Huskies coach Chris Petersen: ‘Heck yes’ Seahawks should take Kevin King in first round of NFL Draft
Mar 30, 2017, 11:44 AM | Updated: 12:16 pm
Chris Petersen said Kevin King may have the most upside of UW's three DBs with first-round draft potential. (AP)
(AP)
The Washington Huskies have three defensive backs in the upcoming NFL Draft that head coach Chris Petersen thinks are worthy of being taken in the first round. So when asked if the Seattle Seahawks should take one of them with their No. 26 overall pick, he didn’t take long to give an answer.
“Heck yes. What are we missing here? Is this a trick question?” Petersen exclaimed when asked on “Brock and Salk” Thursday morning if the Seahawks should take lanky cornerback Kevin King with that selection. “We had him as a safety … but he can run like a corner that’s 6-3, so I think heck yeah they should draft him.”
Huard: Huskies could have ‘best front seven they’ve ever had’
King’s size and speed certainly fits the bill of what the Seahawks usually look for in cornerbacks – which is why the NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah projected Seattle would take him at No. 26 in an earlier interview on “Brock and Salk” – but he’s not the only member of the Huskies’ stacked secondary from last season that could be taken among the first 32 picks. Safety Budda Baker is likely to be a top pick as well, while cornerback Sidney Jones was projected to be the first Husky defensive back off the board until suffering a devastating Achilles tear during the Huskies’ pro day.
“Let me tell ya, we have three first-rounders. We really do,” Petersen said about last season’s UW secondary. “So we got Budda, I say this guy’s like the most unbelievable football player, he can do it all. Got Sidney Jones, who’s the most technically-sound, most coachable guy. If you tell him how to do something, he’s gonna get it and he’s gonna do it to a T. That showed up the last couple years. And then you’ve got Kevin King, who might have the biggest upside out of all of them because he’s 6-3 and he can run and all the numbers can back it up.”
Losing three first-round-caliber players from one position group may look good for a college football program in one way, but it doesn’t exactly help the team for the next season. And while Petersen knows it will be awfully hard for Washington’s secondary to play as well in 2017 as it did with King, Baker and Jones in 2016, he’s confident the Huskies will still be tough against opposing passing offenses next season.
“I think we’re gonna play at a really high level. I think we’re gonna be good,” he said, before tempering his statement some. “We’re talking about three potential first-round draft picks that just left us, so for us to go, ‘We’re gonna play every bit as good as we did last year,’ that might be a bit of a stretch. But I thought we played as good as I ever saw a secondary play – we played as good as anybody in the country, we played like a dominating level in the secondary – so that doesn’t mean if we we’re not right there right away that we’re not really good.”
