With no first-round pick, Seahawks ready for long wait
Apr 17, 2013, 5:15 PM | Updated: Apr 8, 2016, 10:51 am
By Danny O’Neil
RENTON – John Schneider wasn’t entirely joking when he suggested Seattle’s front office considered watching the first round of next week’s NFL Draft from a nearby bar.
After all, the Seahawks general manager has never entered an NFL Draft without a first-round pick, but that’s the situation Seattle is in after trading away its top pick – the No. 25 selection overall – as part of the acquisition of Minnesota receiver Percy Harvin.
 John Schneider |
So Schneider, coach Pete Carroll and the rest of the front office will spend next Thursday night as nothing more than observers when the first-round selections are made.
“We’re going to YouTube Percy Harvin highlights or something,” Schneider said Wednesday during a press conference at the team’s headquarters.
No chance Seattle will get frisky and trade its way back into the first round?
“We don’t really move up,” Schneider deadpanned. “You never know, there may be a player that falls (but) my boss kind of gives me crud for never moving up.”
The reality is that Seattle doesn’t have the ammunition to move back into the first round. Not given the fact the Seahawks’ second-round pick is No. 56 overall and they have already traded away next year’s third-round pick as part of the trade for Harvin.
Expect Seattle to sit and wait this year. And wait. And finally on Friday, getting a chance to make a selection. This is only the fourth time in franchise history that Seattle enters a draft without a first-round pick. It traded away its 1985 first-round choice for center Blair Bush, used its 1988 first-round choice on the supplemental selection of Brian Bosworth and gave up its 2007 first-round pick to acquire receiver Deion Branch.
Seattle and Washington are the only two teams that don’t hold a first-round choice this year, which means the Seahawks will have to wait the longest of any team in the league before making a pick.
“No. 56 is a very hard place to figure out what’s going to be there,” Schneider said.
That is especially true this year. One week before the draft, there’s no consensus on who the top pick will be. That uncertainty is reflected throughout the top of this draft order.
“It’s very hard for us to say who the top five players are in this draft,” Schneider said. “We know who we think they are, but when you look at this draft, it’s very unique. It’s the most unique draft. Honest to God, I’m not just saying this because we don’t have a first-round draft choice this year.
“I felt that way a little bit when we made the deal with Percy. But now, the closer we’ve gotten to this thing, the more it has kind of stood out that the first round, there’s just a wide variety of players. It’s really going to be your favorite flavor of ice cream.”
