Huard: Why the Seahawks won’t be drafting a CB with 2nd-round pick

We’re now less than two weeks from the 2021 NFL Draft and for the Seahawks, they’ll have some waiting to do until they are on the clock for the first time.

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Thanks to a trade with the New York Jets last offseason for All-Pro safety Jamal Adams, the Seahawks do not have a first-round pick (or a third-round selection) in the upcoming draft. Seattle’s first draft pick doesn’t come until the 56th selection, which is near the end of the second round. Additionally, the Seahawks have just three draft picks in total.

The Seahawks have made a number of notable moves this offseason and enter the draft with very few holes on the roster, but one area that definitely could be addressed going forward is at outside cornerback.

Seattle has D.J. Reed and Tre Flowers on the roster, both of whom started games at outside cornerback last season, as well as Akhello Witherspoon, who was one of the Seahawks’ first free-agent signings this offseason. But after those three, Damarious Randall is the only player on the roster with any experience starting games at outside cornerback, and he hasn’t played cornerback for the Seahawks before.

As it currently stands, Witherspoon and Reed are the projected Week 1 starters.

But the draft is somewhere the Seahawks can add to that position group, starting with that 56th overall pick. But doing that would be going against what the Seahawks have done under head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider since they came to Seattle in 2010. Since then, the Seahawks have only drafted one cornerback in the first three rounds. That was Shaquill Griffin, who was a third-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.

But with cornerback being such a clear need for this team, will the Seahawks buck that trend and use the 56th pick on a potential Week 1 starter on the perimeter? Former NFL quarterback Brock Huard doesn’t see that happening.

“At 56 (overall) … will there be a corner who wets their appetite enough to not trade down? No, I don’t think so,” he told 710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny and Gallant Thursday morning.

Part of the reason? How Schneider and the Seahawks’ front office and scouting department group up draft prospects of the same position.

“There’s some great corners in the first round, some difference makers in the first round,” Huard said. “But Schneider loves to put these players in ‘clumps’ and groups with ledges and say, ‘OK, these four or five prospects are sitting here with this grade and then all of a sudden there’s a pretty big dropoff to the next group that we try to put together’ and just kind of find those pods of players, right? I don’t think there’s a pod of players sitting there at 56 that’s going to pull the trigger.”

So if the Seahawks aren’t going to use that 56th pick on a potential starting outside cornerback, what does the team ultimately do?

“I think it’s a trade down at that point,” Huard said. “Could there be a possible offensive tackle? Could there be a possible defensive linemen? Maybe, but I don’t (see the Seahawks selecting) a corner at 56.”

Listen to the full discussion on the draft, as well as thoughts on Seattle signing defensive end Aldon Smith, at this link or in the player below.

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