NFL Draft 2014: John Schneider meets with media, talks about decision to trade back

Seahawks GM John Schneider met briefly with the media after Thursday night's 1st Round, talking about the way that the Draft went down on day one and where his team sits going into day two. First up in the series of questions was about Seattle's decision to trade down with Minnesota instead of picking at #32.

"We were talking to a number of teams there right until the end, and Minnesota stayed with it, so we went with them," he said. "We talked to I think, probably five or six teams. [Minnesota was] just real persistent, so it worked out great. Plus they're really good guys to deal with, so...

"We have a great relationship with those guys ... Rick [Speilman] and George [Paton] ... Matt Thomas [Seahawks cap guru] used to work with them, and we've done several trades with them. They're challenging Detroit, I guess."

(For most trades with the Hawks).

"There were some good players there, but we had the opportunity to grab another pick, another fourth round pick -- another player -- so we saw value in the trade, and we're just excited to pick tomorrow. Just got to see how tomorrow goes. Right now we're picking 40, so we'll see what happens."

More interesting though were some of Schneider's comments on how the board fell for them today and how things are shaping up for the second and third rounds.

"There are a number of players (on our board) that would have been suitable at 32 and would still be suitable at 40 as well," he said. "There are several guys that we hope will be there tomorrow, but if somebody comes tomorrow with something we can't turn down, then we'll look at that as well."

Oh?

"I was hoping (we'd trade down), absolutely," he replied when asked if this was what they had planned for. "Just the way our 2nd and 3rd rounds look. I think you saw all those players at the top -- all those players that everyone's talking about -- we saw all those guys leave, so we just kinda ...watched them all go.. but we have a couple of players that we're interested in, but yeah."

Essentially, Schneider saying that the meat of their draft board hits in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, and they have a big group of players to choose from there with similar grades. This gives them flexibility to trade back and still pick up highly-rated players for their team. As Schneider relates,

"Every year there are 'upsets,' we call them 'upsets,' where it's actually a good thing, you know, because it keeps our board kind of intact. So, you just expect a certain number of those as you go, and this year there were more, so it worked out great."

In other words, teams pick players that they don't have as highly graded, and this pushes "their guys" down further into the draft.

"That's why we felt even better at the end about being able to move back," said Schneider. "We were ready to pick, but it just worked out that way."

Day two should be exciting.