Mock simulator draft

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

It’s fun every once in a while to run your draft thoughts through a simulator. It can give you in real-time a sense of players that are moving up, guys that are cooling off, places in the draft where particular position groups may bunch up, and certainly it’s an easy way to look at potential draft trades. Because trades are so easy, I have self-imposed some trade rules: 1) I’ve given myself a max of 4 trades per mock, 2) I’m not allowed to accept any computer offered trades. When the simulator creates the trade offer(s), the value is sometimes overly beneficial to the player. AKA…they’re unrealistic.

I like to make all of my trades before I even start the simulator. This allows me to just focus on the board and the players still on it. So here is what those trades looked like:

I’ve done a lot of mocking and have found 13 picks would be amazing to be able to get to, but I think one of those would have to come from the trade of a player on the current roster. Obviously, I can’t make those kinds of trades in these simulators, but also that trade doesn’t really feel like it’s coming. Certainly not at the highest end of the quality on the roster (meaning DK Metcalf).

We’ve heard multiple times now that this particular draft class may only have 16-20 first round graded players. I believe it was Daniel Jeremiah who said that the difference between pick #20 and pick #40 is minimal. And then he even expanded on that to say that it might be #18 to #45. I like trading back this draft. I like the amount of talent that should be available on day two particularly, and I think, with the salary cap situation John Schneider still has work to do on, we kind of need to plan on trying to fill most of the roster holes via cheap, draft players rather than vet free agents, which everyone seems to be throwing around carelessly (and unrealistically). With those thoughts in mind, I’ve traded entirely out of the 1st round.

#1.39 – DE, Ohio State, JT Tuimoloau

After months of sort of continually mocking Seattle to draft a speed, edge rusher, which this draft is rife with; I’ve recently come around to realizing, I think the idea of DE target should be a bit bigger bodied player. I’m talking 265-275lbs rather than 245-260lbs. Tuimoloau is listed 6’5″/269lbs, and was one of the most-productive DL in the country. He did it on the national champion team, and he got better and better as the Buckeyes got into the playoffs and were facing the best teams in the country.

To recognize that I’m not drafting the best OL still on the board, a couple thoughts: whatever cap space Schneider is able to open up should be spent on a free agent OL, and specifically a center. This OL needs a leader, and I think the no-doubter best leaders in the draft are gone by Seattle’s pick. Secondly, I think the scheme we’re likely walking into can make due with lesser overall talent.

https://twitter.com/BCarwile_NFL/status/1887534957133705382

#2.62 – LB, South Carolina, Demetrius Knight

It currently feels like the consensus around town is that Seattle won’t need a linebacker this early because they will bring back Ernest Jones. I’m not so sure. I think this might be kind of the Drew Lock situation from last year, the team sincerely wants to bring the guy back, but the player doesn’t necessarily want to return. Plus, he might be able to get more money going to a team that has actual, you know, cap space.

The draft is not strong at linebacker, so if they want to draft one, they need to do it early-ish. Knight has been a favorite of mine for months now, and he’s done nothing but climb throughout the season and postseason. Up next for him is the combine, which may really open some people’s eyes on him.

https://twitter.com/Rob__Paul/status/1882889106390495691

#3.72 – QB, Louisville, Tyler Shough

I’ve given up on the idea that Geno Smith will be cut/traded, but by no means does that mean I think Seattle won’t draft one, and that draftee may end up starting sooner than people realize. It may be a variation of the Matt Flynn situation. Seattle NEEDS to get the ball rolling on a successor to Geno. This draft has a number of guys that won’t cost a 1st round pick, but have the potential to fall into the Geno/Russell/Kirk Cousins/Jalen Hurts/Dak Prescott category of QB talent.

As Jaxson Dart has entered the conversation of 1st round QB, maybe even the 2nd QB off the board, I’m already prepared to pivot to Shough, who I think has been very underrated all year. His arm-talent is pretty well-recognized, but I also think his running ability is underrated.

https://twitter.com/_RyanFowler_/status/1891574536719524236

#3.82 – OG, Iowa, Connor Colby

The climb up draft boards has already begun for Colby, and I think it will take another large step after the Combine. A natural right guard, that would be where he slots in for Seattle.

https://twitter.com/Elite_Drafters/status/1888058366510936126

#3.86 – CB, California, Nohl Williams

It took me a long time to sort of self-realize it, but I think CB is a bigger need on this team than I had been thinking during the season. I think Riq Woolen is overrated, and at minimum inconsistent. Jackson Jobe finished the year as a starter, but clearly he can be upgraded. And Devon Witherspoon can’t seem to get out of the slot because the team likes him closer to the snap.

Nohl Williams is rad, and that’s all I have to say about that.

https://twitter.com/dpbrugler/status/1882496483351736747

#3.90 – DL, Nebraska, Ty Robinson

Robinson is a long-time holdover from my mocks all year. The cliffs notes: positional versatility (including fullback), smart, tough, productive.

https://twitter.com/Huskers_film/status/1873403838180491759

#4.108 – DL, Ole Miss, JJ Pegues

Rinse and repeat. I want the duo of Robinson and Pegues to become staples of the Macdonald defense for a decade. It also would be rad to have Robinson lead-block for Pegues in wildcat.

https://twitter.com/Cover3Podcast/status/1315028266877583360

#4.131 – OT, UConn, Chase Lundt

It’s been tough to gauge where the league is valuing Lundt. I feel like this is too low, but it worked in the mock simulator. Lundt gives us an immediate replacement for free agent Stone Forsythe, and also a legit hedge for Abe Lucas’ knee.

https://twitter.com/NoFlagsFilm/status/1872301494864892170

#4.137 – TE, Oregon, Terrance Ferguson

If we’re keeping Metcalf, which we apparently are, I think the bigger draft capital probably goes to the tight end room than wide receiver.

#5.173 – TE, Georgia Tech, Jackson Hawes

It only came to me this week…it’s a pretty good TE draft class…draft two. There are high-end TE that would be interesting in Warren and Arroyo, but there’s also a good number of midround guys. If not Ferguson, or Hawes, I also think Jalin Conyers makes sense for Klint Kubiak who just came from the team where Taysom Hill was the Swiss army knife player.

Ferguson is a nice receiving TE, who can block a little. Hawes is a great blocking TE, who can receive a little. Conyers is a jack of all trades. Get two of them.

#6.187 – OL, Jacksonville State, Clay Webb

I honestly think the move for Seattle won’t be signing Drew Dalman to play center, but they might go after Ryan Kelly on a smaller deal. But behind him, I like the idea of Webb getting a soft-landing without expectation of needing to start immediately, so he can take some time to get back in the habit of playing Center, where he spent most of his time playing in high school.

#6.212 – WR, Washington State, Kyle Williams

I only, very recently, got to looking into Williams, and as I said on twitter, he reminds me of Doug Baldwin. That would be a great type of player to add this late.

#7.236 – WR, Tennessee, Dont’e Thornton

With all of the talk of Tyler Lockett being a cap casualty; I think Seattle needs to do something at WR. Getting two guys with the upside of Williams and Thornton, and who each have unique size and traits; you could, at minimum, replace Lock in the aggregate.

If there’s one thing this mock is egregiously missing…it would be a running back in a strong running back class. It’s always good to draft from the strength(s) of the class, but in this class we have good OL, good DL, good TE, and good RB. We double-dipped, if not triple, on three of the four of those. And there’s a chance you can find one that makes the roster out of rookie free agency.

Total draft:

Post Senior Bowl mock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

We’re just beyond the finish of the week-long Senior Bowl practice and game, the Seahawks have some additional coaching additions on the heels of the Klint Kubiak hire, and so I wanted to get down on the record some adjustments to my most recent Seahawk mock draft.

Most of this comes from running my overall thoughts through an online mock draft simulator just to add some additional levels of cross-checking. I still think a good way of fixing some of the cap issues, while adding capital, is to trade DK Metcalf. I think there are a lot of teams that have cap space for an expensive player, have draftpicks to trade, need a WR1, and in a time when the draft may not have many high-end WR to be found. So, I think that trade still makes sense. Will John Schneider have the stones to do it? That is pretty doubtful, in my mind.

Instead of including the draft capital from trading DK, I’ve over-traded within the simulator. I have five trades that I made. I keep coming back to the idea that we want to come out of this draft with 13 draftpicks. That’s another unlikely outcome. I think I looked and the maximum players Schneider has picked in a single year is 11. Here are the trades:

#1.18 to Baltimore for their picks #1.27 and #2.59. I think Baltimore and Detroit make for the best trade-back partners as the value of the 18 pick should allow us to also get the late-2nd round pick from either of those teams.

There has been some media coverage of the idea that this draft there probably aren’t that many true 1st round talents. Daniel Jeremiah recently tweeted that there won’t be much different between the 20th player picked and the 40th player picked. So, once you’re down to 27, you might as well go down again. I trade pick #27 to Kansas City for pick #1.32 and #3.96.

Personally, I like the talent available in the 3rd round, maybe down into the top 120 overall. I’m gonna look to acquire as many 3rd round picks as I can. I move pick #1.32 to Arizona for pick #2.47 plus #3.78.

The fourth trade sends pick #2.50 to New England for picks #3.69, #3.77, and #4.105. And the fifth pick sends #3.96 to San Francisco for pick #3.99 and #4.112.

Final board has the Seahawks completely move out of the 1st round, but end up with 14 picks. Obviously, that’s even too many picks for what I intended to do, and if we make the DK trade we don’t need that much movement within the draft. But here is the players I end up with all of that draft capital.

Draft board: #2.47, #2.59, #3.69, #3.77, #3.78, #3.82, #3.99, #4.105, #4.112, #4.137, #5.173, #6.187, #6.212, #7.236

#2.47 – DE, Boston College, Donovan Ezeiruaku

In past mocks, I’ve had Seattle draft OL in the 1st round and take a safety, Nick Emmanwori, with an early pick. I’m not sure John Schneider would do the former, and the latter was openly a luxury pick. I’ve kind of cut the fat a bit in this early part of this mock.

Edge is a strong group in this draft class, and it’s good draft practice to take players from the positions of strength in any given year. It’s still not totally clear if Mike Macdonald wants to employ a 6’2″/248lb edge rusher like Ezeiruaku. In 2023 with Baltimore, Macdonald had a diverse cast of DL. Nnamdi Madubuike was 6’3″/305lbs (65% defense snaps), Jadeveon Clowney was 6’5″/266lbs (57% snaps), Kyle Van Noy was 6’3″/255lbs (42% snaps), Michael Pierce at 6’0″/355lbs (55% snaps), etc.

In 2021, when Macdonald went to Michigan to DC, he had Aidan Hutchinson at 265lbs, David Ojabo at 250lbs, Mazi Smith at 326lbs, Mike Morris at 278lbs. Again, a high variance of bodytypes, but these weren’t necessarily players that Macdonald had a hand in recruiting.

So it remains to be seen exactly what structure Macdonald would choose in his DL room given the time and resources to build them to his ideal. What I do know is that when you study the history of edge rushers; one of the predictive traits historically is pointing towards a group of players this year that includes Abdul Carter, Mike Green, Ezeiruaku, Landon Jackson, Bradyn Swinson, and Oluwafemi Oladejo. I like the value of EZ in the 2nd over Green in the 1st or Swinson in, say, the 3rd.

Donovan isn’t the tallest guy in the group at 6’2″, but his arm measurement at the Senior Bowl was 34.5″ with over a 6’10” wingspan. The NFL leaders in sacks in 2024 included Nik Bonitto at 240lbs (#2.64), Van Noy at 255lbs (#2.40), Micah Parsons at 245lbs (#1.12), TJ Watt at 252lbs (#1.30), Andrew Van Ginkel at 242lbs (#5.151), Will Anderson at 243lbs (#1.3), and Will Mcdonald at 236lbs (#1.15). Those were all top 15 in sacks. That’s 47% of the top passrushers in the league were under 255lbs last year, and 20% were drafted in the 2nd round or later.

On the current Seahawk roster, Derick Hall is 254lbs, Dre’mont Jones is 281lbs, Boye Mafe is 261lbs, Uchenna Nwosu is 265lbs, Mike Morris is 295lbs. Again, no pattern within the group, but maybe now the pattern across three teams is variety.

The other thing that I want this mock to be is: an anticipation of the NFL Combine. I’m avoiding guys that I think will test average to below average at the Combine, and trying to get ahead on guys that I think will test well. Ezeiruaku, to me, ticks a lot of boxes.

#2.59 – LB, South Carolina, Demetrius Knight

This is the first of a few points in this mock draft where I’m getting out ahead of future trend. Knight showed up to Mobile for the Senior Bowl at 6’1″/246lbs with 33″+ arms. I think he’s gonna be a riser throughout this draft process. I think there are guys in this draft that are pretenders at the linebacker spot. Knight is not that. Knight is the real deal. Knight is a grown-ass man. And that’s really all I’m gonna say about him at this time.

#3.69 – RB, Kansas State, DJ Giddens

There are a few points in this draft that I consider “cut points”. In a deep RB class, I don’t think getting Giddens in the 3rd round is a “must-have”. I have a list of what I’m looking for in a running back, and Giddens hits a lot of what I’m looking for. He’s 6’1″/212lbs with 1343 rushing yards last year. So this is a luxury pick that I’m giving myself because I’ve acquired all of these third round picks.

#3.77 – QB, Louisville, Tyler Shough

Another point where I’m getting out ahead of trend. I’ve been on Shough for most of the year, and he’s not a third round pick right now. He’s probably, at best, a fifth rounder. Shough’s rise is not going to come from the Combine. This is not Joe Milton. Shough’s rise is going to come as everyone gets deeper into the game tape, and the private meetings at the Combine, and the realize the benefit to going through three college programs, with a couple times in his career he was forced to sit and study while recovering from injuries…this is a smart player. And it’s a grown ass man.

#3.78 – OT, UConn, Chase Lundt

I’m not going to get into the specifics of how/why I’m landing on Lundt in a very strong OT class. Some people are going to hate drafting an OL from Connecticut exactly one year after drafting Christian Haynes from the same program. But deal with it.

Lundt is listed 6’8″/305lbs, and that’s kind of all we have on him until the Combine.

#3.82 – CB, California, Nohl Williams

I ignored cornerback for entirely too long this year. But when I did delve into it, I was immediately struck by Williams. His production in 2024 was top-tier, and that might seem like the reason I’m targeting him, but it’s not. He was at the Shrine Bowl, but for some reason I can’t find his official weigh-in. He was listed 6’1″/200lbs by Cal.

#3.99 – DT, Nebraska, Ty Robinson

Robinson is a long-standing member of my mock drafts. His official Senior Bowl weigh-in came out as 6’5″/296lbs. The floor here is Brent Urban, who played for Macdonald in Baltimore as an over-sized DE. Robinson has DE/DT versatility in his Nebraska tape. I don’t think you want to use him primarily as a DE, but he has that in his bag for jumbo, short-yardage packages.

#4.105 – TE, Oregon, Terrance Ferguson

I’ve said it before and I still think it holds merit…if you trade DK, the primary replacement targets MIGHT go to a tight end, not a wide receiver. Especially in this TE class. If we can find a guy that is pushing 250lbs and runs under a 4.6 forty…that’s a nice get.

I started to include Ferguson prior to the Senior Bowl, and I’m keeping him after. New, official measurements: 6’5″/245lbs with 33 3/8″ arms. I like the combination of athleticism and blocking he brings. We just need him to pass medical testing for his past knee injuries.

#4.112 – OG, Iowa, Connor Colby

Colby, like all of my OL picks in this mock, is a very intentional pick. Listed 6’6″/310lbs and just a great value in the 4th round.

#4.137 – DT, Mississippi, JJ Pegues

Pegues, like Robinson, is a long-standing member of my mocks. We’re keeping him. Official Shrine Bowl measurements were 6’2″/323lbs with 33 1/4″ arms. He’s not a true nose tackle, but he can play there. He also can play running back and fullback, which may come into relevance in the new Kubiak scheme.

#5.173 – OL, Jacksonville State, Clay Webb

I had barely started to look at Webb prior to the Senior Bowl, but I was immediately impressed. He’s got recent history as a LG for Jacksonville, but prior to that he also was a center recruited to Georgia. He’s 6’3″/310lbs with 32 5/8″ arms. I think he might be a future center, but he might stay at guard for his rookie year until he can get more familiar with the playbook, when he’ll become the center.

#6.187 – WR, Tennessee, Dont’e Thornton

If DK becomes a trade chip, we need to find a replacement for him. A lot of recent talk has Seahawk fans connecting them to TCU’s Savion Williams, who might be 6’5″/225lbs. DK at Ole miss was 6’3″/228lbs. But I don’t think Williams is actually the comp for DK. They aren’t the same skillset.

Thornton was at the Shrine Bowl where he was not measured. He was listed by Tennessee as 6’5″/214lbs.

Savion this year had 60 catches for 611 yards and 6 TD. DK’s last year at Ole Miss he caught 26 passes for 569 yards and 5 TD. Thornton this year for the Vols caught 26 passes for 661 yards and 6 TD. See what I’m saying?

And it’s important to recognize that, I think, Thornton shows on tape that his hands aren’t perfect. He has a lot of double-catching on tape. But DK wasn’t a natural catcher when he came out of school. DK has worked on that, and improved. We’ll need Dont’e to do the same.

#6.212 – DT, Florida, Cam Jackson

This is another cut point in my mock. I don’t think this is a need pick.

The Seahawks DL snap counts last year: Leonard Williams 300lbs 66%, Jarran Reed 306lbs 60%, Dre’mont Jones 281lbs 55%, Byron Murphy 306lbs 40%, Johnathan Hankins 325lbs 34%, Roy Robertson Harris 290lbs 17%, Mike Morris 295lbs 6%, Quinton Bohanna 360lbs 0.6%. They didn’t use a true nose tackle, basically, at all. Hankins is a free agent, and whatever name you give his profile, I have his snaps going to Pegues.

I don’t think the mock drafts having Seattle drafting Michigan NT Kenneth Grant maybe don’t know what Macdonald wants to do. I think they showed this last year when they drafted Murphy, and passed on his Texas teammate T’vondre Sweat. They want their starting DL to have versatility. A true nose tackle is a specialty player that, I don’t think, they will invest in early. And they may not invest a pick in one at all. They may try to find a guy in rookie free agency.

Jackson weighed in at the Senior Bowl at 6’7″/339lbs with 34″ arms. I like his value late more than over-paying for, say, Deone Walker in the 2nd. I think Jackson is in a group with Yahya Black at 6’6″/337, 35″ arms and Jamaree Caldwell at 6’2″/342lbs, 32″ arms of guys you wait on until late.

#7.236 – WR, Auburn, Keandre Lambert-Smith

A second pick at WR would be another cut point. I don’t think we need to do this, but it’s a way to get ahead of UDFA. I really like Keandre, who is Kam Chancellor’s nephew. Only 6’0″/193lbs at the Shrine weigh-in, but he’s got 33″ arms and a nice catch radius. He reminds me a little bit of Terry Mclaurin, who I loved when he came out of Ohio State.

Lambert-Smith would be a really nice WR3 if the roster allows it, but he was Auburn’s leading receiver this year after leading Penn State in receiving in 2023. He CAN do that, too.

I love his ability in contested catches, and the route running is very solid.

Seahawks’ Senior Bowl week mock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

The annual college all-star Senior Bowl game will be played six days from today, and practices for the game begin on Tuesday, so what better time to get in a last minute mock draft to sort of plant my flag for some of the guys high on my list that may soon be moving up higher on the consensus list.

In terms of the Seahawks, it’s really feeling like they need to have a big draft. I’m talking big in terms of volume of picks. I keep looking at it, and I think this might be best served as a 12-13 pick draft. I don’t think we’ve ever seen John Schneider draft more than 11 in a given draft, so they probably won’t go to 12, but they also probably won’t make the player trades I’d like to see them make to acquire draft capital AND to accelerate their dead money problem now so that they can have a cleaner slate for 2026. Unfortunately, Schneider never takes the full measure. It’s always half-measures, that keep us perpetually in the upper-middle class of the NFL.

Seattle has one of the league’s worst cap situations heading into the new league year. Moves will need to be made. It’s just gonna be a question of which players take the brunt of the cut(s). The biggest cap hits that will make for potential trade/cut include: Geno Smith, DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, Dre’mont Jones, Uchenna Nwosu.

The recent league-wide coaching search has potentially opened up some interesting possibilities for the Seahawks. Former head coach Pete Carroll’s hiring in Las Vegas, and former offensive coordinator, Brian Schottenheimer’s hiring in Dallas could create a better trade market for Seahawk players that overlapped with their respective time in Seattle. The Raiders, in particular, could be a team to watch due to their #2 most cap space in the league. They have some big holes at QB and WR to fill, and they can afford to pay whoever they choose to fill them.

If just looking at teams with need at WR; I think both the Patriots and Chargers are top 5 in cap space and could use someone like DK. I tend to think there won’t be much of a trade market for Geno. He saw free agency a couple years ago, didn’t get much interest, and returned to Seattle on a pretty team-favorable deal. The Pats have 9 draft picks to trade with, the Raiders have 10 picks, and the Chargers have 11. All three teams tick a number of boxes that would point towards a good trade match.

I’m currently most interested in a Patriots deal. I like it for the possibility of swapping DK for a mid-round pick AND getting New England QB Joe Milton as part of the return. The Pats hold two picks at the top half of the third round at #3.69 and #3.77. If we were just to trade DK with no Milton add-on; I would want a 2nd-round plus draftpick. Let’s do the deal for 3.69 and Milton.

The next factor to consider is how the first round of this draft class is stacking up. How many true 1st round players are in there? How many players with similar grade will plausibly be available from, say #18 to #50 overall? I like trading back. And it’s gonna be many trades to get from 8 picks up to 12. I’m not giving analysis on who and why the trade partners are…this is just trying to line up positioning for better points in the draft.

The first move I’ve got #1.18 traded to Detroit for #1.28 + #2.60.

Immediately I flip #60 to Jacksonville for #3.70 + #4.105.

We keep moving it down with #70 to Carolina for #3.74 + #4.112.

And finally #74 goes to Pittsburgh for #3.83 + #4.121.

So the final board becomes:

#1.28, #2.50, #3.69, #3.82, #3.83, #4.105, #4.112, #4.121, #4.136, #5.172, #6.186, #6.211, #7.235

Before we get to the actual picks. I already know some of these are gonna get blown up by rising tides. This is just for now.

#1.28 – OL, Ohio State, Donovan Jackson

There are a number of spots throughout this mock where I’ve got symbolic duos. At this one, we’ve got two guys that should be day one starters at left guard. If we get either Jackson or Tyler Booker, I think we’re off to a fantastic start to the draft. Honestly, this pick could open up if we included some of the tackles that might slide inside to guard like Wyatt Milum. It’s, overall, a very strong OL draft, and that’s one of the reasons I like the trade back to start adding volume.

Jackson gets might slight nod over Booker due to the way he adjusted to playing left tackle for the Buckeyes after the season-ending injury to Josh Simmons. And, really, with Schneider’s recent comments about guards over-paid and over-drafted; maybe a guy that most-recently played well at tackle, can be the exception (see: Germain Ifedi).

This pick needs to be a leader. I feel confident that Jackson, Booker, Milum, Armand Membou, Josh Conerly all have very strong leadership traits. The Seahawk OL, as currently contructed, doesn’t have a leader. Certainly not one that is playing well enough to remain in the starting lineup, and lead from the field.

#2.50 – DS, South Carolina, Nick Emmanwori

I don’t have a great, articulate justification for this pick. Do the Seahawks have room for a high-priced safety pick?? Do they need a starting safety? It doesn’t really feel like it. But that also makes this feel like good drafting. This will be the best player available if he falls this far. He won’t.

I like everything that Emmanwori brings to the table. He’s a 6’3″/227lb safety that should light up the Combine. He’s as big as many modern linebackers. He posted 6.77 tackles per game, which is a lot for a safety. And he had 4 INT and 2 PBU, to demonstrate his coverage ability. This could, potentially, be Mike Macdonald’s new Kyle Hamilton type that he can just create around.

#3.69 – DE, South Carolina, Kyle Kennard

Defensive end is one of the strongest positions in this draft, so it will be a bit of a game of draft chicken to push drafting one this far. It’s probably the smarter move to take one with the #50, but I think Emmanwori is the rarer player.

There’s an underlying theme to this entire draft class. Kennard matches up very well with this theme. He’s 6’5″/255lbs and had an impressive 15.5 TFL, 11.5 sacks, and 10 hurries. One of his most-notable performances was the game he played vs likely 1st round pick OT Will Campbell.

#3.82 – DT, Nebraska, Ty Robinson

The Seahawks have some issues to resolve along the DL. As we mentioned earlier, there are some potential cap casualties that could be lost. But there are also the free agents: Jarran Reed and Johnathan Hankins. We need some fresh bodies. And they can kinda be all different body types. Dre’mont is 6’3″/281lbs and plays mostly outside. Jarran is 6’3″/306lbs and plays some undersized nose tackle. Hankins is 6’3″/325lbs but was never really the run-stuffer his size would suggest.

I kinda like targeting some DL that have versatility. Robinson has it in droves. He’s 6’6″/310lbs and he’s played all over the DL for the Huskers, not to mention some fullback. Last year, he had 12.5 TFL, 7.0 sacks, 7 hurries, 4 PBU, 1 FF, and a blocked kick. I think he can absorb snaps from both Dre’mont and Jarran.

#3.83 – TE, Oregon, Terrance Ferguson

Tight end is a few things in this draft: it’s a good position group, it’s a player that could figuratively give you some replacement production for the traded DK Metcalf, and it’s another of my player duos. Michael Arroyo is the counterpart to Ferguson, and he might be the better candidate to replace DK, but he also might post the better forty time at the combine and be drafted earlier.

Ferguson is 6’5″/255lbs and his season included 43 receptions for 591 yards and 3 TD. The key to Ferguson is his ability after the catch.

#4.105 – CB, California, Nohl Williams

For whatever reason this year, I haven’t been looking closely at the corner class. When I started correcting that omission recently; I almost instantly fell for Nohl Williams. He’s a 6’1″/200lb corner who posted 7 INT and 9 PBU. When I crack open the tape; I thought his press technique was immaculate. His footwork is very good, and I think the long-speed might be REALLY good.

#4.112 – OT, UConn, Chase Lundt

Here, we find our third of the duos. In what is overall a very cool class for right tackles; I’d like to see Seattle draft one of Lundt or Ozzy Trapilo. In a practical sense, this guy can replace the free agent Stone Forsythe, but really we’re trying to find an eventual replacement for Abraham Lucas. Just in case.

Lundt is the better rush blocker, and Trapilo is the better pass blocker. I’m going with the run-blocker until we have a larger sample size on what Macdonald likes.

#4.121 – DT, Ole Miss, JJ Pegues

Going back to the DL, I think we need a big time run-stuffer, and there are a number of big body guys we could look at. The thing is…I’m not sold that Macdonald wants to use a true nose tackle…like somebody that weighs over 330lbs. I think he wants to disguise defensive play call by using players with versatility. Everybody on the team needs to be able to play both run and pass so that teams can’t audible out of play calls, or if they do they’re audibling to something we can also still defend.

With Pegues, we get a bit more heft from his 6’2″/323lb build. I believe those measurements went official yesterday at the Shrine game weigh-in. Oh, and 33″+ arms. So more heft from Pegues, and more versatility. Pegues can also give you DE snaps (see below). And he’s lowkey electric as a running back in goalline or short-yardage situations.

This year, JJ had 13.5 TFL, 3.5 sacks, 5 hurries, and 7 rushing TD. And just a great dude.

#4.136 – QB, Louisville, Tyler Shough

It’s been one of my greatest frustrations the last few years that John Schneider passes on drafting a QB anytime in the 3rd-6th rounds. They could have had Sam Howell at 5th round cost, instead of what became a 3rd round price in trade. They could have drafted Joe Milton directly instead of DJ James, who never even made it out of training camp.

Shough is a 6’5″/225lb, 6th-year senior, who will likely be available later in the draft than his tape suggests because of his age. I think the age thing on draft QB’s is incorrectly considered. I think some maturity in a QB is actually helpful.

In terms of production, Shough had 3195 yards, 23 TD, 6 INT, 62.7% completion, and a 148.15 passer rating.

Give me a QB competition between Joe Milton and Tyler Shough and I’ll love the upside of the 2025 Seahawk offense.

#5.172 – OL, Jacksonville State, Clay Webb

I’ve been saying for weeks that this is a very good OL class…but not at center. I like Florida’s Jake Slaughter quite a bit as an OL intellectual. As part of my due diligence, I was ticking off some of the Senior Bowl players that I was not familiar with.

Coming from Jacksonville State, I definitely had not looked at Webb. One of the first things I found was that he actually was originally committed to Georgia as a center. At Jacksonville State, Webb was playing left guard, and interestingly he does it with no gloves. This guy is old school. Oh, and his measurements are 6’3″/310lbs.

#6.186 – LB, South Carolina, Demetrius Knight

Linebacker is an interesting conversation in this draft. There aren’t many strong candidates. You either draft one before the end of the 3rd round, or you push hard into the late rounds and hope Ernest Young re-signs.

For the longest time, I was trying to force the former method. Only in the last few days did I come to terms with doing the latter. And I’m kinda digging it. I had been stashing Knight in my back pocket as a guy I wanted to make the back half of a LB double-dip.

I actually love Knight in the 6th more than I did Carson Schwesinger in the 3rd. At 6’2″/245lbs, Knight is already a throwback to an era of linebacker from 10-15 years ago when they were this big. I watch Knight’s tape and I think his size plays. The dude has more stopping power than most of this group. And his speed/athleticism is really underrated.

#6.211 – WR, Kansas, Quentin Skinner

It’s a very good testament to the depth of WR this year (and most years) that I have, like, 5-6 names I want to draft here. And I’m still considering taking two WR in consecutive picks.

I’m going with Skinner for checking the most boxes. He’s 6’5″/195lbs and has really good body control. He only had 25 catches this year, but they went for 557 yards (a very high 22.28 ypc). He had only 4 TD, but if you look at his efficiency stats…16% of his catches went for TD, and a ridiculous 52% of them were explosive catches. I think there’s more to be found in there.

On tape, I found myself noting time and time again how wide open he was. You rarely see that anymore. But he also can win contested. He’s a very well-rounded WR, and he can play special teams gunner.

#7.235 – RB, Michigan, Kalel Mullings

I think it’s important draft strategy to take guys from the position groups that are strong in a given year. Everyone knows this is a good RB class. But, for me, that also meant I ended up pushing RB further and further down my board.

Mullings is listed 6’2″/233lbs and rushed for 948 yards, 5.12 YPC, and 12 TD this year.

Some names that I just couldn’t find room for, but liked:

At WR, I really like Kam Chancellor’s nephew, Keandre Lambert Smith. Not a huge body, but he’s great winning in the air contested. He had a ton of explosive plays, and some very intriguing analytics.

Dont’e Thornton is another WR that I’ve got pinned. He’s a huge body guy and he should blow up the combine. He might be the most 1-for-1 replacement for DK…but that includes the fact that his hands are a little sketchy. DK had that, too, and god bless him, he’s improved that as a pro.

The third WR I’ve got in mind is Pat Bryant from Illinois. Again, he’s got REALLY interesting analytics. And I like Ja’corey Brooks and Andrew Armstrong…two very productive guys this year…at the right price.

Mullings was kind of a throw in as my RB pick. I like some other guys more, but just didn’t feel like we needed to push that pick. I love Kaleb Johnson and Omarion Hampton, but can Seattle really be spending another 2nd round pick on a RB? I think DJ Giddens is potentially the best value RB when we look back at this draft in 5 years. I just wish he was a bit thicker. And Damien Martinez had some great analytics from his 2024 season that popped in my research.

I like QB Jaxson Dart better than most of this class, and if we’re not getting Joe Milton back; maybe I make a move on Dart (and still draft Shough late). The buzz on Dart is really starting to pick up, so we’re probably using a 1st rounder to get him, and we might need to use the #18.

Some OL guys that popped in my analytic look at OL included Florida’s OT Brandon Crenshaw and Georgia OC Jared Wilson. These feel like Seahawk picks, too.

I haven’t given him a full tape-study, but TE Jalin Conyers popped in my analytic study. So he may be the third TE behind Arroyo and Ferguson for mid-rounds.

At DE, I had LSU edge Bradyn Swinson in my rough draft for this mock. Good production, some very good intangibles, and he had some numbers pop in the analytics study for DE projectability.

Up next…Senior Bowl weigh-in, practice, and game. Then Combine. Then we try to steal info on Seahawk 30 visit names. Then we draft in April.

My take on 2024 movies

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

I’ve been trying to post some kind of “best movies of 2024/Oscar prediction” story for a few weeks now, but I keep putting it off in order to get more touted films checked off my list. I’ve just come out of a screening of “The Brutalist” earlier today, so now might be as close to ready as I’m gonna get without waiting until February. Plus, the Oscar nominations were supposed to be out today, but have been postponed a week due to the L.A. fires.

As of today, I’ve seen about 40 of the top 50 movies by critical acclaim and/or by significant box office performance (and a few that I’ve just watched as a fan of movies) of the 2024 season. I’ve also done some digging into the Oscar Best Picture winners of the last 10 years to create a scoring system to determine what, analytically, looks like a potential winner by recent historical comparison.

The thing about the last 10 years, or more accurately nine weird years capped off by one year in 2023 of a more normalized choice of Oppenheimer, is that the Academy has been out of its mind. Here is the list:

Birdman
Spotlight
Moonlight
Shape of Water
Green Book
Parasite
Nomadland
CODA
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Oppenheimer

When is the last time you’ve watched ANY of those movies? How many of them have you only ever seen once, if that?? The Oscars used to recognize movies that were rewatchable classics. And maybe that was more like 15 years ago. I don’t know what changed. I don’t know why it changed. Are they trying to be modern and trendy? Are they trying to be socially conscious or political? I honestly don’t know. It certainly doesn’t look like they’re trying to be populist, as most of those winners weren’t exactly box office performers.

In that same time-frame, some of the other best picture nominees that lost Best Picture includes: Whiplash, Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Arrival, Hell or High Water, Dunkirk, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Joker, Jojo Rabbit, Ford vs Ferrari, 1917, Sound of Metal, Dune.

Like, what are we doing here??

I’m starting to be more and more cynical that 2024 will join the ranks of the Green Book, CODA, Moonlight ranks as just a nonsense winner.

The Brutalist

As I said, I’ve just finished seeing “The Brutalist”. It. Was. Fucking. Awful. Let me be more specific…the script is fucking awful. It is a terrifically beautiful movie to look at it, and I very much liked the score. But this dialogue is barely a step above something you’d find in porn. Like, in real conversation, a person doesn’t call their cousin “cousin”. Because the two both already know who each other are. Shit like that is how bad writers try to sneak in lazy exposition.

I can now say that the two Golden Globe winners for Best Picture Drama and Musical (Brutalist joining Emelia Perez) are two of the worst winners I’ve ever seen. Is this an AI related thing? Are we seeing more and more scripts that are secretly written by ChatGPT and nobody bothered to have a real human writer punch them up??

Brady Corbet, the writer and director of “The Brutalist”, should maybe cutback on his multi-hyphenate titles. Stick to directing, I say. Corbet, when accepting one of his Golden Globe wins, talked about a filmmaker should have final say on the edit of his movie. If the 3 hour and 35 minute theatrical cut was Corbet getting his way, bro you are fucking wrong. You need editing.

At one point in the movie, Corbet shows us two shots of a maid walking across a lawn to a guest house while carrying bed linens. HOW IS THIS NOT EXPENDABLE?? There were also multiple times in the first half of the movie that Corbet uses, presumably, real news footage/b-roll on the history of Philadelphia. All of that can go. It does not matter if this movie is set in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, or Gary, Indiana. Certainly we don’t need more than a passing mention that it is in Philly.

In addition to the editing (down) needed in the cut of the film, the bigger problem is probably that nobody edited down the script. There are so many lazy and exploitative plot devices. Does Adrien Brody’s lead character, Laszlo Toth, really need to be Jewish in addition to being a recent immigrant? What storylines would open up if we made Laszlo a heroin junkie?? Then there’s the lazy structure that the antagonist is the rich prick, but Corbet also swings wildly between the rich prick being a prick, but then giving Toth incredible praise and opportunity, and then make another INSANE swing to where the rich prick becomes a gay, anal rapist out of fucking nowhere. Does Laszlo’s wife, played by Felicity Jones, really need to be in a wheelchair from osteoporosis, only to late in the movie be able to walk for a climactic scene??

Speaking of the wife…there’s like a niece character played by Daniel Radcliffe in a wig that comes to the U.S. with her as a sort of nurse/companion. One night, in an extremely painful bout of osteoporosis, the nurse gets called to the wife’s bedside to…give her a pill. What? Her husband laying by her side couldn’t do that?? I guess not because his preferred treatment method is to just shoot his wife up with heroin. Cool.

Quickfire things in “The Brutalist” script that we’re just supposed to be okay with:

Laszlo befriends a black man and his son in a line for a soup kitchen, and then the son disappears for like an hour of the movie with no explanation while his dad and Laszlo shoot heroin.

Wife not strong enough to walk (until a specific plot point), but she can still become a writer for an English-language New York magazine when her first language is not English, and can also give a vigorous handjob to her husband on their first night after being reunited. Although, it kind of seemed like Laszlo couldn’t get it up from the handy. I guess the wife wasn’t the only one with brittle bones.

Corbet really gives me creepy vibes before the movie, but definitely during the movie, because it is VERY kinky. Girl masturbates guy, guy masturbates girl, guy visits old-timey stroke flick theater, guy visits brothel, happy couple have pretty inappropriate heroin-fueled full-frontal sex scene (clearly using two body doubles for Brody and Jones), and the aforementioned anal rape. Oh, and there’s kind of a weird, incestuous cousin cuck scene, which then becomes the inexplicable reason for a 180 degree turn, relationship fallout between the cousins. As one does.

There’s also this unneccessary subplot where the rich prick’s son insults Laszlo’s niece (the nurse) for being, I dunno…mute? Jewish? Poor? But even though she’s “gross” in some way, he still has that thing in movies where the rich, handsome, athletic, or popular guy character wants to get a blowjob from some poor, plain, unpopular girl to show his superiority. The movie shows us him starting to make a move on her, but then don’t show us anything actually happen, and instead cut to later when she walks back to Felicity Jones, but she’s adjusting her clothes…the universal shorthand for “I was just naked seconds ago having sex”. I guess the actual date rape scene will be in the director’s cut on the blu-ray.

After winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor, I guess Adrien Brody is one of the favorites to win the Oscar in the same category. I really am having trouble signing off on that. Brody is fine in the part, I guess, but I just can’t suspend my disbelief long enough to get past the terrible dialogue.

A Real Pain

That same sentiment can be applied to overwhelming favorite for Best Supporting Actor, Kieran Culkin, for his performance in “A Real Pain”. I went into both “The Brutalist” and “A Real Pain” with the highest of hopes. The trailers, the critical buzz, the media campaigns all pointed to both of these movies being directly in my wheelhouse. But both disappointed me in very similar ways.

“A Real Pain” also has some lazy, Jewish/Holocaust exploitative elements. It also has another pretty weird cousin relationship at the center of the story. It also has, to my mind, some crazy continuity problems in terms of story and selectively applying character traits. And the plot, in general, is pretty insane.

Two cousins, close friends in childhood, have grown apart after one attempted suicide and the other got married and had a kid, but then they decide to reconcile their relationship after their grandmother died, and the ideal place to do all of this is on the jovialist of places…on a multi-day, guided, group tour of the holocaust.

Is that even a real thing? Like, I’m aware that people go to Auschwitz and Dachau, but I kinda pictured those types of pilgrimmages being smaller, more intimate, more personal. The idea of two cousins joining up with four strangers and a tour guide like they all bought the same groupon; just seemed bizarre to me.

There’s a very strong chance that Jesse Eisenberg also wins a Screenplay Oscar for this movie, and that’s so baffling to me. Of the two main characters, one is manic, one is depressive, and they’re both intolerable personalities. Are we really supposed to think it’s okay for Culkin’s character to have these really offensive outbursts at the expense of the members of the tour because 30 minutes before or after he was leading the group in an imaginary storming of the German front? Oh, he’s so fun and silly and talks fast and sarcastic so he must be a free spirit and not just a selfish, indulgent prick.

How is no one else seeing this??? I swear to God, just go watch “Igby Goes Down” instead.

Wicked & Emilia Perez

Here we have two entries from a similar vein…the movie musical. I, overwhelmingly, HATE this type of movie. I very rarely can tolerate characters breaking into song (and especially choreography) with the music coming from an imaginary orchestra. I don’t like songs that are giving exposition and/or pushing the plot forward. If you can bake the song, or the songwriting into the plot…then maybe I can stay involved.

In the instances of “Wicked” and “Emilia Perez” we have two very different cases. I’ve tried to watch “Emilia Perez” and my firsthand take is that it is truly bad. I tried to watch it…twice. And that movie analytic I referenced earlier…”Emelia Perez” is one of the three worst scores of the 50+ movies studied. Like, it was worse than the Clooney/Pitt vehicle “Wolfs”. It was worse than “Imaginary Friends”. That is an objective statistic. None of the Best Picture winners from the previous 10 years has scored even close to as bad as that movie. And yet…it is winning awards and continues to stack nominations.

On the other hand, “Wicked” I have not seen, but on the movie analytic it is a top 10 scoring movie. And I believe it has had very good box office numbers. I’m sure I will not like it, but I will give it the old college try (once it goes free to stream) before the Oscar broadcast. Historically, analytically speaking…I think “Wicked” is a potential winner.

A few more of the movies that have some awards buzz that I have not seen:

Sing Sing

The #2 scoring movie. I’m actually looking forward to seeing it, but it’s been hard to find it screening in WA until, I think, today. I will see it probably in the next two weeks.

September 5

I’m pretty indifferent to this one. I won’t really prioritize seeing it unless it actually gets nominated.

Nickel Boys

Like “Sing Sing”, I’d like to see this one. The first person POV look that director Ramell Ross incorporated in this movie is at least interesting. It’s been done before, but I’m not sure I’ve seen those movies.

Nosferatu

I don’t get the sense this is a strong candidate for the major Oscar awards, but I did really like director Robert Eggers movie “The Witch”, and the cast and trailer of this look pretty great.

A bit of rapid fire on the potential Best Animated nominees:

Wild Robot

The highest scoring movie in my database for the year. I kind of hated it. The script feels like it was, ironically, written by a robot/AI. A lot of what I found enjoyable about my favorite movies, and disagreeable about films I disliked, this year, was the pacing. In “Wild Robot” the pacing felt breathless. You’re never left to dwell in a moment for any time at all. The attempts at humorous moments felt slapstick without being funny, and the attempts at sentimentality felt forced and uncompelling.

You’re better off re-watching “Iron Giant”, “Bambi”, or watch “Flow” from this year.

Flow

A beautifully animated, almost silent film surrounding a group of animals actions before/during/after a cataclysmic flood. I’m not sure I understood the totality of it, but there’s nothing to say that is requirement for appreciation. In fact, that can mean it needs another watch.

Robot Dreams

Three animated movies in and we’ve got three with animal central characters, and two with animals interacting with robots. “Robot Dreams” is another that tends more towards a silent film aesthetic. I liked the animation style, but I couldn’t finish it. It needed to get where it was going faster.

Inside Out 2

I wasn’t really a fan of the first one, and I couldn’t finish this one. I just don’t love the gimmick central to this story.

Memoir of a Snail

What a beautiful movie to look at, but holy shit this is depressing. Maybe it pivots at the end to something uplifting, but it sat too long in sad that I moved on. Did not finish.

Live action misses that are still getting award show buzz:

The Substance & A Different Man

I put these two movies together because they both feel like blown out versions of an old “Twilight Zone” episode called “Eye of the Beholder”. Both movies deal with actors trying to deal with standards of beauty. We’ve got one from a female perspective and one from the male. Both movies probably have stronger chances to win their lead actors the prize for their respective categories than they do for winning Best Picture. But they might get nominations for the night’s biggest category.

I did not love either of these movies. “The Substance” seemed to have the better overall concept, but the backend of this movie downgrades to the quality of film you’d normally find coming out of Troma Entertainment, like “Toxic Avenger” or “Basket Case”. Actually, I don’t remember if “Basket Case” was Troma, but it came to mind.

I just can’t believe that I have to have a conversation about this movie as a potential Best Picture. This movie should be found in future history books as a cult classic only.

Juror #2

One of the biggest hoaxes in all of Hollywood, for me, is the classification of Clint Eastwood as a great director. Nothing he has made has ever approached true greatness. He’s the king of obvious, paint by number movie making. I think the true criticism should be that Eastwood lives entirely in the middle. He’s a C- to C+ film maker. There is nothing terrible in his catalogue, but there is also nothing great.

And the funny thing is…I don’t think anyone else really likes him either. But there’s this sort of standing groupthink that has created this echo chamber where, movie after movie, we just talk about him and his movies like he’s in the echelon of Spielberg and Scorsese.

When was the last time you re-watched a Clint Eastwood movie??? Hell, when is the last time a Clint Eastwood movie has come up in your casual conversation?

Since 2006, this is Eastwood’s filmography: Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima, Changeling, Gran Torino, Invictus, Hereafter, J Edgar, Jersey Boys, American Sniper, Sully, The 15:17 to Paris, The Mule, Richard Jewell, Cry Macho, and now Juror #2. What in there do you love??

“Juror #2” is just silly. We’re shown from the beginning what really happened, so, I guess, the suspense is supposed to be will Nicolas Hoult’s lead character do the right thing? Maybe the momentary tease that maybe he will be caught by JK Simmons or Toni Collette.

If you want a courtroom thriller; you’re better off watching “A Few Good Men”, or “The Rainmaker”, or even the recent Jake Gyllenhaal re-make of “Presumed Innocent”.

Dune 2

At this point, before I get into the movies of 2024 that I truly did enjoy, we’re at the biggest “cusp” movie. I don’t have much complaint with this movie…great box office, great analytic score, great director Denis Villeneuve, great cast…but I felt the same way about it that I felt about “Avatar 2”: it’s a fine picture continuing what was already established. But there’s nothing special differentiating it from the first film. AND…we’re already conscious that there will be another one coming. It’s literally mid, in a sense.

And now for the movies of 2024 that I really did love. As I talked about in my opener; I’m presupposed to the movies that have that quality that begets seeing them repeatedly. I’ve seen almost every one of these movies at least twice already. These are the movies I couldn’t wait to tell other people about as I was walking out of the theatre. These are my top 10 of 2024:

#10 – Chasing Chasing Amy

2024 was kind of a big year for the trans community in film and TV. I believe, if I had finished “Emilia Perez”, it gets into trans themes. I think “Baby Reindeer” had a trans character or storyline if I finished that. “Ripley” had a trans actor. But the two that I thought were the most interesting were both documentaries. There was the Netflix doc featuring Will Ferrell and his friend Harper Steele that got a pretty big publicity run earlier this year, and then only recently I stumbled upon “Chasing Chasing Amy”.

I am a longtime, sometimes recovering, fan of Kevin Smith and his movies. His career has gone through a number of ebbs and flows, but I will generally get around to seeing most of the stuff he’s made. For me, the probable apex of his works is the 1997 romantic comedy, “Chasing Amy”. It’s the story of two comic book writers that meet and struggle to navigate through sexuality, gender politics, and the expectations of such placed on them by friends and society, to see if they can find love. The catch is…what if the girl likes other girls?

Sitting in a movie theatre watching that movie for the first time was the literal moment I realized I wanted to, and potentially could, write a movie. Personally, as a straight white male, I wasn’t seeing it and relating to it as a straight guy falling in love with a lesbian. I saw it and related to a guy falling in love with someone who wasn’t open to falling in love with him back.

For Sav Rodgers, the director of “Chasing Chasing Amy”, Smith’s film was relatable, and inspiring for their own reasons. This documentary carries a nice balance of giving us the backstory of the Smith movie’s creation, production, release, and various stages of it’s shelf-life, including discussion of when/how it came to be viewed as “problematic”, and the counterpoint of why it isn’t problematic if you, ironically, hadn’t marketed it as a “boy falls in love with a lesbian” movie.

The documentary brings us interviews with Smith himself, many of the View Askew production team, and two of “Chasing Amy’s” three primary cast members, Joey Lauren Adams and Jason Lee. But the surprise of the documentary is how Sav Rodgers becomes the central character in their own documentary. It’s surprising, and thoughtful, and emotional, and just a beautiful little film. It hit me surprisingly hard.

#9 – The Outrun

This film is a depiction of the true life story of Scottish writer Amy Liptrot, from her self-penned memoir. Saoirse Ronan plays a version of Liptrot as a character named Rona, who is an alcoholic, as she wanders through recovery and relapse. The filmmakers take us in and out of present day and flashback. All amongst the backdrop of a tiny, cold, windswept island in the Scottish archipelago.

The headline here is Ronan. She is consistently one of movie-making’s best actresses. She is in almost every frame of this movie. And her performance is absolutely breathtaking. The way she, a native Irish, can master a Scottish dialect. The way she can go big at the mania moments of an alcoholic on an active bender, but then find the most incredible quiet, complicated stillness in some of the toughest moments of recovery…it is just mesmerizing.

There is a moment of this film…and it really is only a moment, a look, a breath…that was so impossibly real and heartbreaking that I stopped the movie, rewound, and watched it again to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. Even now, just remembering that scene to write about it, my eyes are welling up.

It’s a crime that Saoirse has never won an Oscar, and an even bigger crime that she seems to be headed toward not even getting nominated for “The Outrun”. She is magnificent.

#8 – Strange Darling

What a wonderful little surprise. This was a movie that I heard mentioned on someone else’s year-end top movies list. I hadn’t heard much about it, but I’ve been actively seeking out great movies the last 3-4 months, since many of the overly-hyped studio releases have been so disappointing.

There is nothing about this movie that was familiar to me going in. I didn’t know the director by any of his prior work. I didn’t know either of the two leads by any of their prior roles. I didn’t know what the plot was. I think that’s actually a good way to go into seeing it. This is primarily an action, suspense, thriller. And it’s new. That’s all I want to give you.

#7 – The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

This is a big, popcorn, action-adventure, summer blockbuster kind of movie from director Guy Ritchie, and starring Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza Gonzalez, Henry Golding and Cary Elwes, and it’s in the vein of “Inglorious Basterds” and “Indiana Jones”. The only problem is: it wasn’t a blockbuster.

The action is great. The cast is gorgeous. Eiza Gonzalez playing British surrounded by an all British cast and director is surprisingly great. The humor is tremendous. And there’s a nice little Easter egg in there tying it to another movie franchise.

#6 – Monkey Man

Here we have some familiar movie tropes brought to us by a new star in that genre, and from a new director. And both are the same guy…Dev Patel.

This is the kind of revenge, action, thriller we’ve seen from Keanu Reeves, and Denzel Washington, and Liam Neeson, and Jason Statham, and Matt Damon. Maybe a little bit of Ryan Gosling in “Drive”, as well. So it takes some pretty high skill to do that which is now standard, but to make it feel fresh and new.

I love what Patel has done here, creating new imagery, new action, and re-inventing himself as a multi-hyphenate to be reckoned with.

#5 – A Complete Unknown

Going into this movie; I had no particular fondness for Bob Dylan. If pressed, I probably like more cover versions of his songs than I do his originals. And Timothee Chalamet, to this point, has struck me more as the kind of pretty, dumb actor like Keanu Reeves that needs to be hidden behind the bells and whistles of other aspects of a movie.

I did not know Timmy had this performance in him. He’s really playing that guitar. He’s really singing those songs live to camera. The hair and costume people also kill it…they somehow make the skinny Chalamet look like he’s gotten shorter, and heavier in those boxey-ass jeans.

And director James Mangold is fully in his wheelhouse. After leading Joaquin Phoenix through his performance in “Walk the Line” and Christian Bale and Matt Damon through their portrayals of real life people in “Ford vs Ferrari”; Mangold knows how to structure a biopic. I love that, here, he’s not pushing for Dylan to be heroic. In one of my favorite moments of the film, Monica Barbaro (as Joan Baez) says to Chalamet, “you’re kind of an asshole, Bob,” to which Bob replies, “yeah, I guess.” THIS is what most of our cultural heroes truly are. Unapologetic, unrepentant assholes with a singular vision for greatness at all costs.

Chalamet deserves the Oscar. If he is our new Dicaprio; THIS is his “Gilbert Grape” moment.

#4 – Civil War

Most of the movies on this list I saw recently, and were therefore easier to remember and place. “Civil War”, from director/writer Alex Garland, was a movie I first saw maybe last May or June. But it was enough time passing that I wasn’t certain it was what I thought I remembered it was. As I made this list, and by process of elimination it started looking like it might make my top 10, I had to go back and rewatch the movie. Not only was it certainly top 10, it was actually one of the most complete movies of the year.

This movie is haunting. The same way that Garland’s “Ex Machina” was haunting for AI, or “28 Days Later” was haunting for, I don’t know, medical experiments…”Civil War” is haunting for modern American social politics. This is the kind of movie that gets banned at some point.

#3 – Rebel Ridge

One of the reasons I generally feel like most year-end “best-of” lists are bullshit; is because you NEVER see movies like “Rebel Ridge” on them. Certainly not this high.

This movie has zero pedigree. I had seen one of director Jeremy Saulnier’s prior movies, but I didn’t even know it was his movie at the time. The cast is, I guess, headlined by Don Johnson, with a cameo from James Cromwell. The third most recognizable actor in it, to me, was the guy who played Roy on “The Office”. The female lead is the grown up version of the girl who was in that “Winn Dixie” movie years ago, but whose name I never remember without googling. The lead-lead is a guy I’ve never seen before.

And the story is not new. It’s kind of almost exactly the opening of “Rambo: First Blood”. But you just have to trust me that the execution here is impeccable. This movie is like getting in on the ground floor of Rambo, of Die Hard, of Jason Bourne. There is absolutely zero fat. This is all killer, no filler.

I’m not even going to say anything else about it. Just put it on and the movie will compel you through it. When I watched this movie for the third time, I put it on for my mom…this is not, on paper, her kind of movie…but I just started it for her…after about 30 minutes she says to me, “what is this movie called?” “Rebel Ridge” “This is a GOOD movie.”

And, by the way, the lead is Aaron Pierre (somebody make this guy a star), and the female lead is AnnaSophia Robb. Cast her more, too.

#2 – Anora

There were quite a few movies this year that I went to see with raised expectations. “Anora” might be the only one that really met them. This is a thoroughly modern take on the “stripper with a heart of gold” who meets some version of prince charming. Only, does Anora have a heart of gold? And, is prince charming actually that charming? So it’s, really, a deconstruction of the “Pretty Woman” vibe.

As I said earlier, one of the big themes of the year was movie pacing. “Anora” is moving at breakneck speed throughout, but it works. The second-biggest theme, for me, might be dialogue. It has been so hard to find realistic dialogue. That might be the giveaway that we’re quietly seeing a lot of AI scripts. Especially since 2024 was the year we were seeing movies produced before and/or after the Hollywood writers’ strike of 2023.

“Anora” has some of the best dialogue of the year. And it’s spread equally across the entire cast. Everybody gets a unique voice, and they are all grounded in the real way that people talk. Wonderful. It makes watching the parts of this movie where the characters are such self-centered, indulgent little brats tolerable.

The actual best actress performance for me in 2024 was Saoirse Ronan, but since she won’t be competing; I think the next best performance might by Mikey Madison in the titular role of “Anora”. Plus, I have this long-standing theory that the Academy loves to give Oscars to actresses in roles where they show their breasts. Madison is definitely eligible from this, but so would be Demi Moore.

#1 – Conclave

I saw “Conclave” and “Anora” on consecutive days back in, I think, November, and I kept waiting for one or both to be knocked out of the top two spots, but every entrant that I’ve tried has failed. Maybe “Sing Sing” or “Nickel Boys” will do it, but for now…the title belongs to “Conclave”.

I loved this movie. It is lush and grand, while also managing to be small and intimate. It is gorgeous to look at. It is sonically incredible in both score and sound mixing. Every single cast member is acting their asses off, and they have pitch perfect dialogue to say. Ralph Fiennes was my leader in the clubhouse as Best Actor until I saw Chalamet.

In terms of the plot…I went in thinking it might be kind of a “Ten Little Indians” murder mystery thing, as we know from the trailer that there is a dead pope in the story. While the movie quickly absolves itself of a murder plot, there is still a suspenseful mystery throughout. And with the backdrop a papal conclave…something already inherently mysterious to the average person…this was one of the rare movies that managed to surprise me. Maybe not at every twist and turn, but enough to make me appreciate it for the unexpected moments. I also appreciated how the movie was, in a sense, self aware.

Was 2024 a good year for movies? I think the immediate answer is a hard ‘no’. But the more thoughtful answer has to delve into how and why we end up with the touted movies that we end up with. I legitimately don’t understand how some of the “consensus” best movies get talked about the way they do, while conversely some of the best movies, that I think people will be invested in and repeat watching for years to come, are kind of nowhere to be found. I don’t have that answer.

We just all need to love what we love. But also see me in five years. I’ll bring receipts.

Seahawks new year mock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

Welcome to 2025! As I’m writing this we’re still a few hours away from the Seahawks’ season finale in Los Angeles. It will be a meaningless game for the already-eliminated Hawks in terms of this season, but maybe it gives us some ideas about what they will be doing going forward. The big intel might be how they handle Geno Smith in the game, as he is on pace to hit a number of contract performance bonus escalators if he plays and plays well today.

I’m not a salary cap expert by any stretch, so the way I read the projections for Seattle’s 2025 cap, they’re in bad shape. Like, “bottom five teams in the league” bad. It’s no wonder they had to table negotiations to extend Ernest Jones. They really need to make some cuts first. And there aren’t really clean cuts to make. There’s a lot of dead money they are going to have to just eat. I think the best way to do that is to rip the bandaid off. The three biggest cap hits are Geno Smith, Tyler Lockett, and DK Metcalf. The single biggest cap savings would be cutting (or trading) Geno before June 1…saving $25million. The biggest dead money also comes from probably your best trade chip…DK, with $21mill dead money. And Lockett is probably the most replaceable based on his current role on the roster with JSN now looking like WR1. Lock will dead money you almost $14mill, and save you $17mill.

Personally, I might just do all three. But I kinda doubt Seattle does. I’m going to split the difference, cut Geno, trade DK, and just ride it out with the always classy Lock.

For a DK trade, I look at competitive teams that have good cap space, maybe only have a WR1, and then have a decent amount of draft capital. Buffalo has the draft picks, but don’t really have cap space. Washington has cap, but only mid on draft picks. Minnesota has cap space, but hardly any draft picks. I came away with the Chargers having the best fit.

Chargers have the 8th-most cap space. They have 11 projected draft picks. And their leading WR this year was Ladd McConkey with 1000 yards, followed by Josh Palmer and Quentin Johnston with under 600 yards. It’s a pretty young WR room, where DK would actually become the elder-statesman at 27. I’m going to project the trade is DK for the Chargers’ 2nd (#2.57) and one of their four picks in the 6th round at #6.178.

In one note on free agency, before you wonder why I don’t have Seattle drafting a left guard after losing Laken Tomlinson to free agency…I will project Seattle goes out and signs Teven Jenkins as their #1 priority in free agency.

In the first trade within the draft; I have Seattle moving back from #1.18 to #1.29 while adding #2.62 in deal with Buffalo, who also own the #2.61 pick.

We’ll immediately flip #62 to Las Vegas for pick #3.69 + #5.146. And we’ll move Seattle’s native 3rd round pick to Baltimore for their 3rd (3.91) and one of their 4th’s (4.128). This will be a LOT of draftpicks, but Seattle needs to get younger and cheaper while they take the dead cap hits from Geno and DK.

1.18(SEA)->1.29(BUF) + 2.62(BUF)

1.29(BUF) – QB, Ole Miss, Jaxson Dart

I’ve decided the way forward for Seattle isn’t to cut Geno Smith and then immediately target someone like Sam Darnold, who is going to cost almost as much as Geno. Nor do I want to lose draft picks to acquire, say, JJ McCarthy in trade. Seattle has Sam Howell under contract for another year. They also have Jaren Hall on the active roster, and then there’s John Rhys Plumlee who was also recently added to the active roster but now listed as a WR. (This might be some parlor trick bullshit until they resolve the Geno situation. It would just be a bad look to openly show four QB on the active roster in a game that doesn’t matter, but could cost the team millions.)

I think the move here is giving thorough examination of Howell, Hall, Plumlee, AND two more QB that they will get in the draft. To me, Howell, Hall, and Plumlee all have a very similar vibe, and Jaxson Dart has that same vibe. (Maybe I’m on to the right idea, but the wrong player, and it actually ends up Riley Leonard…but I prefer Dart.)

I’m not gonna telegraph the entire thinking here, but suffice to say, focus on the strategy.

https://twitter.com/SSN_OleMiss/status/1875021882279506216

2.50(SEA) – Defensive End, Boston College, Donovan Ezeiruaku

Seattle needs a more consistent Edge rush presence. Uchenna Nwosu missed most of the year injured, and now has only played 11-12 games over the last two years, producing only three sacks combined. We can’t count on him. Derick Hall has had a nice sophomore season with 8.0 sacks, but to my eye a lot of those have been coverage and/or cleanup sacks. And Boye Mafe only has one sack over his last five games, after opening the year with four sacks in the first five games.

This draft looks incredibly strong in the Edge rush class. It is the best philosophy to pick from the strength(s) of a draft. Seattle should do this just based on that, alone.

Ezeiruaku is a more long, slender, speed edge rusher than the guys we have presently have at 6’2″/247lbs. He bends the corner better than almost anyone in the class. He had 20.5 TFL, 16.5 sacks, and 15 QB hurries this year.

https://twitter.com/NoFlagsFilm/status/1841918705288012035

2.57(LAC trade DK) – Offensive Guard, Georgia, Tate Ratledge

As I said before, Seattle should target Teven Jenkins in free agency to address one of the guard spots. The second guard (right) they should get early in the draft. There are some college tackles that project to move inside that I’d be happy to get, but in this case I’m taking one of the true guards.

Ratledge is listed 6’6″/320lbs and is just one of the most well-rounded OL in the draft. Intangibles, too.

https://twitter.com/JosephHerffNFL/status/1874875736148046105

2.62(BUF)->3.69(LVR) + 5.146(LVR)

3.69(LVR) – Linebacker, Ole Miss, Chris Paul Jr

Maybe Seattle gets Ernest Jones re-signed, maybe they don’t. But Seattle needs more talent in the linebacker room. It clearly made a difference in the performance of the Seahawk defense from Baker and Dodson to Jones and Knight. If you end up redshirting Paul for a year or two…fine.

Listed 6’1″/235lbs, Paul posted 88 tackles, 11.0 TFL, 3.5 sacks, 9 hurries, 1 INT, and 4 PBU this year as the MIKE in the #14 defense in the country (#3 in scoring defense). He checks a lot of boxes that I’m looking for.

https://twitter.com/BengalsBrews/status/1859046662028542307

3.82(SEA)->3.91(BAL) + 4.128(BAL)

3.91(BAL) – Defensive Tackle, Nebraska, Ty Robinson

Seattle has impending free agents at DT in Jarran Reed, Johnathan Hankins, and Brandon Pili. Cameron Young has been non-existent since he was drafted in 2023. We need reinforcements on the interior DL. I’m a fan of using vets at DT, as the younger guys seem ineffective until they’ve had 3-4 years in the pro’s, but Seattle may not have the cap space to do that.

Robinson is listed 6’6″/310lbs, and he’s played everywhere along the Huskers’ line (not to mention some fullback). This year he posted 12.5 TFL, 7.0 sacks, 7 hurries, 4 PBU, 1 FF, and 1 blocked kick. It may not be a sexy pick, but this guy makes your roster better.

https://twitter.com/JaredNFLDraft/status/1873070977397219825

4.128(BAL) – Quarterback, Louisville, Tyler Shough

I mentioned last week on twitter that I kind of like Seattle doing what Washington did in 2012 when they drafted RG3 in the 1st round and then Kirk Cousins in the 4th round of that draft. I don’t really think the quality of this quarterback class will be in the 1st round. I think there’s a number of quality leaders of men that play QB, but have not caught the eye of the media, and probably not the league. But history will look kindly on a couple guys drafted in the 2nd-4th rounds.

Shough has a complicated story, having started at Oregon, played a couple injury-plagued years at Texas Tech, before finally getting a full healthy year in 2024 at Louisville. He now has ties to the schools that recently gave us Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson. He’s got the ideal QB build at 6’5″/225lbs. He’s an older player at 25, which is why he will fall in the draft, but I like his longterm prospects.

https://twitter.com/dpbrugler/status/1869755257540235527

4.136(SEA comp) – Tight End, Miami, Elijah Arroyo

I think this is a lowkey nice TE class. I’d like to see the Hawks invest a decent pick at the spot. A) they need a quid pro quo replacement for free agent Pharoah Brown. B) I kinda think the right TE player could end up being a pseudo replacement for DK Metcalf.

Arroyo is listed 6’4″/245lbs and posted 35 catches for 590 yards and 7 TD this year.

https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1855299379197825066

5.146(LVR) – Defensive Tackle, Ole Miss, JJ Pegues

Listen, at this point, I’m just ride-or-die with some of these guys. The only thing that changes is how early I need to draft them. Pegues is one of my favorite players in the entire draft. I want him on my team. He’s listed at 6’2″/325lbs and still has a pretty legit outside edge rush. And he can get you short yardage carries as a ball carrier. He makes your roster better and deeper.

JJ finished the year with 13.5 TFL, 3.5 sacks, 5 hurries, and a total 7 rushing TD.

https://twitter.com/BradLoganCOTE/status/1815468165184331958

5.173(SEA comp) – Wide Receiver, Tennessee, Dont’e Thornton

This is another, more literal, attempt to find a replacement for Metcalf. There’s a sneaky group of BIG receivers that will be available in this draft, and most aren’t getting crazy buzz. Maybe that changes for the ones that flash at the combine, but for now I’m seeing Thornton available this late.

He’s listed 6’5″/214lbs. I believe the rep is that he will test well. And in 2024 he only had 26 catches, but he averaged 25.42 ypc on those catches, with 6 going for TD.

https://twitter.com/Volology/status/1837651506893291623

6.178(LAC trade DK) – Center, Florida, Jake Slaughter

One of my biggest complaints of John Schneider’s last decade running the show in Seattle has been the way he has mismanaged the center position. He traded away Max Unger and the offensive line, and the team’s success, has never been the same. And he’s screwed up time after time in the draft with his decisions (and indecisions) regarding centers.

Ironically, this year comes around and I don’t think the draft warrants an early pick at the center position. As I scan national big boards, the top ranked center isn’t coming off the board until the 5th round. Yeah, it’s potentially that empty.

So we don’t want to spend a high pick on a center, but we do need to take a shot on a potential upgrade to 2023 5th-rounder Olu Oluwatimi.

I like Slaughter. He’s listed 6’5″/308lbs. He’s a very smart player.

https://twitter.com/AKing_Evals/status/1802352928377753985

6.184(CHI) – Offensive Tackle, Kansas, Logan Brown

This pick is two things…1) it’s a de facto replacement for Stone Forsythe, who will be a free agent coming off IR, 2) it’s a lotto ticket to finding a decent hedge for Abe Lucas’ future at RT.

Brown is listed 6’6″/315lbs and I just like the temperment he brings.

6.210(SEA comp) – Wide Receiver, Auburn, Keandre Lambert Smith

It’s possible I’ve got way too many picks in this mock draft. There’s a reason I think it might be good to draft a high number, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s plausible. Trading draft picks isn’t as easy in reality as it is in mock draft simulators, etc. So if I were to cut down on picks, this would be the one that I’d lose first.

But I like the story of Lambert Smith. You may remember in 2015, the Seahawks had a safety named Keenan Lambert they got as an UDFA. That was Kam Chancellor’s half-brother. Well, with a first name that starts with ‘K’ and the last name Lambert, you might put together that Keandre is actually Kam’s nephew.

KLS played this year for Auburn after spending four years at Penn State. After swapping Lions for Tigers, Lambert led Auburn in receiving with 50 catches for 981 yards and 8 TD. Listed at 6’1″/182lbs, but I think he plays bigger than that. He’s very strong winning contested balls in the air. If you can get Jermaine Kearse production out of him (about 40 catches, 550 yards, an explosive play per game); that’s a great value.

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1860519940853280846

7.234(SEA) – Safety, Nebraska, Deshon Singleton

There are a couple safeties in this draft that I wouldn’t mind seeing Seattle draft early, and giving Mike Macdonald his new Kyle Hamilton type. Notre Dame’s Xavier Watts is an absolute ball-hawk that is second in the country in INT this year, after tying for the national lead in the same category last year. And South Carolina’s Nick Emmanwori is a huge safety at 6’3″/227lbs that should end up one of the top performers at all positions at the Combine. Either of those guys is worthy of a top 60 pick.

Singleton is probably not as complete of a player as the two aforementioned. He basically seems to have the kind of hands that show why he’s playing defense, not offense, and his career mark of 1 total INT all but confirms it. But the guy is one of my favorite tackling safeties I’ve seen. This could be the kind of guy whose ceiling is on special teams, but it might be the special teams player that goes to the Pro Bowl every year. Listed 6’3″/210lbs with 71 tackles on the year from safety.

https://twitter.com/HuskerEastNE/status/1843112305720271109

December Seamock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

We’ve turned the calendar to December, and with it comes an update my Seahawks seven round mock draft. A lot of this is carryover from the previous edition, because if you believe in something, you don’t change simply for the sake of content, or not repeating yourself. But, also, there’s quite a bit new in here.

As I’m writing this, the Seahawks are on their opening drive of their game versus the Jets. They currently hold the lead in the NFC West, and with it a draftpick at #20 overall. Picking in the twenties is historically no-man’s-land. This year, in particular, that could be especially true. So I’m trading down the #20. The first trade will be with Detroit for their picks at #32 and #64.

John Schneider is recently, openly of the mind that he won’t draft interior offensive line in the first round. A) we’re barely in the first round at pick #32, and B) there have been instances in the past when John drafted a college offensive tackle in the first round, who would go on to play the majority of their pro careers at guard. So this will be like that.

#1.32 – Offensive Line, West Virginia, Wyatt Milum

I had some consideration to take one of the better true guards in this class in a Donovan Jackson, Tate Ratledge, or Tyler Booker with this pick, but as I mentioned, that feels like something Schneider won’t do. Milum is the starting left tackle for WVU with very high marks in everything but arm length. As a result, most in the draft community believe Milum gets moved to guard. I’d be happy to be the team that gets to do that. Milum is 6’6″/317lbs with enough nastiness to send a message to the opposing team, and enough smarts to keep it within the rulebook.

#2.51 – Edge Rusher, Boston College, Donovan Ezeiruaku

It’s going to be interesting to see how the league handles how good this year’s class at rush linebacker is expected to be. I’m contending that we will see very strong players at the position lasting, basically, until the end of the second round. Seattle could have it’s choice between some combination of Mike Green, Kyle Kennard, Bradyn Swinson, Princely Umanmielen, Josaiah Stewart, Antwuan Powell-Ryland, and Ezeiruaku last until their native pick at #51.

I’m going with Donovan for a few reasons, one of which is his projectability metric that puts him top three amongst this class, and the #1 still on the board. Ezeiruaku is listed 6’2″/247lbs, and is expected to have arms well over 34″ at the combine weigh-in. He has a great combination of speed, power, and football IQ.

This is a draft that falls in a time when Seattle is still young into a new head coaching regime, and we need to draft volume to get Mike Macdonald more shots at his type of players. With that said, my second trade of this mock comes when I send pick #2.64 to the Raiders for picks #3.69 and #5.140.

#3.69 – Linebacker, Ole Miss, Chris Paul Jr

The linebacker spot is going to be crucial to nailing this draft, which in turn will make the Macdonald defense work. We’ve seen so much turnover at LB already under the former linebackers’ coach, and there is no guarantee that Ernest Jones will be back in 2025. We need to invest for the longterm in the position. This isn’t a great draft to find off the ball linebackers, and as such, this may not be early enough to target one. It may be a better strategy to take a stand-up LB before drafting an Edge-rush LB (which has way more depth).

For now, Paul is underrated nationally, and so I’m taking advantage of that to get him in the third round. Paul is listed 6’1″/235lbs, averages 7.33 tackles per game, and has 11.0 TFL, 9 QB hurries, 1 INT, and 4 PBU on the year for the very underrated Ole Miss defense.

Here, again, I’m looking to add volume picks to my draft board, and I trade #3.84 to Jacksonville for their picks at #3.92 and #4.129.

#3.92 – Quarterback, Louisville, Tyler Shough

In the biggest change from my previous mocks, I’ve abandoned taking Jaxson Dart in the second, and am now pivoting to the unexpected pick of Shough in the late third.

Shough is listed at 6’5″/225lbs and in 2024 he has posted 3195 yards, 23 TD, 6 INT, 62.7% completion, 8.2 ypa, and a 148.15 rating in his sixth-year senior season. Yes, Shough is an old prospect. He was originally the backup to Justin Herbert at Oregon in 2019. He was the primary starter for the Ducks in the Covid-shortened 2020 season. In 2021, he transferred to Texas Tech where he suffered through three injury-shortened seasons where he played a combined 15 games. In 2024, finally healthy, Shough has made every start after transferring again to Louisville.

In a year where Seattle projects to pick well outside the top 10 overall, and the QB landscape seems incredibly uncertain, I think you mitigate some of the risk by hunting value in a later round. Shough will fall in the draft because of his age, but perhaps, counter-intuitively, his age will also mean maturity and a faster development time in the pro’s. It’s worth discussing why recent career “comeback” success stories like Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold (and to lesser extent Geno Smith) happened because those QB’s had __ number of reps as pro’s, or if they simply matured as men as they’ve aged. If it’s the latter; we may be cutting to the point by drafting a guy that is already 25.

Darnold was famously young (20 years old) when he was drafted in 2018, and he’s only found success this year at age 27. Mayfield didn’t start to cut down on his INT, and play smarter ball until his third year in Cleveland at the age of 25. Years earlier, Aaron Rodgers sat behind Brett Favre for multiple seasons. When he did finally get the chance to start, Rodgers was immediately very good. He was also 25 when that happened. Tom Brady’s first year starting came at 24 y/o. Drew Brees’ two worst years as a starter came when he was 23 and 24, then he turns 25 and makes his first Pro Bowl. Kurt Warner didn’t break through until he was 28. Tony Romo didn’t take the reins for Dallas until he was 26. Russell Wilson won his Super Bowl with Seattle when he was 25.

Right after acquiring Sam Howell last offseason, Schneider lauded how young Howell was, with specific reference to him being younger than multiple of the 2024 QB draft class. Howell is, in fact, only barely 24 years old, but by most reports Howell has been kind of terrible when given the reps in training camp and preseason.

I’m just not sure youth is something to be coveted at the quarterback position. The years of inexpensive team control is what is useful, but if you’re punting 1-2 years of that away because your guy needs to, basically, grow up…what’s the point? If you can cut to the chase by getting a guy in that 24-25 year range, and he’s ready quicker, you’ve actually sped up the clock of your rebuild/refresh. That’s my theory, anyways.

I like Shough. I like his arm-talent. I like his ability to play off-platform. He’s got a very underrated running ability (go back and look at some of his Oregon tape). And he’s got the kind of intangibles that generally seem to pay off longterm.

#4.129 – Tightend, Miami, Elijah Arroyo

This is a sneaky good class of TE. I think there will be value still to be found in the 4th round. In fact, when I was cross-checking who might still be available in the 4th round, I was shocked at how many names I found. I’m going with Arroyo because of the athleticism he puts on tape, but also because of the effort. There’s a play somewhere out there showing him chasing down an INT return backside after running like 70-80 yards…yeah, I’ll take that dude. And he’s listed 6’4″/245lbs and can burn.

#4.136 – Right Tackle, Kansas, Logan Brown

I tend to think we need to draft someone STAT that can replace Abe Lucas longterm. George Fant has barely played this year with injury. Stone Forsythe will be a free agent, and has also been injured. And neither of the 2024 draftpicks (Jerrell and Laumea) will be playing right tackle in the near future without other guys being injured.

I’ve been looking at various RT options all year and none have quite fit. I’ve looked at left tackles that we could move to RT, but that would require bigger draft capital investment. I’ve looked at many of the natural RT guys, but most had one kind of flaw or another.

I’ve only recently spent time looking at Logan Brown, and it was the kind of lightbulb moment you hope for. Listed as a 6’6″/315lb redshirt Junior, Brown began his career with Wisconsin in 2019. So he’s already spent four years as a Badger, before his last two with the Jayhawks. Why he’s listed as a rs-Junior is beyond me.

After watching many of the Kansas games from this year; I’m not sure why Brown isn’t more touted. There is, possibly, the age issue, and then I did notice his Kansas profile mentions he is a type 1 diabetic. I don’t know how that factors into his future as a pro. I just know I thought he had some of the best RT tape I’ve watched all year.

#5.140 – Defensive tackle, Ole Miss, JJ Pegues

Some of my player picks haven’t changed, we just need to tweak where we draft them. This part will continue all the way up to the draft.

JJ Pegues is one of my favorite guys in this entire draft. I just love everything about him. I love his versatility. I love his toughness. I love his personality. This would be like our new Brandon Mebane type of guy if we can add him.

Listed at 6’2″/325lbs, the Mayor has 41 tackles, 13.5 TFL, 3.5 sacks, 4 hurries, and a pretty ridiculous 7 rushing TD on the year.

#5.173 – Defensive tackle, Nebraska, Ty Robinson

We immediately go back to the DT class, but for a different kind of profile. Robinson is all of 6’6″/310lbs, and can play all up and down the line, and has played some fullback this year. For the season he has 11.0 TFL, 6.0 sacks, 6 hurries, 3 PBU, 1 FF, and 1 blocked kick.

#6.185 – Wide Receiver, Kansas, Quentin Skinner

I’m not gonna lie…two days ago I had Tennessee WR Dont’e Thornton in this spot. But then Saturday comes, Thornton gets a plug from Senior Bowl Director Jim Nagy pre-game, and then proceeds to catch three passes for 118 yards and two TD’s in the Vols’ game that day. I would love to get Thornton here, but I think his stock will be rising directly.

Skinner has a very similar profile, though. I found both of these guys in the last 10 days, or so, while hunting WR that would still be on the board late. There is still a possibility that DK Metcalf will be a cap casualty trade in the offseason. It feels like the Seahawks’ future cap can’t hold both DK and Geno (and maybe neither). So I’m looking for WR with some size, speed, and highpoint ability.

Skinner is listed 6’5″/195lbs. He could add a few pounds, but that’s what NFL weight training staff is for. His speed seems decent. He runs pretty good routes for his size. But mostly, I like his body control and the aggressiveness he has going after the ball. Kansas doesn’t throw the ball very much (#114 in the country before this week), and so Skinner only has 25 catches on the year, but he’s averaging 22.28 ypc and has 4 TD from those 25 grabs.

#6.210 – Center, Florida, Jake Slaughter

In our third, and final, pick to help improve the offensive line; I’m taking Florida center Jake Slaughter. Listed 6’5″/308lbs, Slaughter reminds me quite a bit of Max Unger. This is a VERY smart player. If it doesn’t work out for him as a player, he will certainly be able to coach.

#7.236 – Safety, Nebraska, Deshon Singleton

I’m a big fan of drafting to the strength(s) of a draft class, and this year is very strong at running back, which I haven’t addressed to this point. I wouldn’t mind if we drafted a RB pretty much anywhere on day three, but there’s also the points that we don’t necessarily NEED a RB, and with the depth of the class and the decreased positional value…we might get the guy we wanted late as a rookie free agent.

I’m pivoting to a pet project pick. I spotted Singleton some weeks ago, and the more I watch him, the more I appreciate him. Maybe not the highest floor player, but he’s so reliable the way he plays in run support, and the way he tackles. At minimum, he’ll be a very good special teams player. Listed at 6’3″/210lbs, I’d love to see what he could become in the Macdonald scheme.

So there we have it. An intentionally trenches-heavy draft. This is the way more of the recent Super Bowl teams have been built. And we’re also back-filling behind 2025 free agents: Jarran Reed, Johnathan Hankins, Laken Tomlinson, Stone Forsythe, Ernest Jones, Kvon Wallace, Pharaoh Brown, Trevis Gipson, Laviska Shenault, and, in a sense, Connor Williams, who left a wee bit early.

Hawktober Mock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

After falling to the Niners on Thursday Night Football, and their record dropping to 3-3, the Seahawks now stand to draft at #14 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft. The Mike Macdonald coached defense ranks 25th in the league in points allowed, with the rush defense ranking 27th. QB Geno Smith leads the league in passing yards, but ranks 20th in passer rating and is tied for the league lead in interceptions thrown. And the offensive line has run-blocked to the tune of 27th in the league.

There’s a LOT wrong with this club right now, and we’re progressing to a draft that is extremely light on 1st round talents, and isn’t particularly deep overall either. Some of the positions this draft looks strong at; Seattle doesn’t have as immediate needs (like edge rusher and running back). It’s really not looking like a good situation for Seattle to make a quick rebuild.

In terms of the first round…a lot of times the media will pre-emptively stack their first round projections with guys that come from the annual “Freaks List”. This year, I’d say there’s maybe 8 of 32 (25%) that overlap. Oh, so, is the first round stacked with guys that are grading out elite or have top of class production through six weeks? Not really. It’s kind of a bananas year.

With this in mind…and this specifically applies to the state of the draft class in the middle of October 2024…I think Seattle should trade back their first round pick. If/when the media starts re-ranking the class, and we get more guys that fit what Seattle needs, then maybe I’ll change my mock to reflect that with a stick-and-pick edition.

Seattle currently projects to having nine picks after they are awarded their slate of compensatory picks. We don’t need to add more volume. I just want to re-position a little bit in the first two rounds. I like the look of trading with Buffalo. The Bills have ten picks projected, included two in the second round. Pending their performance this week in MNF, they should be drafting between #21 to maybe #23 in the first round. Their second round picks are roughly #54 and #64. There is a scenario we should get #54, but for now to make the numbers work; Seattle gives #1.14 overall for Buffalo’s #1.21 + #2.64 + #4.137.

#1.21 – OT, West Virginia, Wyatt Milum

There are obviously reasons Seattle should try to fix their defense urgently. A guy like Ohio State DT Tyleik Williams would immediately improve our run defense. And there are certainly edge rushers available in this range that look pretty special and would be a good BPA pick. But when I reverse-draft; I think I can get a nose tackle later because of position value, and I can get an edge guy later because of depth in this class.

You know what I can’t get too much later? Offensive line.

Well, let me clarify. If Seattle is replacing Stone Forsythe…I think they can get one of those on day three. But…if we’re needing to truly commit to replacing Abraham Lucas; I think we need to do that pretty early in the draft.

Milum is listed 6’6″/317lbs…which is pretty ideal measurements for an OT. The guy is country strong, too. He’s been playing LT for the Mountaineers, but I’ll move him to RT similar to how the Chargers drafted Joe Alt and moved him to RT, while leaving incumbent LT Rashawn Slater in place.

#2.48 – QB, Mississippi, Jaxson Dart

If Seattle is truly prepared to draft a QB of the future; why not stick at #14 and take him there? As we saw last year; the guy(s) we need probably don’t fall out of the top 10. We’re gonna have to try to pull some Jalen Hurts, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson shit. Which, also, seems to be the only way John Schneider is comfortable to take a shot on a QB.

To me, Dart is still a top two QB in this draft, but he’s the one we can get. He’s hitting 70% completion, over 10.0 ypa, and over 4 to 1 TD to INT.

#2.64 – OG, Georgia, Tate Ratledge

It’s perhaps foolhardy to take two OL in our first three picks when there are equally big needs on defense, but I just think it’s such a big need with such a shallow class available. And Ratledge is probably only available this late because he’s currently shelved for another month with an ankle surgery recovery. If he gets back in time for a few regular season games and a playoff push; his stock probably climbs out of this range.

#3.79 – DT, Mississippi, JJ Pegues

Pegues is one of my favorite players in this class, and so I’m allowing myself to draft him well before the national media are valuing him. Mississippi has the #1 run defense in the country, and JJ is the (literally) biggest part of that at 6’2″/325lbs. The Rebels use him all up and down the DL, plus he’s become a pretty frequent collaborator on offense as a running back. He’d be such a unique player to add to the Macdonald defense.

#4.115 – Edge, Marshall, Mike Green

There are still a few very intriguing passrush linebackers available into this range. Kyle Kennard, Collin Oliver, and Green come to mind. I’m going with Green for the repertoire, and some of the projectability metrics. Listed 6’4″/248lbs and a redshirt sophomore, but this is his 4th year in college. His production of 10.5 TFL, 8.0 sacks, and 10 hurries all rank top 5 in the class. If he can add another 7 lbs of muscle, even better.

#4.136 – RB, Iowa, Kaleb Johnson

I don’t think I had room for a RB in my last mock, but with the extra pick from Buffalo leading to back-to-back picks in the fourth round; I think it’s good draft practice to take one in this very strong RB class.

Johnson has been one of the top two most-explosive RB this year with Ashton Janty. His style reminds me of somewhere between Arian Foster and Shaun Alexander.

Even with Ken Walker missing a couple games to start this year; Seattle has only given third-string RB Kenny Mcintosh 3 carries all year. So, I don’t think they believe in him for some reason.

#4.137 – LB, Mississippi, Chris Paul Jr

There is no position in this draft that I’ve spent more time on that has yielded worse results than off the ball linebacker. I’ve looked at the freak athletes…they don’t have good instincts. I’ve looked at the guys with good season stats…they look slow. I’ve looked at the guys projected high by other media outlets…they don’t come across like they can handle the playbook in interviews.

So, as much as I’d like to use one of the second round picks on the “QB of the defense” for Macdonald, I just don’t think the value is there.

Chris Paul Jr is my compromise. Listed 6’1″/235lbs he’s got good size. On the season he has 48 tackles, 7.0 TFL, 2.5 sacks, 7 hurries, 3 PBU. It’s a well-rounded production line. He can blitz, he can cover, he can get sideline to sideline. In his tape he looks athletic enough.

#5.172 – TE, Oregon, Terrance Ferguson

It seems like a pretty strong class of tight ends, which may allow for some patience to draft one. Bowling Green TE Harold Fanning is top 10 in receiving overall for the year. Penn State TE Tyler Warren had 17 catches and over 200 yards this last weekend. Guys like Colston Loveland, Orande Gadsden, Anthony Torres, Brant Kuithe, Jake Briningstool, Elijah Arroyo, Luke Lachey, Gunnar Helm, Eli Stowers have all popped in one way or another.

I’m going with Ferguson, probably because of recency bias, because I just thought he looked awesome this week versus Ohio State. Listed 6’5″/255lbs and averaging 16.05 ypc on the year.

#6.193 – DL, Nebraska, Ty Robinson

Seattle is due to have both Jarran Reed and Johnathan Hankins hit free agency after this year, so two DT is in the draft is probably a must. JJ Pegues is a good run-stuffer that can passrush a bit, and Ty Robinson is a good passrusher that can play the run a bit. Ole Miss is the #1 run defense in the country, but Nebraska is no slouch at #4.

Robinson is listed at 6’6″/310lbs, but if you told me he was 285, I’d believe it. He has 6.0 TFL, 4.0 sacks, 2 hurries, 3 PBU, and a blocked kick on the year. Like Pegues, I think you can use him all over the DL…and Nebraska does.

#6.210 – LB, California, Teddye Buchanan

Seattle really needs to draft two linebackers with both Tyrel Dodson and Jerome Baker only signed to one-year deals. Maybe they’ll go back to free agency for a linebacker like a Nick Bolton as their top overall target.

Buchanan is listed 6’2″/235lbs, and has 56 tackles, 6.0 TFL, 4.0 sacks, 3 hurries, 3 PBU, and a FF on the year.

#7.228 – DS, Virginia, Jonas Sanker

Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Seattle took any of, like, 10 position groups with this pick. They could triple down on OL or DL. They could take a WR or a CB, which they haven’t taken thus far. I’m going with safety because I’m following the free agency lead. K’von Wallace may walk after the year, so to replace him I’m going with Sanker.

Sanker is listed 6’1″/210lbs. Senior Bowl reported this week he runs 4.4. On the season he has 49 tackles, 4.0 TFL, 1.0 sack, 1 hurry, 3 PBU. He’d be a great special teams guy at minimum.

Overall, this is a back to basics draft. We’re going heavy in the trenches again until John Schneider gets his philosophy in order and starts picking the right OL/DL guys. We’re going QB, RB, and LB. Honestly, if we can get somewhere near what the Commanders did this last draft when they got QB Jayden Daniels, DT Jerzhan Newton, DB Mike Sainristil, TE Ben Sinnott, OT Brandon Coleman, WR Luke McCaffrey, LB Jordan Magee, DS Dom Hampton…that’d be a pretty solid draft towards a quick turnaround.

Seahawks 2025 mock #1

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

Three weeks into the NFL season, four weeks into the college season, and I’m already getting the itch to do some Sea-mocking. As I noted yesterday on my twitter; OTC has recently updated their projection of the 2025 compensatory picks, and in that Seattle gained a 6th round comp for losing Bobby Wagner. This comes in addition to the 4th and 5th they were already expected to get for losing Damien Lewis and Jordyn Brooks. These are not official, but it’s a good chance they’re close.

We lost a 5th rounder for the Leonard Williams trade, gained an early 6th rounder for the Darrell Taylor trade, and lost a late 6th rounder for the Trevis Gipson trade. So currently Seattle has 9 picks projected:

1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 4th-comp, 5th-comp, 6th-CHI, 6th-comp, 7th

As one of only two NFC undefeated teams (MIN), Seattle gets slated into the NFC championship round in terms of draft position, which means roughly the #29 overall pick.

I ran some reader polls on my twitter this last weekend just to kind of gauge fan interest in a couple of draft areas. In the first, fans were about 3 to 1 in favor of drafting a QB to redshirt behind Geno Smith and Sam Howell for a year. And, in terms of the offensive line, fans are most interested in finding a long-term fix at Left Guard over Center or Right Tackle.

Personally, I have some pretty strong interest in finding a long-term fix at nose tackle for Seattle. This has been the biggest problem on defense so far this year…stopping runs right up the middle. Johnathan Hankins has not been great, and he’s a free agent. Jarran Reed gets listed as a nose tackle, but he’s not really a true nose, and he’s also a free agent.

There are some pretty interesting draft names at DT that are already getting floated in the first round: Ohio State’s Tyleik Williams (my favorite), Kentucky’s Deone Walker, and Michigan’s Kenneth Grant. In this exercise, all three are off the board in the top 25 picks. I’m not doing projections of where guys eventually will land in the actual draft. I’m looking at current market price. This means that guys that media are probably over-valuing are not available, but also guys that are under-valued are clear to draft. Both sides of that play into this mock.

#1.29 – QB, Mississippi, Jaxson Dart

We’re at the part of the season where the QB’s I think eventually climb into the top half of the 1st round are currently available in the 2nd in national mock drafts. Around this time last year, guys like Jayden Daniels and Michael Penix and JJ McCarthy and Bo Nix were not going top 10. It’s the same right now for 2025 class. Right now all of Cam Ward, Drew Allar, Jalen Milroe, Jaxson Dart are consensus 2nd round, while guys like Carson Beck, Shedeur Sanders, Quinn Ewers are the 1st round names. I like, literally, all of the 2nd round names better than all of the 1st round names. I think Beck is Nick Foles-esque. Sanders is such an entitled shithead of a person, that I put more in the Johnny Manziel or Kyler Murray class of guys that will never be true leaders of men. And Ewers, to me, is more of a Jay Cutler vibe.

Amongst the guys I like…Ward kinda reminds me of Geno Smith. I don’t LOVE him, but there’s enough in the toolbox that he could be a top 10 QB in the league, and with the perfect surrounding cast, he might win a Super Bowl.

Allar is 4 of 4 of these guys, and I probably wouldn’t draft him until the 4th round. But, if I’m going to do that, I’m probably just gonna pivot to the next tier that is more like 5th-6th round.

Milroe is fascinating. He’s got the highest marks among all seven of these QB’s in certain traits (arguably, the traits that I think lead to continuing success in the NFL). But he’s also got, probably, the most glaring flaws. If he’s Jalen Hurts or Dak Prescott; he’s probably well worth a 2nd round pick. Would I take him in the 1st?? Tough call. We’ll know better in February.

And Dart, to me, is the best combination of now skill and future upside. He’s definitely the highest floor guy, to me. He can run the ball plenty, but if you told me you were asking him to be a pure pocket-passer; I think he’d still be great. Listed at 6’2″/225lbs, Dart is plenty stout, and he’s at the low-end of what I think is acceptable QB height. He’s got plenty of arm, but that won’t be his standout trait at pro day. To me, his ball-placement is top 2 or 3 in this class.

#2.62 – OG, Georgia, Tate Ratledge

I wouldn’t mind seeing John Schneider getting aggressive on an interior OL in this draft. But he probably won’t. I don’t know which OL pick hurt him, but he’s got a pretty substantial blindspot to the concept now. This is part of the plus/minus of having all these notebooks (long memory) he keeps…sometimes you over-correct when you should just let nature and the turning of the next class be its own correction.

Ohio State’s LG Donovan Jackson looks VERY good in his season debut last week, but he’s generally seen as a 1st round guy. Ratledge is currently listed as a late 2nd round name. He’s currently on the shelf with a foot/ankle injury that is expected to sideline him until November. He’s listed 6’6″/320lbs. I wouldn’t mind if we found out he was slightly shorter at the Combine, but otherwise very solid build.

Historically, I believe he has only played right guard, and I would want him to play left. I can’t imagine the challenges of moving from RG to LG are nearly as big as moving from RT to LT, so I’m guessing he can make the move. Ratledge is a character. He looks really athletic on tape, and he’s certainly got some nasty to him.

#3.93 – LB, Alabama, Deontae Lawson

Seattle has two starting linebackers playing on one-year deals in Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson. Maybe they’ll re-sign one, but I doubt they keep both. I don’t get the impression that they are super in love with 2024 LB draftpick Tyrice Knight. Like, I don’t think they want to green-dot Knight.

So we go back to the well in the draft to try to find a long-term piece at ILB. Knowing the free agency picture; I’ve been doing a fair amount of digging at the spot, and I was pretty happy when I got to Lawson. Listed 6’2″/239lbs; he more closely resembles the ILB we were seeing 7-8 years ago. The last couple of LB draft classes, there was nary a man that was over 230lbs. I like Deontae’s bigger body profile. I like his instincts. I like the way he moves almost like a running back cutting through the wash when he gets downhill towards the line of scrimmage.

#4.131 – TE, Texas, Gunnar Helm

It’s still early in the Ryan Grubb offense evaluation, but the early results don’t really show much preference for using the TE. We’ve seen exactly 6 targets to the combined TE group in the first three games. At UW, I don’t have the target numbers, but the reception numbers averaged about 4.5 catches per game to tight ends.

As much as people thought Seattle might target Brock Bowers in the 1st round last year; I just don’t know that this staff needs or wants a bigtime TE. We drafted a 4th round TE last year in AJ Barner. We’ve got Noah Fant signed through the end of 2025. We just need to draft a replacement for Pharoah Brown, who is only on a one-year deal.

Helm is listed 6’5″/250lbs, and he’s got 11 catches for 197 yards and 1 TD so far this year.

#4.136 – LB, Iowa, Jay Higgins

This was the first pick in this mock where I kind of found a cluttered board. It was mostly defense, but also potentially another stab at finding a Center of the future. I could see Seattle commit to Connor Williams going forward (he’s only 27), so I’m actually probably gonna punt on Center this year. Plus, there haven’t really been any standout centers so far.

I’ve recently made an observation that, in years past, when Seattle has drafted two players from the same position in the same draft…one of those two picks should have been used on a quarterback. This year, I’ve already drafted a QB, so I’ve cleared myself to double-dip.

Higgins is listed 6’2″/232lbs and has been a tackling machine for the Hawkeyes in 2023, ranking 3rd in the country per game, and 1st in total combined tackles. A 5th-year Senior; Higgins has paid his dues with all five years at Iowa…emblematic of the way coach Kirk Ferentz runs his program.

#5.172 – DL, Mississippi, JJ Pegues

I think DT is probably a bigger need for Seattle in the 2025 draft, than to wait until the 5th round. But as of right now, the 1st round DT are probably being over-valued, and all of the rest of the DT are probably being undervalued. So these next two picks are currently available super late…technically later than this…and I’m just slotting them here for now.

Pegues is a super interesting player. He’s listed 6’2″/325lbs, but Ole Miss have played him at DE, which isn’t too crazy, but it starts getting pretty nuts when you see that they’ve given him 5 rushing attempts. We’re not talking fullback, blocking reps. The guy has five designed runs, with two TD in four games, and on at least two of his carries, the guy leapt the pile. AND they’ve used him as additional OL in short yardage.

I definitely was drawn to him by his DT work, but I’m not gonna exclude the idea of him becoming a fullback/goalline option on a roster that isn’t currently carrying a fullback.

If you’re playing two positions; you get two highlights in the mock draft. Pegues at DT:

#6.180 – NT, Florida, Cam Jackson

I really think the true nose-tackle is something Seattle needs the most this draft. But I also wonder if it’s a spot that they will pay high value pick to acquire. I spent maybe an hour researching the draft class of nose tackles and immediately found ten candidates. This might be a great year to try to find one of these guys late. (**Technically, I also had Pegues on my NT shortlist, but I think his skillset is broader than JUST the nose. Hence, he gets picked earlier of the two.)

Jackson is one of 2-3 of my NT list that currently show up in the undrafted free agent range. So I’m already giving him more respect than the national media, even though 6th round seems late.

Jackson is listed 6’6″/342lbs. He has 2.5 career sacks in his three years at Memphis, plus two years at Florida. I don’t have misconceptions that he has some hidden passrusher in him. He would be picked to join the DL rotation as a run-stuff specialist. Period.

#6.210 – OT, Wisconsin, Riley Mahlman

Seattle’s RT situation is so cluttered. Incumbent starter Abe Lucas is injured and yet to play in 2024, with fears that his injury is degenerative and he’s not long for his playing days. George Fant is recently injured and placed on IR to miss at least three more games this year, and he has another year on his deal for 2025. Sataoa Laumea played a lot of RT in college, but is listed by the Seahawks as a Guard. Mike Jerrell was drafted in the 6th round of 2024 draft and is currently behind Lucas, Fant, and Stone Forsythe on the depth chart. Current RT starter Forsythe was a 6th round pick in 2021, and is currently set to be a free agent after this year.

While I wouldn’t mind if Seattle spent significant Draft capital to either trade for, or draft, a right tackle of the future…it doesn’t feel like that is what they will do. But if we spend another 6th round pick at the spot, we at least replace Forsythe straight-up, and then we work to see if the combo of Lucas, Fant, Jerrell, and draftpick can net us a decent starter for 2025.

Mahlman is a redshirt Junior for Wisconsin, listed at 6’8″/308lbs. He caught my eye while I was watching fellow Badger OT Jack Nelson. Mahlman is the natural RT, so we don’t have to do the projection on the side switch.

#7.243 – DS, Oklahoma State, Trey Rucker

This was a tough pick. I really like this class of RB, which I haven’t found room for yet. I didn’t give them any WR, and there are always WR (which can include into UDFA). And I haven’t drafted them a replacement for 2025 free agent K’von Wallace. Julian Love is under contract, Rayshawn Jenkins has another year left, Coby Bryant now seems to be a safety and he has another year on his rookie deal, and Jerrick Reed is still on the PUP.

It’s not a high priority position, but I do think that safety is a lowkey deep position going into this draft. I literally wrote down three safety names that are currently ranking as UDFA that I could have chosen from for this one pick alone.

I went with Rucker because he’s listed 6’0″/210lbs, and he’s third in the country in tackles per game with 13.25. He’s probably the future of the safety position where you’re kind of hybrid safety/linebacker. He also has 2 INT, 1.0 TFL in four games.

Mariners instant revisionist mock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

The MLB Draft, to me, is easily the most complex of all the major sport drafts. MLB has the option of both college and high school athletes, which only the NHL also allows. MLB has more draft rounds (20) than the other three sports combined (NBA-2, NFL-7, NHL-7). The NFL has slotted draft bonuses that actually mean something, where the MLB has slotted draft bonuses which actually don’t matter, and instead only contribute to their bonus pool for the first 10 rounds. In the NFL, players must declare for the draft by a pre-determined deadline, and either keep or lose their college eligibility depending on their declaration. In the NBA players can declare and then undeclare up to 10 days before the draft. In MLB, the players never have to declare, and they can decide to go to/remain in college even after they’ve been drafted.

As a result of all of these unique variables to the MLB Draft, it is almost impossible to predict draft order with any accuracy outside of the first round. (Really, it’s the top 15 picks.) Many of the top high school players in a draft class (per the media) aren’t ACTUALLY members of the draft class because they’ve informed MLB teams the requirements for them to sign away from their respective college commitments are too high for teams to actually consider drafting them. So they’ve become hollow place-holders on draft big-boards that the public are oblivious to. This totally screws up mock drafting models as dozens of the top players should be scratched.

Then there are the underslot, overslot, total slot bonus room games that each MLB team comes up with their own strategy to navigate, which make a true best player available mock draft non-existent.

After a number of years of studying MLB drafts, I have a pretty decent sample size to self-scout myself. Even when I have had some success predicting a player that Seattle drafts; I’m generally multiple rounds off of the exact draft position (eg: I mocked Seattle drafting relief pitcher Hunter Cranton at pick #7.213…the M’s actually drafted him at pick #3.91 for a massively underslot deal). This is why, over the last couple drafts, I’ve tried to create an immediate, reactionary re-draft for the Mariners. I like to have a document that legitimately factors the players that were both available to Seattle at their draft position each round, and also works from a signing bonus perspective where their overall draft fits under the Mariners’ actual bonus allowance.

I try not to include players that didn’t sign (the deadline for all draft signings this year was last Thursday, Aug 1st). This year, I knowingly broke this rule one time for reasons I will explain when we get there.

I do allow myself to “draft” guys that fell to undrafted status, but they must have signed in UDFA with a team. I can’t draft a guy that went undrafted and is still on the streets as of press time. The bonus(es) for UDFA guys that I’m mock drafting aren’t really considered, as it’s almost certain those guys aren’t getting much in terms of bonus, and therefore shouldn’t cross the $150,000 threshold allowed for all players picked after round 10.

The biggest problem with the rules for this exercise is that the “senior-sign”, underslot players drafted well before their actual value, are not eligible at later rounds that more closely match the value of their actual bonus. So, using the same previous example, I can only draft Hunter Cranton at one of Seattle’s first three round picks.

Here we go…

#1.15 – LHP, Saguaro HS, Cam Caminiti

I think the greatest mistake of Seattle’s 2024 draft is that they took Jurrangelo Cijntje at #15 AND gave him a full-slot ($4.88mill) signing bonus. I think their overall draft would have been stronger if they took college RHP Trey Yesavage ($4.18mill) or prep pitcher Caminiti ($3.56mill) to start with.

Caminiti was projected as a top 12 pick in this class, but fell to pick #24. In theory, I would have gladly given Caminiti the full slot deal at #15, but we’ll get him at the #24 pick price. Overall, Caminiti cost more than Sloan, but I prefer Cam’s present stuff, future upside, and lefthandedness. And I can definitely create bonus room over the aggregate with somewhat selective drafting in the 2nd.

If Seattle had gotten Cijntje at the same price as Yesavage, I think I would have come to better terms with it. But the combination of Jurrangelo full-slot, and over-slot on Sloan, just crippled Seattle for many rounds. I don’t care that Seattle’s farm is in a good place; you’re still punting on basically an entire draft class (if 1 and 2 don’t work), instead of continuing to stack more quality assets in a world where ownership won’t pay for free agents, and we HAVE to draft and trade for MLB players. It was a VERY short-sighted draft.

Bonus: $3,556,300

#2.55 – RHP, LSU, Luke Holman

I’m going on record that I think Holman will be a better pro pitcher than Cijntje. It happens all the time, even when Seattle drafts well, like when they drafted George Kirby in the 1st in 2019, they passed on Gunnar Henderson, or 2020 they picked Emerson Hancock while passing on Garrett Crochet, Jordan Westburg, Patrick Bailey, etc. Good picks can frequently still have been greater picks. And Holman cost almost 80% less than Cijntje, so the 2nd round pick could also have been 2nd plus 3rd (or more).

Bonus: $997,500

#3.91 – 3B, Norris HS, Kale Fountain

Seattle has now signed their first two picks in this draft ($4,553,800) for less than what it cost them to sign just Jurrangelo. So we have a surplus of almost $2mill under slot (or $3.327mill savings over Cijntje plus Sloan) to spread around the rest of the draft. Basically anyone drafted in the 3rd round down is in play. Unfortunately, most of my favored high school guys that would have needed overslot, weren’t even drafted or didn’t sign. Ineligible for this. The overslot options are limited.

Fountain is one guy that did sign. He was projected by MLB as their #121 overall player. He was picked at #151 by the Padres, and signed for about $1.3mill over slot at $1.7mill. This isn’t really a profile that Seattle has drafted out of high school in this regime. They’ve done a lot of “hit-first” prep shortstops and some run-tool outfielders. Fountain looks more power-first, prep corner infielder.

Bonus: $1,700,000

#4.121 – C, Nebraska, Josh Caron

My biggest problem with my own mock draft in real time three weeks ago was the lack of a catcher early in the draft. I wanted to get some guys in the system with the thought that Harry Ford might have been dealt at the deadline. Seattle kind of agreed, drafting Caron in the 4th and giving him, basically, the full slot amount. The price suggests Seattle believes in Caron. I hadn’t studied him before the draft, but let’s defer to the M’s pick, while also knowing MY pre-draft 4th round pick is still gonna be on the board. We can get both.

Bonus: $594,000

#5.154 – 1B, Georgia, Corey Collins

Collins is an extremely disciplined, lefthanded hitting college 1B, with experience at catcher. Per my research, Collins is a better version of Grant Knipp at the plate. MLB projected Corey at #170, he was picked at #6.173, and he signed for $272k. I’m plenty happy to take him in the 5th for the same price.

Bonus: $272,500

#6.183 – RHP, Oregon State, Bridger Holmes

Seattle clearly went into this draft targeting fast-to-the-show college relievers. I had used the same idea in my mock drafts, so it seems logical to do a more focused version of that in this exercise. The M’s actually drafted the two highest-ranked relievers I found in my pre-draft pitching analysis. Holmes was the 4th-highest. He, essentially, replaces #2 Charlie Beilenson who was over-drafted in the 3rd round to an underslot deal. Holmes is only a slight downgrade in analytics, a slightly larger bonus, but at a three-round discount. Plus, he was born in Anacortes and has those Jeff Nelson mechanics that Mariner old-heads will appreciate.

Bonus: $215,000

#7.213 – LHP, Rutgers, Donovan Zsak

I am baffled by Seattle’s multi-year draft plan (or lack thereof) in regards to finding lefthanded pitching. It is a huge blindspot for them, and it makes no sense in a park like TMobile where you should WANT to push teams to hit righthanded heavy. Zsak is a lefty that was touching 99mph towards the end of the college season, and looked even better in two games in the Cape Cod League just after the season. He basically replaces Brock Moore, but from the southpaw side.

Bonus: $200,000

#8.243 – LHP, Oklahoma St, Sam Garcia

Again, still looking to add more LHP quality. Garcia wasn’t a big-velo guy, but he got a good amount of punchouts, and ate a ton of innings. Plus, he only cost $55,000 to sign. Garcia replaces Will Riley.

Bonus: $55,000

#9.273 – RHP, Polk State, Aiden Butler

We’re still running a bonus surplus, but I don’t really see anyone here that I both like as a prospect, got drafted/signed, and needed overslot money. I’m just keeping Seattle’s pick, Butler, who signed for about $60k overslot.

Bonus: $250,000

#10.303 – MIF, Austin Peay, Jon Jon Gazdar

I had Gazdar to Seattle in the 8th round in my final pre-draft mock, and he was actually drafted in the 11th round, but was given a bonus of $250,000 by St Louis. In rounds 11-20, any bonus amount over $150,000 counts towards the pool for rounds 1-10. So the Cardinals essentially valued Gazdar in the 7th round.

Bonus: $250,000

#11.333 – RHP, LSU, Christian Little

In all honesty, I didn’t really see the pick of Little coming, but it might be the best pick of the class for Seattle. Christian was a highly-touted prospect coming out of highschool as one of the youngest players eligible for the 2020 draft. He wasn’t drafted then, with the league conceding to his open desire to play for Vanderbilt, which he did do while he was still only 17 years old.

In college, Little never really found consistency, with season lines generally pushing an ERA over 5.75 and a WHIP over 1.510. But this is, lowkey, the kind of makeup that Seattle has polished up in guys like Bryce Miller and Logan Evans. Could be the steal of the draft with a slight over-slot signing of only $200k.

Bonus: $200,000

#12.363 – RHP, Miami, Brian Walters

Seattle drafted Walters in the 19th round and it was always gonna be a longshot for them to sign him due to how much college eligibility he had left, and going overslot on Sloan. In this exercise Seattle has all kinds of money left to spend, so I am breaking my own rule by keeping a player that didn’t sign, not knowing how much it would take to get it done, but I’ll give him everything we have left, plus the $150k all day three picks are allowed. This gets Walters up to the equivalent of 2nd round money. I feel safe thinking that gets a deal done.

Bonus: $1,500,000

#13.393 – 3B, VCU, Brandon Eike

Eike becomes the fifth member of Seattle’s actual draft class to carryover to the re-draft. There was some comparison made after the draft between Eike and Tyler Locklear because they both went to the same college, but really I think the comp for Eike might be more like Ben Williamson in the power department.

Bonus: $150,000

#14.423 – SS, Murray State, Drew Vogel

Vogel, to me, is a better version of Austin St Laurent. I like the power/speed combination of a guy that hit 20 HR and stole 16 SB this year.

Bonus: $130,000

#15.453 – OF, Austin Peay, Lyle Miller-Green

Miller-Green is another holdover from my mock drafts. He was a top 12 bat in this class per my research, just behind Grant Knipp, and symbolically he upgrades Anthony Donofrio but a few rounds later.

Bonus: $25,000

#16.483 – RHP, East Carolina, Wyatt Lunsford-Shenkman

WLS came in 6th in my pitcher rankings when isolated for relievers, so he remains in place after Seattle actually drafted him at this exact spot.

Bonus: $150,000

#17.513 – RHP, Cumberlands, Cesar Avila

At this point, I’ve run out of players that were drafted, so I’m pivoting to stealing players prior to undrafted free agency. Avila is a 6’3″/190lb starter that posted 124 strikeouts in 88.1 IP in the NAIA level school. We don’t know any of the next four signing bonuses, but we can give them each $150,000 without penalty.

Bonus: $150,000*

#18.543 – LHP, Arkansas, Stone Hewlett

Hewlett had the best pitching metric in my study for all lefthanded relievers, and he was 3rd amongst all relievers. He struck out a whopping 15.9 batters per 9 innings. The group of Walters, Hewlett, Holmes, Lunsford gives Seattle four of the top six relievers in this draft per my metric, plus a couple high-upside, high-velo guys in Zsak and Little.

Bonus: $150,000*

#19.573 – RHP, FIU, Danny Trehey

Trehey is a guy I found while poring over the list of UDFA signings, and then cross-referencing to my pitch metric. He came in #11 on my list of relievers, which is still very decent for this part of the draft. He posted a 1.83 ERA, 1.083 WHIP, and 13.4 SO/9 in 26 relief appearances.

Bonus: $150,000*

#20.603 – 3B, NC State, Alec Makarewicz

For most of this draft, I’ve more or less tried to match like for like to what Seattle actually drafted. Pitcher for pitcher, hitter for hitter, position for position. To close that out, I should be taking an outfielder here, but I just like this player better. I felt Makarewicz was draftable as a switch-hitting corner infielder with power, and he went undrafted. I’d be psyched to steal him before the end of the draft.

Bonus: $150,000*

Mariner draft week mock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

We’re down to four days before the beginning of the 2024 MLB Draft, and I’m probably not going to have much time to do long-form writing the closer we get. So this is probably my last chance to get a full-mock update in.

Mariners’ scouting director Scott Hunter had a little press huddle sometime last week in which he gave some thoughts on the state of this draft class. A lot of what he said we already knew: there’s maybe 10 top of the first round locks (I put it at 12), which means starting around #11-13 we’re into a second tier of players, which surely affects Seattle at #15.

In my mock last week I pivoted to an underslot player in the 1st, to allow for buying overslot names rounds 2-5, and Hunter discussed (unprompted) that this might be a thing for Seattle this year.

He also talked about high school pitching. I think the greater press’ take that his thoughts point to the M’s drafting a prep pitcher in the 1st round is mistaken. I don’t think that’s really what he said, and it’s not what this draft class allows for. There are maybe four HS pitchers with first round projection, only three of which will probably still be available when Seattle is on the clock. That isn’t the way to hack this draft. Hunter specifically talks about prep pitching available from the back half of the first round through the 50’s…to me, this means from pick #16 to pick #59. This means it misses Seattle at #15, but is very much in play for Seattle at their second round pick at #55. This part I buy.

And if you look at mlb’s draft board, they have HS pitchers listed top 15 like this:

15- LHP Cam Caminiti

After the top 15 overall, they have prep pitchers listed like this:

16- RHP William Schmidt
19- RHP Ryan Sloan
30- LHP Kash Mayfield
36- RHP Braylon Doughty
41- LHP David Shields
46- RHP Joey Oakie
51- RHP Bryce Meccage
52- LHP Dasan Hill
56- RHP Dax Whitney
57- LHP Boston Bateman
58- RHP Levi Sterling
59- RHP Chris Levonas

See what I mean? One in the top 15. Two from 16-30. Two from 31-45. SEVEN from 46-60, including four after M’s pick at #55. This tracks.

#1.15 – RHP, LSU, Luke Holman

I opened with Holman last week, and I’m sticking with him to head into the draft. In fact, I found a piece of data in the last few days that only reaffirms my plan: Holman is primarily thought of as a 92-94mph fastball guy, but in 2023 when he was pitching for Alabama, a prominent college baseball outlet published that he touched 98mph. His mix of present stuff, 6’4″/201lb frame, and a history of touching higher velocity in SEC play, leads me to believe he’s gonna to tick up in the not-so-distant future.

And my previously stated plans to sign Holman, the #45 overall player, to an underslot bonus deal at #15, still holds. I did do some research on underslot deals in the 2023 draft, and it was rare to find discounts of over $1mill, like I had hoped. Brock Wilken signed for about -$871k underslot as the #18 overall pick, but for the most part deals were closer to $600k underslot. The slot at #15 is $4,880,900. If we can get Holman for $4mill even…awesome, but I think $4.2mill might be more realistic. Still, that would pocket us $680,900 for future picks.

#2.55 – RHP, Blackfoot HS, Dax Whitney

This is, obviously, the big change from last mock. I was previously thinking of a college bat in the 2nd round like when they got Tyler Locklear in 2022. But, really, in 2022 Seattle had two picks in the 2nd, and the other ended up being prep RHP Walter Ford.

Whitney is a pretty late-riser in this cycle as a guy coming from the rarely-scouted baseball state of Idaho. But he’s a 6’5″/193lb righty with a present fastball sitting 94mph, but touching 96. Adding muscle to his long, lean frame should really help him bump that up to closer to a 97mph regular velo, that can touch 99. He has two current secondaries that are pretty legit, and is working on his changeup to eventually give him a true four-pitch mix.

Whitney has a college commitment to Oregon State. The bonus slot for #55 is $1,641,800. Last year, Cleveland signed Alex Clemmey away from college for $2.3mill at pick #58, and Pittsburgh got Zander Mueth signed for $1.8mill at pick #67. In 2022, the Cubs needed $3.01mill to secure Jackson Ferris at pick #47 as the high end, but other prep pitchers signing that year included: 46- Jacob Miller ($1.70mill), 50- Jackson Cox ($1.85mill), 57- Cole Phillips ($1.50mill), 74- Walter Ford ($1.25mill). I think we should be able to get Whitney away from OSU for $2mill, which would be $358,200 overslot. Running total gives us $322,700 savings.

#3.91 – LHP, IMG Academy, Blake Larson

While doing diligence to see if there are any other prep LHP that I really like (after Caminiti), I came upon Larson in the last few days. I hadn’t watched him before that, but he’s 6’3″/180lbs with a present fastball touching 96mph with run. There is a very legit, high-spin slider as secondary offering, and he’s working on a change as third offering. I love the stuff, it’s more a question of: can he get more refined, and lock in better control as he matures?

Larson has a college commitment to TCU. He played his junior year of high school in Iowa, but this year he moved down to Florida and the prestigious IMG Academy on the cusp of the draft. Why would you make a huge geographic move in your senior year of high school for any reason other than increasing your draft profile? Meaning: you want to be drafted and you want to sign. The M’s bonus allotment for this pick is $812,900. I’m going to use all of my savings so far, and dip into some future money, to get Blake up to a $1.2mill bonus. We’re now $64,400 in the hole.

#4.121 – 1B/DH, Georgia, Corey Collins

Collins is one of the best hitters in this class. MLB has him as a 5th-6th round player…likely because, even though he has history of playing catcher and outfield in college, he’s limited to 1B/DH going forward. So, I’m hoping to steal him here in the 4th and create a nice, high-floor base for the M’s 2024 hitting class. Collins is also almost 23 years old, so he should be signable to an underslot deal. I’m hoping for $500k, which would save an additional $94,900. Current savings: $535,600.

#5.154 – RHP, Mississippi State, Nate Dohm

It’s an intended strategy to take pitching earlier than hitting in this draft. A) The Seattle farm is stronger on bats at the moment, B) the way this draft stacks up, the most projectable bats are either in the top 20 overall, or available after the 10th round. So, in theory, we should be able to pay premium prices on arms, and then circle back to bats later-ish. And it’s not unheard of for Seattle to do this. In 2019 they drafted five consecutive pitchers to start the draft, and eight of their first nine as pitchers. Five of those eight arms have made it all the way to MLB.

Dohm, like the pitching version of Collins, has some of the best pitching metrics in this draft for me versus SEC competition. There are some questions about health, which led to only 29.1 innings pitched this year. But I love the frame, I love the stuff, and I love the control. He’s 21 years old with eligibility remaining, but hopefully a full-slot deal here in the 5th gets him signed.

#6.183 – OF, Austin Peay, Lyle Miller Green

I’ve had LMG in prior mocks, and usually in later rounds, but I’m placing him earlier in this one because his talent warrants it, and because I currently need a senior signing to get back in the black for overall bonus money. We’ll call it a $125k bonus. We are now back to $139k underslot overall.

#7.213 – RHP, Kansas, Hunter Cranton

More senior signings. Cranton is a pure reliever with a fastball that is already 98mph and has awesome metrics, to go with another plus pitch in his slider. Already 23 years old, but you’ll see this repeatedly in this draft class due to being at the back end of the Covid class. Relievers, especially, with this kind of present stuff should move really quickly through the minors. Another $125k bonus senior signing.

#8.243 – MIF, Austin Peay, Jon Jon Gazdar

Gazdar has a pretty high-floor profile for another senior sign candidate. Primarily a shortstop in college, his profile probably moves him to 2B as a pro. Third consecutive $125k signing gives us $364k in underslot savings.

I’ve sort of earmarked the 9th round to be an overslot pick. I don’t know if it’s a highschool player, but it might be. There are definitely two college relievers with multiple years of eligibility remaining that I’m eying here. Actually, as I’m writing this, I’m wondering if I split the difference on the bonus surplus I have; could I get both of my guys in the 9th and 10th? Let’s try it.

#9.273 – RHP, Miami, Brian Walters

Walters is recently returned from Tommy John surgery, but came back with pretty impressive results posting a 1.024 WHIP, 14.5 SO/9 and only 1.3 BB/9 in 13.2 innings pitched in relief. Giving him even split of the bonus surplus remaining means he gets $418,450.

#10.303 – LHP, Rutgers, Donovan Zsak

Zsak is a returning entrant in my mock drafts who I’ve been over-drafting his draft projection due to the fact he’s technically a redshirt sophomore after missing 2023 with an injury. But he’s draft eligible at 21 years old. I had been planning, in previous mocks, to get him around 4th-6th round where the slot bonus ranges from $594k down to $334k, with the idea of giving him $400k at whichever round he ended up. The $418k I have left is perfect.

Zsak made 6 starts this year across his work at Rutgers and two made in the Cape league, in addition to 15 appearances in relief. I’d love to try him as a starter for as long as possible, knowing that his stuff will definitely tick up if we move him back to the pen as means to get him to the show faster.

#11.333 – RHP, Oregon State, Jacob Kmatz

Picks 11 and 12 of this mock I’m going away from pure stuff and looking for high-pitchability, innings-eaters. Kmatz presently maxes out about 93mph, but he knows how to maximize it up in the zone, and he has one of the prettiest curveballs I’ve seen in the class. And he controls it beautifully.

#12.363 – LHP, Oklahoma State, Sam Garcia

Garcia, again, doesn’t wow you with velo, but he’s doing enough with pitch sequencing and control, that he managed 11.6 SO/9 in his first year pitching for a Power 5 school. He’s got a big 6’4″/218lb frame, too, that lets you dream on more velo down the road.

#13.393 – OF, Evansville, Mark Shallenberger

Part of my strategy in this draft is to stock up on arms early, and find those sneaky hitters in late rounds (and undrafted free agency…which should be deep this year) that are probably small-school, but have great hit metrics (think in terms of Ben Williamson, Brock Rodden, etc). Shallenberger is at the top of that list. He reminds me a bit of Hunter Pence in that nothing he does is super fluid, and maybe you even go as far as to say “awkward”, but he’s a gamer. He hit .375/.514/1.201 with 17 HR, 64 RBI, and 45 BB to 28 SO.

#14.423 – 3B, NC State, Alec Makarewicz

Makarewicz is a senior of almost 24 years old, but he hit .378/.438/1.191 with 24 HR, 84 RBI with premiere exit velocity and a penchant for clutch hitting in the CWS. He plays a very solid defensive 3B, as well, and he can switch-hit.

#15.453 – 1B, Morehead St, Roman Kuntz

The Seattle farm is chock full of middle-infield potential thanks to multiple years of drafting there early and often, so I’m looking to take multiple stabs this draft at the corners of the infield. Kuntz is listed at 6’3″/180lbs, but looks way bigger on tape. Already a 23-year-old this March; Roman hit .366/.482/1.341 with 33 HR, 100 RBI, and 50 BB to 34 SO.

#16.483 – LHP, Oklahoma St, Ryan Ure

This is a pure velo play. Ure has a ton of redflags with injury history and lack of control, but he’s been up to 103mph from the left side. Well worth the risk this late, and it’s very likely another team has risked it earlier.

#17.513 – RHP, Arizona, Dawson Netz

Netz is a guy that really caught my eye in the recent MLB Draft League. At Arizona this year he was 4.29 ERA, 1.143 WHIP, 11.6 SO/9, but in the draft league he’s ticked up to 3.45 ERA, 0.894 WHIP, 14.4 SO/9. The breaking ball is pretty special.

#18.543 – RHP, William & Mary, Carter Lovasz

I found Lovasz just doing diligence on relievers. He’s got a good frame at 6’3″/185lbs, and I don’t have numbers on his present velo, but he’s definitely using it well up in the zone to the tune of 3.12 ERA, 1.154 WHIP, 11.8 SO/9 with 7 saves last year.

#19.573 – C, James Madison, Jason Schiavone

If there’s one thing in this draft that I wanted to do, but that the player pool really didn’t convince me to do, was to draft one or two higher end catchers. I still think Harry Ford ends up traded before the deadline, and there’s not a ton of talent in the farm. I wanted to find a catcher that has some power, has some defense, has some athleticism. Schiavone ticks a lot of that. He hit .284/.400/1.020 with 18 HR, 9 SB, and a 38% caught stealing rate. Yeah, that’ll do.

#20.603 – SS, Murray St, Drew Vogel

This pick could really be anything. I’ve got a first baseman in Tyler Macgregor I really like. I’ve got an outfielder named Ryley Preece that I think has some nice tools. I went with Vogel because he’s got good power at a premium defensive position. He hit .331/.441/1.097 with 20 HR, 61 RBI, and 16 SB.

I kinda recognize that this draft feels counter-intuitive to the state of the Mariners. But, really, the state of the MLB team and the state of the farm system are not the same. Whereas, the MLB roster is at a massive deficit on hitting, and the star of the show is our big league pitching…it’s pretty opposite on the farm. There is quite a deficit of pitching. We have a few starters that are out-performing draft position, with a few more that have been on longterm IL, but we have next to nothing exciting or MLB-quality coming out of our respective bullpens. And we’ve been getting decent early returns on middle-round college bats (Locklear, Williamson, Rodden, Schreck, which would work really well with this draft class.

This draft, more than any recent draft, is so dependent on how Seattle manages their first pick. If they can do something smart, and strategic, with that pick; they could be en route to a very interesting class.