Who's Your Pick At #5

[Captain 97]

My guess is that If Anderson isn't there at 5 that they will trade down. I don't think they are going to shoot their wad on a QB this year.

[Donn Beach]

Yeah, I tend to agree. That is unless there was another superior defensive talent there they just couldn't pass on, Jalen Carter? Not saying it's gonna happen but with all the bashing I think the talent is getting overlooked. I don't think his issues really are going to stick. He seems to have settled the accident, and I don't think the pro day was that big a deal. Remember Schneider defending the Clark pick, man, that talent

[Cascade Kid]

It appears the stage is being set to cut Adams in June with the acquisition of Love. I've yet to hear anything promising about Adams' recovery.

A few years back Cam Newton was signed to a 1 year $5.1M deal with $3.5M guaranteed with the Pats. The Patriots drafted Mac Jones that year who was coming off of a year at Alabama in which he threw for 4500 yards, 77.4% comp, 41TDs, 4Ints, and a 203.1RTG. Mac Jones outperformed Newton in preseason and the Patroits released Cam prior to the start of the season. ...Seems to me releasing Lock could be an option too.

On a side note: Dispite Jones' big year at Bama he's been less than stellar in an NFL uniform. Though he doesn't have a good supporting squad around him, he doesn't show flashes of greatness either. Stats are an indicator, but actions are absolute. There was nothing visually special about Jones while at Bama. His targets were elite, but his ability on the field wasn't extraordinary. Jones remarkable stats were a better indicator of his supporting cast around him than his capabilities as an elite QB.

[Captain 97]

Yeah, I tend to agree. That is unless there was another superior defensive talent there they just couldn't pass on, Jalen Carter? Not saying it's gonna happen but with all the bashing I think the talent is getting overlooked. I don't think his issues really are going to stick. He seems to have settled the accident, and I don't think the pro day was that big a deal. Remember Schneider defending the Clark pick, man, that talent

Frankly, I am not even convinced that Carter has the talent to match up with all the hype. He certainly hasn't produced numbers on the field. In 3 years he has put up 44 solo tackles and 6 sacks but people talk about him like he is the second coming of Aaron Donald. Donald had 43 solo tackles and and 11 sacks in his last college season alone.

[Michael K.]

Just that it's justifiable to what they are spending at safety, they could easily afford to let a QB like Richardson sit for a year if they wished to do so. I think there are multiple plan's of action. Not one solid solution or direct path. As of right now I think they lean towards Anderson or Richardson if the board fell as I predicted. I think Carter will drop into the teens. Someone will eventually scoop him up. I'm just glad it won't be us.

It's a salary cap, it doesn't work that way. Think back to all the years we went bargain basement on the O Line. That was because they ran out of money. Over spending at one position actually makes it LESS likely that they will do the same elsewhere. 3 QBs on an active roster is not done very often, and I would say reasons one through five are all about money and salary cap space.

[Michael K.]

The rookie numbers go up every year. Last year's number one pick made over $6 million more than Trevor Lawrence did the year before. Here is last year's numbers for the top 5.

2022 NFL Draft first-round picks contract values
1. Georgia defensive end Travon Walker, Jaguars: $41,465,408

2. Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, Lions: $39,603,429

3. LSU cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., Texans: $38,418,555

4. Cincinnati cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner, Jets: $37,064,375

5. Oregon defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux, Giants: $34,694,577

So, that is, IMO, a lot of money to pay a guy that is going to be the 3rd Qb on the roster next year.

https://en.as.com/nfl/nfl-draft-2022-ho ... -values-n/

I am not saying there is no chance they take a Qb at 5. I'm just debating the logic that over spending somewhere else makes room for a third QB. It is actually quite the opposite. Paying all the Safeties and paying a second QB actually leaves less room, not more.

[Donn Beach]

Yeah, I tend to agree. That is unless there was another superior defensive talent there they just couldn't pass on, Jalen Carter? Not saying it's gonna happen but with all the bashing I think the talent is getting overlooked. I don't think his issues really are going to stick. He seems to have settled the accident, and I don't think the pro day was that big a deal. Remember Schneider defending the Clark pick, man, that talent

Frankly, I am not even convinced that Carter has the talent to match up with all the hype. He certainly hasn't produced numbers on the field. In 3 years he has put up 44 solo tackles and 6 sacks but people talk about him like he is the second coming of Aaron Donald. Donald had 43 solo tackles and and 11 sacks in his last college season alone.

He is more of Cortez Kennedy, Tez had only 58 sacks and 279 solo tackles in 11 seasons but he was a HOF nose tackle. I have never thought of nose tackles as being about tackles and sacks, it's the clog the middle aspect, tying up defenders, requiring triple teams. I don't know about Donald, hadn't thought of him as a nose tackle.


Here from the Clark news conference, the effort to deal with his flags

. I asked both men what made Clark worth all this effort—and all this potential backlash.

“Holy cow, this is a 272-pound man who is extremely explosive," Schneider said. "He still has an upside, he’s an interior rusher, edge rusher, can play SAM [strong-side linebacker], set the edge—they did a lot with him at the school.”

[Sexymarinersfan]

Just that it's justifiable to what they are spending at safety, they could easily afford to let a QB like Richardson sit for a year if they wished to do so. I think there are multiple plan's of action. Not one solid solution or direct path. As of right now I think they lean towards Anderson or Richardson if the board fell as I predicted. I think Carter will drop into the teens. Someone will eventually scoop him up. I'm just glad it won't be us.

It's a salary cap, it doesn't work that way. Think back to all the years we went bargain basement on the O Line. That was because they ran out of money. Over spending at one position actually makes it LESS likely that they will do the same elsewhere. 3 QBs on an active roster is not done very often, and I would say reasons one through five are all about money and salary cap space.

If it's a franchise signal caller and investing in the MOST important position in football, then that's where we agree to disagree. And I still they have more moves coming.

On that note, I think the reason they cut Al Woods is so that they can bring back Poona Ford. 2023). Yesterday they cut Al Woods. The timing suggests they’ve done this because they’ve run out of cap space and want to sign a different, younger player. My guess is Poona Ford — who turns 28 in November, rather than Woods who turns 36 on Saturday.

Woods, however, had been a good performer for Seattle. He was also a defensive captain. He was ideally sized to play nose tackle in the scheme and he leaves a big hole, literally, at the heart of the defense. Meanwhile, the depth up front is now paper thin. That will remain the case even when they make a corresponding move.

So while it’s great to see the addition of Jones and Jarran Reed — at the moment, they effectively represent the entirety of Seattle’s defensive front. Having worked so hard to avoid being backed into a corner in the draft, they now risk being in that exact position — needing to focus on the D-line simply to fill the roster and be in position to play a football game.

And it’s not a deep draft up front, either.

I’m also not sure if younger is necessarily better. Ford is 5-11 and 310lbs — not exactly the mountain you typically find playing nose tackle in this scheme. A’Shawn Robinson, who visited the Giants on Monday, is more of a prototype — but he suffered injuries last year and remains on the market for a reason, one suspects.

As I've said before, they should have more money to spend than they have. They have frittered away a lot of cap space.

Take the safety position. They are spending $38.8m this year on Quandre Diggs, Jamal Adams and Ryan Neal. We don’t know Julian Love’s cap-hit yet but it’s almost certain he will tip the Seahawks over $40m for the four players.

Clearly, safety is important in the scheme. When they appointed Sean Desai a year ago it was well publicised that he likes to run a lot of three-safety looks and it’s safe to assume they intend to carry that on given their outlay.

However, look where the safety market is this year. Chauncey Gardner-Johnson has just been forced to accept a one-year deal worth a maximum of $8m. That’s a whopping $10m less than Quandre Diggs in 2023. Jordan Poyer had to settle for a deal worth $6m. Jimmie Ward got $6.5m. Vonn Bell got $7.5m.

Only Jessie Bates received big money — one of the established top players at the position. He just turned 26 and he’s not reset the market — he’s on $16m a year.

It’s possible this is a market correction exclusive to 2023 and there was a heated market for Diggs a year ago, which led the Seahawks to open the chequebook on a $13m a year deal with such a high cap-hit this year. However, the $18m that’s on the books today — when placed alongside the fact they’d already decided to pay Adams $18m this year — is seriously questionable.

I’m curious to know how the league felt about Diggs last year. Teams are turning their noses up at the position in the market. Yet a year ago, were they really prepared to pay an ageing safety a large third contract coming off a serious injury?

You could argue the Seahawks made their bed when they paid Adams and to double down and pay Diggs a contract that doubled their outlay on two players was too much. It feels like loyalty to Diggs trumped a reasonable financial approach. Yet you could also make that same accusation about the Will Dissly contract ($9.1m in 2023)

It would be unfair to criticise the Seahawks for not anticipating where the safety market went. But I do think there’s no way they should’ve structured the contract to pay Diggs an immovable $18m this year, when they already knew they were committing $18m to Adams. They’ve walked into a situation where they have a $36m weight around the ankle of the franchise. They’re not properly able to attack free agency despite the low cap-hit for Geno Smith, or the fact they’ve moved on from Russell Wilson’s contract.

It’s why the Seahawks, for all the praise we’ve given them, are not considered one of the ‘winners’ of free agency. Teams like the Lions — even with Jared Goff on the books — have been able to do more. Atlanta have been very active. We’re now seeing teams capitalise on the market by making smart, opportunistic moves (eg Bills) and the Seahawks, instead, are cutting players who contributed a year ago to have something, anything, to spend.

You can easily argue the Adams contract is a bigger issue than Diggs’. I understand why he’s come to his salary. I never wanted Seattle to trade what they did for Adams, or pay him afterwards. I thought they should’ve been prepared to do what Kansas City has just done with Orlando Brown Jr — franchise him, then assess whether they want to commit long term. Instead they paid him a record-breaking salary for a player at the time who had leverage due to his manufactured sack numbers in 2020 and the fact Seattle had already traded a haul for him.

The Seahawks made a mistake that came back to bite them horribly. By not signing Adams immediately after making the trade, they let the market re-set twice. Budda Baker was paid a deal worth $14.75m a year. Then Justin Simmons got $15.25m. By the time Seattle eventually got round to paying Adams, he was given $17.6m a year.

That’s how they end up in this slightly ridiculous position today where the highest paid player on the roster in terms of 2023 cap-hit is a relative unknown. Nobody knows when Adams will be back healthy, whether he’ll ever be good again or be capable of avoiding further injury. It’s an $18m mystery, at a time when the team is having to cut Al Woods to be able to do anything else to the roster, with an exposed D-line situation.

If they line up in week one with Dre’Mont Jones, Jarran Reed and Poona Ford on the D-line, with Devin Bush or a rookie filling in at linebacker until Jordyn Brooks returns — does anyone have any confidence that’ll be good enough to avoid more defensive problems up front? It’s not unrealistic as we sit here today and as we’ve seen from the Seahawks, they have been reluctant to start young players on the D-line. From Boye Mafe to Frank Clark to even Jarran Reed back in the day — all were not entirely trusted to take major snaps in their first year.

Depth, not just quality, was needed on the defensive line this off-season to fix a problem. As it stands, the Seahawks have a very expensive safety position are are majorly thin on the D-line.

It’s OK cutting the players who didn’t perform a year ago — but you have to replace and upgrade. At the moment, they’re going to be forced to spend draft picks on the D-line — regardless of value when they’re picking.

One final note on dead money. I’ve no idea how the Seahawks ended up signing contracts with Al Woods and Quinton Jefferson that made a parting in 2023 so financially painful. They are spending $3.75m of their cap this year just to not have Woods and Jefferson on the roster any more. They restructured Shelby Harris’ contract a year ago, meaning they’re paying him a further $3.3m not to play in Seattle. Gabe Jackson is somehow taking up $4.8m in dead cap money and Carlos Dunlap is costing $4.2m.

Overall, approximately $17.9m of their 2023 cap is being spent on dead money. That’s almost as much as it’s costing them to have Diggs or Adams on the roster — their two most expensive players.

You can understand Michael, eating a dead cap-hit when you trade Russell Wilson and get a haul of picks in return. How on earth they’ve ended up eating all this wasted cap space to have replaceable ageing players no longer on the roster is something that needs to be raised and challenged as they scrimp around trying to find more money to fill out the roster.

[Michael K.]

I still say that the issue with Frank Clark don't effect his on field performance. If he in fact beat up his girlfriend? Then he is a scum that shouldn't have gotten the chance he got. That said, being lazy is a different issue and going to effect your play in a much different manner. Again, no one knew that McDowell was going to do what he did, but the lack of effort issues are what dropped him down draft boards. That can actually impact your performance on the field.

Kareem Hunt, Frank Clark, Tyreek Hill and Joe Mixon are all guys off the top of my head that had domestic dispute issues. It never seemed to impact there performance. I can't think of a lot of guys that were rumored to not have the desire to play and not having good work ethic ending up being studs. Warren Sapp fell down draft boards for marijuana rumors. Albert Haynesworth was drafted pretty high, despite being a guy that was lazy. Which one would you have rather had?

[Donn Beach]

You're saying Carter is lazy?

Take a look at this analysis
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.windyc ... a-bulldogs