenario, I am offering 20 things that can help strengthen their hand and land us the most draft capital from a trade down. Here we go...

1.) Raiders are unable to secure a trade for Derek Carr, and are forced to release him, putting them in the group of TEAMS that now NEED a Quarterback in 2023!

2.) Aaron Rodgers Retires from Football.

3.) OR Aaron Rodgers decides to stay with the Packers. Either 2 or 3 mean that he doesn't go somewhere else and fill that teams need for a QB.

4.) The 49ers find out that Purdy won't be ready until the middle of the Season. (Although I DO NOT wish this bad news on Purdy, I think he's good for the game and a great story) If this happens, this could force the 49ers to re-sign Jimmy G. to have a starter at the start of the season while they wait for Lance or Purdy to heal.

5.) Jimmy G. Signs with a team other than the Falcons, Panthers, Colts, Texans or Raiders. *more on this later

6.) Derek Carr Signs with a team other than the Falcons, Panthers, Colts or Texans. *more on this later.

7.) The Bears Sign Javon Hargrave, IDL to a contract. This might cause them to take a player other than Jalen Carter, which would mean he or Will Anderson Jr. may fall to the Seahawks, which ideally is what they might be looking for anyway.

8.) The Cardinals Sign Javon Hargrave, IDL, to a contract. This might cause them to take a player other than Will Anderson Jr. who may then fall to the Seahawks at 5, which, again, is ideally what they might be looking for anyway.

9.) The Cardinals OR Bears sign Daron Payne, IDL, to a contract. Similarly, that would mean one of these players falls to the Seahawks at 5....

10.) The Lions Sign Daron Payne, IDL, or Javon Hargrave, IDL to a contract. This might cause them to look at one of their other needs, LB or CB, with the 6th pick. This is important, because if Seattle is dead set on trading down within the top 9 picks, but still coming away with a starting DE or IDL, the Lions already taking one might allow Wilson or Klancy (whom is rapidly moving up the big boards on PFF and ESPN) to fall to them at 7/8/9 and allow them to "have their cake and eat it too")

11.) Seahawks Re-sign Rashaad Penny. Before you poo-poo this idea, Remember that in his last 10 games, he has rushed 149 times for 1017 yards and 8 TD's. For those of you without a calculator or a cell phone, that works out to 6.8 yards per carry! We WANT this to happen, because Penny wants to come back and with his injury history, would likely land at another one year deal, this time in the 1-2 million range to go along with K9 and DeeJay Dallas. We WANT THIS so that PC isn't tempted to draft Bijon Robinson in the first round and we can spend our first 3 picks on Defense!

12.) Seahawks Sign Free Agent G, Isaac Seumalo, in the first wave of Free Agency. Seattle will almost certainly cut Jackson to save some cap so we will need a Right Guard. Seumalo has played both Guard Positions and even filled in at Center, so adding a player that versatile is right up JS's alley AND having already secured a starting Guard, this would prevent PC from Reaching for Guard O'Cyrus Torrence with pick #20. (and Yes, we haven't event held the Combine yet, so O'Cyrus may move up considerably after but on Valentines Day, I wouldn't want to take him at 20)

13.) Jets QB's Zach Wilson and Mike White, go out on the town and end up getting arrested for something stupid and face 3-6 game suspensions to start the season. This could convince the Jets that they need to move up and get their next QB. (No, again, not encouraging this, but if it happens, meh, I'm a fan of my Team, Does anyone really care what happens to the Jets?)

14.) Patriots QB Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe, end up in Vegas, during "Zappe Hour" and end up getting arrested for something stupid and face 3-6 game suspensions to start the season. same scenario, Bill doesn't have much patience for bad behavior or something that makes the team look bad, so if this happens, the more teams who need a QB, the better!

15.) Seahawks Sign Geno Smith to a 2/3/4 year deal and also re-sign Drew Lock as his back-up. This would settle things down with the idea of Seattle taking a QB in round 1 (although they could/should still take one in rounds 3/4/5/6 or 7 to kick the tires on a potential future starting QB once Geno retires)

16.) Multiple TEAMS in the QB market fall in love with the same Quarterback! Whether that's the Raiders and Falcons, both enamored with Anthony Richardson or Will Levis, doesn't really matter, as long as there are TWO Suitors for whichever QB remains after Houston and Indy choose theirs. And this needs to be L-O-V-E Genuine, TRUE LOVE! Teams can't just have a crush on them OR be Smitten by them, they have to FALL head-over-heals in LOVE!

17.) Geno Smith won't receive any Suspension for his January 2022 Arrest. While Geno expressed last September that "those things will get taken care of..." The NFL has a way of waiting months, sometimes YEARS, after anything that makes the Shield look bad, before doling out a suspension. If we see Geno with even a 3 game suspension from his, "Reckless Driving" incident or whatever it ended up being, the NFL is always watching and could decide to do something way after the incident itself. Look no further than Jarran Reed's 6 game suspension in 2019 stemming from an incident that occurred in 2017. I wouldn't put it past the NFL and RG to come at Geno with a 3 game suspension. Should this happen, All bets are off and PC & JS may decide indeed to use pick #5 for a future QB.

18.) 19.) and 20.) None of the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers or LV Raiders teams sign a starting Quarterback to a significant contract before the draft, preventing them from wanting to draft a rookie QB!

Alright, so, Let's say ALL or MOST of these things happen. We get to draft Day and Seattle holds pick 5 with the exact scenario I spelled out at the top coming to fruition. We see both players Seattle wanted for DL line and the first two QB's off the board. This is where things get interesting. If we use one of the modern NFL Draft Value Charts, which are all variations of the Jimmy Johnson 3000 points for pick 1 this year, 1500 points for pick 1 next year, scale, A base trade for moving up from pick 7,8 or 9 this year to pick 5 looks something like this:

TEAM X receives Seattle 2023 Pick 1-5

Seahawks receive 2023 pick 1-X(7,8 or 9)

pick in round 3 in 2023

pick in round 1 in 2024

pick in round 3 in 2024

BUT, with ALL THREE TEAMS picking at 1-7,1-8-1-9, the leverage could easily become:

Seahawks receive 2023 First Round Pick

pick in round 3 in 2023

pick in round 4 in 2023

pick in round 1 in 2024

pick in round 2 in 2025

*There is precedent from teams moving up in the first round as recently as 2021, when the SF 49ers moved up to take Trey Lance and swapped 1st round picks in 2021 with Miami, but also gave up their 3rd round pick in 2021 as well as their 1st round picks in 2022 and 2023. While neither of the 3 teams involved in this scenario are looking to move up 9 places, with THREE TEAMS wanting NEEDING one of TWO QB's left, They Might as well be......

Go Hawks!