I have no idea what the Seahawks are going to do this draft, but gosh darn it all, if I am ever excited to find out. New coach, possibly a new mindset on the type of players he’s going to want, and the first draft to usher in this new area. I’m stoked for all of this, but I’m just not going to put myself through the agony of predicting anything.

My gut tells me that it is more likely that they trade back then stay put at pick 16 (or trade up). This is a deep draft at offensive line, quarterback, and receiver. There’s some good looking defensive tackles and edge rushers set to go round one, as well, and some interesting corners. These are all players at premium positions, and one of them could be a Seattle Seahawk this Thursday. Whether Seattle stays put, or trades back, or shocks everyone by trading up, they are poised to get a very good football player.

In this final mock draft article, I am going with my gut, and am projecting a trade back. I think there is going to be a run of quarterbacks and receivers early that are going to push some really good players down the boards, and there is going to be a championship contending team who is going to be will to make a deal with John Schneider that he is going to like.

For Schlitz and giggles I am going to say that our trade partner is the Green Bay Packers who Schneider has a healthy relationship with. A prized cornerback becomes available where Seattle is picking, and while Seattle is in no great need for this corner, the Packers do. They send picks 25 and 58 to Seattle, and Schneider gets his wish to trade back, collecting a valuable second round pick.

Beyond this trade, I am projecting the Seahawks to be purposeful in selecting guys who they believe are going to fit the scheme, and culture of their new coaching staff. Mike Macdonald feels like a straight shooting no nonsense fella. I think he’s going to want players who will embody that vibe, who he will count on to play hard for him, and will take to harder coaching.

Here is my final mock draft demonstrating the spirit of this.

With the 25th pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Bo Nix, Quarterback, Oregon

Seattle sees a talented quarterback who they believe has the skills, personality, and maturity to mesh beautifully with their new head coach Mike Macdonald. Seattle sees five quarterbacks go in front of them inside the top fifteen, and keep fingers crossed that Nix might be available after the trade back. He is, and they take him.

With the 58th pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select T’Vondre Sweat, Defensive Tackle, Texas

This pick comes with controversy similar the Frank Clark selection in 2015, as Sweat has recently been busted for a DUI. Where Bo Nix’s persona is all about high character, Sweat is regarded as a partier who doesn’t keep his weight in check. However, at 6-4 and 366 pounds, few humans can do what he does in a football uniform. He’s a true space eater who can soak up blockers, and he can collapse the middle of an offensive line. He will have Jarran Reed, Leonard Williams, and Johnathan Hankins to show him the ropes of being a professional. Further thoughts about him later in this piece.

With the 81st pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Brandon Coleman, Guard, TCU

Coleman was a three year starter at left tackle in college and was a team captain. He projects as a guard in the NFL, and has the traits to be a good pass blocking one. Seattle can put him behind Laken Tomlinson and allow him to develop and they have an offensive line coach in Scott Huff known for converting tackles to guard while coaching in college. Coleman is an explosive athlete with underrated upside, and can play tackle if needed.

With the 102nd pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Jeremiah Trotter Junior, Linebacker, Clemson

Though undersized and maybe not a top athlete, Trotter has NFL genes, he’s smart, instinctive, plays with discipline, and has proven effective both as a blitzer and in coverage. This is important to Macdonald.

With the 118th pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Javon Solomon, Edge Rusher, Troy

Like Trotter, Solomon comes in undersized, but plays fast, instinctive, and was very productive. He plays with good leverage that makes him hard to block against the run, and he’s bendy around the corners with good use of hands as a rusher. He can also effectively drop in space. I like this guy for Macdonald’s defense.

With the 179th pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Kamren Kinchens, Safety, Miami

At one point last season, Kitchens was projected to be a top safety prospect, but unspectacular testing results at the combine are likely going to hurt his draft stock. Some team is going to get a really good safety later on in the draft with him, though. Here, Seattle does.

With the 192nd pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Beaux Limmer, Center/Guard, Arkansas

Limmer is experienced at guard and center in college, and he displays good technique. He’s also a decent athlete. For some reason, he’s projected to be a later round pick, and if this proves true, he’d be a great pickup here as a quality depth player. Seattle swoops in.

With the 235th pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Luke McCaffery, Wide Receiver, Rice

This is a fun pick with McCaffery’s big brother Christian playing for the San Francisco 49ers, but it also makes sense, if he’s still around late in the draft. He has natural hands, and can run a decent route. He is new to the position, though, as a former quarterback converted to receiver, but if he is sitting there late, definitely worth taking a flyer on.

Thoughts about this final mock draft for the Seahawks

I don’t know if any of these guys end up Seattle Seahawks, but each of them feels like Seahawks in terms of what I sense this team wants moving forward. I think they are searching for high character guys. I think they want leaders, and guys who will fight hard, and will bring an extra gear of juice to games. This is how their last two drafts have gone, and I think they lean further into it in this coming one.

Why do I have Seattle selecting Bo Nix in the first round, you ask?

Well, if you were to set aside your Husky bias for a moment, I think I can explain it. Here are my own thoughts on him.

NFL draft pundits are all over the map with him. Some say he won’t make it past Denver’s pick at 12, while others say he’s a guy who teams will try to target in the second round. For what it is worth, the same thing has been said about Michael Penix Junior, so Nix isn’t alone in bipolar projections (although Penix is gaining a lot of last minute buzz about being a top 15 pick).

When I look a Bo Nix, I just think there is a strong chance he is both a John Schneider guy and a Mike Macdonald fella. He’s well built at 6-2 and 214 pounds, and he’s a capable scrambler who throws very well on the run. On top of being football smart, and accurate with the football, he’s also regarded as an exceptionally strong leader. The people down in Eugene rave about the positive impact he brought to their culture and locker room. He’s extremely experienced in college, and as a coach’s son, he’s all football.

Like Penix, he possesses big hands, and for John Schneider, I think that is a big deal. While he doesn’t have the arm canon of Penix, he grips the ball well, pump fakes well in cold wet weather, and get the ball out quickly and accurately while setting up defenders. In boxing terms, he boxes smart (at least this is what it has looked like in all the games I have watched from him).

He can also throw a pretty deep ball, and I don’t believe that gets talked about enough in the media because of all the short easier completions he was asked to do at Oregon. He’s also proven to be very durable in college, and that is going to be a positive checkmark for a lot of coaches.

I stand firm in my belief of Bo Nix. I have watched just as many Oregon Duck games as I have watched Husky games. I have good vibes on him and Penix. I think their floors are really good, and while Penix might have the much hirer ceiling with his superior arm talent, I don’t think Nix is exactly a popgun armed quarterback who is going to be a check down Charlie at the next level. I think he can be a good starter in this league for a long time, if he gets into the right situation. I think Seattle would be that right situation for him.

I also think Nix could really be an ideal Mike Macdonald kind of guy. I can see potentially a great personality fit, and in many ways, I think it makes sense for Seattle to take the plunge now at drafting a quarterback to partner with the new head coach moving forward, if the right guy is there, even though they might have greater immediate needs on the team.

Enough on the quarterback, though, and onto perhaps the more controversial projection in this mock draft. Bo Nix taken in round one will surely raise a few Husky eyebrows, but the next guy I have projected in this mock to Seattle might induce some actual rage with fans and media members.

T’Vondre Sweat, with his recent DUI, and his chill attitude about his playing weight, would instantly draw criticism from some of the talking heads in the Seattle sports media scene. I have seen this movie a few times over.

Seattle has shown a track record taking risks on potentially impactful defensive linemen with character red flags. Bruce Irvin, Frank Clark, and Malik MacDowell all had issues either with the law (Irvin and Clark) or motivation (MacDowell). Irvin and Clark had successful stays in Seattle, but MacDowell did an extremely knuckleheaded thing on an ATV that all but destroyed his football year before it got going. Each of those selections drew sharp criticism in the local media, and I would expect no different if Seattle drafted Sweat.

Why then do I think Seattle could still do this, even with the history of the MacDowell situation?

Here are a few remarks that NFL analyst Lance Zierlien has noted about him on his profile on NFL.com’s webpage.

Tall, wide, and extremely powerful

Devours blocks, allowing linebackers to operate in space

Has the ability to crater the pocket if the center doesn’t help to block him

At 6-4 and 366 pounds, Sweat is unusually gifted as a nose tackle who cannot be single blocked, and has enough athleticism for his gigantic size to factor as an inside pass rusher. If Mike Macdonald really does love his linebackers as much as he has professed to adore them, getting a huge dude like Sweat in front of them to soak up blockers and gum up the middle of an offensive line would literally be a ginormous gift.

Personality wise, I don’t believe Sweat is at all like MacDowell, who may not have been the best teammate in college and didn’t seem to take to coaching very well. At Texas, while known as a fun loving guy, I think he was actually a pretty good teammate, and Brock Huard noted on his morning radio show the other day that he has a personality that you naturally gravitate towards.

Also, Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy (a dude very connected to Seattle) noted that Sweat demonstrated an ability during Senior Bowl practices to take to harder coaching. This last part makes me believe he is a fit for Mike Macdonald in Seattle. Not only is he physically the exact type of player they need at nose tackle, he is also the type of player who the coaches could be able to maximize with a harder no-nonsense brand of coaching that we are now likely to see.

At the end of the day, Macdonald is going to want talented players who are coachable, and Sweat checks off both boxes. If John Schneider takes him, he will feel the heat from some local media members for sure, but they can incentivize his rookie contract with performance and off field behavioral clauses (I believe they did this with Clark). In my opinion, I think it’s a very worthy roll of the dice for greatness.

Brandon Coleman is a guy that I have mocked in the third round to Seattle a couple times now. He was a good pass blocking left tackle in college who wis an explosive athletic tester, and he projects to slide into left guard at the next level.

Seattle is heavily connected to UW’s Troy Fautanu as a player people are projecting to Seattle at pick 16 as a tackle who could be converted to guard at the next level. It would be outstanding if Seattle were to draft him, but I kinda think Fauntanu is going to be well off the board by then.

Coleman could be a decent backup plan later on. He’s not the tenacious run blocker Fautanu is, but he could be potentially a very good pass blocking guard, and offensive line coach Scott Huff does have a history transitioning tackles to guards in college. Coleman was a team captain at TCU, and there is no reason to think that he can’t be coached up to become a more aggressive and effective run blocker. With veteran Laken Tomlinson brought in as a stop gap, this buys time for a talented guy like Coleman to ease into the transition. I really like him for Seattle.

Jeremiah Trotter Junior is another guy I have mocked to the Seahawks twice, and believe is the right character fit filling a need. He was a team leader at Clemson, started a ton of games, called the plays, showed well in coverage, and was a timely blitzer. His dad was a long time NFL linebacker, so you can feel confident he probably knows ball at a pretty high level. He’s not the biggest guy, and he doesn’t have blazing speed, but he’s probably fast enough. In the fourth round, I can see Seattle willing to take a shot on him.

Javon Solomon is a guy I am late on, but I think provides intriguing value in early day three of the draft. At 6-1 246 pounds, he is a compact edge rusher with long arms and some decent enough athletic testing numbers to make you think there is stuff to work with at the next level. Like Trotter, he was a highly productive college player who played with great instincts and he comes into the league already demonstrating a number of pass rush moves. He also plays the run really well. If Seattle wants to come out of this draft with another quality edge defender, he could be a player to keep in mind in the mid rounds.

Kamren Kinchens is just a really good football player at safety, and could see a big slide through the draft because he wasn’t a great athletic tester in gym shorts, and the safety position, as a whole, is becoming more devalued through the draft process. Like Trotter, and Solomon, he’s an instinctual player who plays with a good understanding of the game, and he was a team leader. I think he’s exactly the type of young safety Mike Macdonald might be looking for.

It would be stunning to me of Beaux Limmer lasted late into the sixth round of the draft, but every year that I watch this thing, I see good players still available well into the last stretches. He’s long and strong, and has plenty of experience at guard and center. I think he’s exactly what you are looking for in a backup player capable of filling in at both spots, and Seattle is going to need to step out of this draft with at least two offensive linemen. If they land Coleman and Limmer, I think we can call that a pretty successful haul for what they need on the interior of their offensive line.

Luke McCaffery is just a fun idea at wide receiver, and I would like to see Seattle take a shot at one in this draft class which is rich at the position. I wouldn’t mind it if they took a shot at him earlier than what I am projecting here. On top of showing traits that translate to the league, I think it’s a fun idea to draft Christian’s little brother to further stoke the flames of the Seattle San Francisco rivalry. How’s dad Ed McCaffery going to handle these two games out of the years on Sundays? 49er jersey and Seahawks cap? Fun stuff.

Final final thoughts on this coming draft

I know that I have come across as wanting Seattle to draft a quarterback this year, but I am fine with kicking that can down the line another year if the right player isn’t available. I can see the merit of going other positions and seeing what you might have with Sam Howell as a guy to further develop potentially as a long term starter.

That said, if by chance Michael Penix Junior is sitting at pick 16, and Seattle passes him over for another position, I will blow a gasket. I can take it if he is drafted in front of Seattle, and they punt on Bo Nix, if he is sitting there. For the many reasons I already described, I like Nix a lot, but I need Penix in Seattle, if that is possible.

In my opinion, Penix to Seattle feels like the most logical move to come out of this draft. A couple weeks ago, I did a mock article where Seattle traded up to the 10 spot to take him. They have his offensive coordinator here, and he would come in with A+ arm talent knowing this system perhaps better than Geno Smith and Sam Howell. If Seattle really does want him, I think they should do whatever to make sure he is a Seahawk, and that includes trading up. Just go get him.

On the contrary to this, if they pass an opportunity to draft Penix with him being available at 16, I will damn near lose my mind. If they pass on him, and he ends up being taken by the LA Rams, I will absolutely lose my marbles, you can bank of that.

If you are a fan of my more toxic side filtering out as a writer, the side that I demonstrated when the mediocre Pittsburgh Steelers came into Seattle late last season, and made Bobby Wagner their chew toy, you should root for the scenario of John Schneider passing on Penix and then seeing him drafted by the Rams at pick 19. I am praying that this does not happen. I don’t think it will. I suspect that he does not get past Denver, who is picking at 12, and there is buzz already that the Raiders are looking at him at 13, but none the less, Seattle passing on Penix is the one scenario that I don’t have the fortitude to handle. I cannot have that.

That said, I think it is about 60/40 whether they even take a quarterback at all this year. I think they are aiming for one. I suspect that they dig Penix for all the very obvious reasons. I also have a hunch that they are keen on Nix, and are possibly really into Spencer Rattler, as well. If they don’t land any of the top seven or eight guys, however, I kinda don’t think they will draft one this year, though. This is the reason they traded for Sam Howell. They can say he is a part of this class, and I believe that they really do like him.

I think that they are most definitely going to look to add to the trenches on both sides of the ball. I am not completely convinced that they go offensive line with their first pick, however, if it is not a quarterback. I think there is a strong chance they could take either the best defensive tackle, or edge rusher prospect on their board, and then look towards the offensive line further down the line.

Part of the reason why I think Seattle is eyeing pass rush in the first round is that Jim Nagy mentioned on Twitter X a while back that he didn’t believe Seattle would go offensive line with their first pick. I think it stands to reason that maybe he’s privy to things about Seattle that others are not. This is also partly why I think they might actually go quarterback round one like I am projecting in this final mock draft.

The other reason why I think Seattle might go pass rusher in round one is that it could ultimately make the most sense for their new head coach who was hired to finally build back an elite defense in Seattle (something Pete Carroll ultimately failed to do after the collapse of the LOB defense). Seattle might feel like their offense is close enough to completion that going defense is the bigger need, and they want to ensure a quick turnaround on that side of the ball in year one of Macdonald’s regime. This is why I had them stay put in last week’s mock draft article, selecting Florida State edge rusher Jared Verse.

Ultimately, staying put at 16 and taking a guy like Verse could be the most likely thing for Seattle in a few days. It could also be for Texas defensive tackle Byron Murphy II, who is regarded as the best interior pass rusher in this class. If either one of these guys ends up a Seattle Seahawk this Thursday, you can get plenty excited about that.

I just can’t have them pass on Michael Penix Junior. The disappoint level of that would be equivalent to learning that my wife is a Russian spy. I can’t have that. Hopefully, I won’t.

Go Hawks.