Huard: The biggest adjustment for Seahawks rookie Mike Morris
Jun 7, 2023, 12:09 PM
Seattle Seahawks defensive lineman Mike Morris at the team's rookie minicamp. (Photo: Taylor Jacobs/Seattle Sports)
(Photo: Taylor Jacobs/Seattle Sports)
The Seattle Seahawks went big in the fourth and fifth rounds of the 2023 NFL Draft.
Brock Huard’s four biggest Seattle Seahawks minicamp storylines
With a couple of Seattle’s four picks in those two rounds, the Hawks added 345-pound guard Anthony Bradford and 310-pound center Olu Oluwatimi to the offensive line.
With the other two, they picked up players on the other side of the ball in big nose tackle Cameron Young and Oluwatimi’s college teammate, defensive lineman Mike Morris.
The 151st overall pick in the fifth round, Morris was listed at 270 pounds at the NFL Scouting Combine but he joins the Seahawks much bigger. His listed weight now is 292 pounds, per the Hawks’ website, and he will be a 3-4 defensive end for the Seahawks after being more of an edge rusher in college at Michigan.
“Can he succeed right off the bat? I mean, what are we looking at here with Mike Morris?” Mike Salk asked his co-host Brock Huard, a former NFL quarterback, Tuesday on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.
Huard has looked at many members of the Seahawks’ 2023 draft class over the last few weeks to discuss where he thinks they need to take a step forward upon joining the NFL. On Tuesday, he shared the key adjustment he thinks Morris needs to make now that he’s with the Seahawks.
“I will be very curious with his pad level because he is tall,” Huard said of the 6-foot-6 Morris, “and he is long and he’s trying to put that weight on. There’s a reason he still looks lean and mean at 300 pounds, because he has tremendous length.”
Morris is a “tweener” between a 3-4 defensive end and a nose tackle, Huard said.
“He’s a tweener and that’s why he fell to the fifth round. He’s a little bit in between,” he said. “(Seahawks 2019 first-round pick) L.J. Collier was a tweener. Now, this guy is bigger and he is longer and he’s got, because of that, a little bit more upside than L.J. had. But when you play on that edge, on that outside, it isn’t as much about pad level as it is on the inside. And, ‘OK, so I put on 30 pounds, I add this weight,’ now can you play down? Can you play with leverage?”
“He can add the weight, he’s a tremendous athlete for his body, he’s got great charisma, I understand taking him where they took him in the fifth round,” Huard added. “Now can you play with leverage with that new added weight? That will be the adjustment.”
More from Huard on Seattle Seahawks rookies
• Seahawks’ seventh-round RB Kenny McIntosh could have big role
• The strength Seahawks rookie DT Cameron Young must play to
• How offensive guard Anthony Bradford must improve
• Three focuses for pass rusher Derick Hall to develop
• Where wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba has room to grow
• Charbonnet has fewest tweaks to make of all Seahawks rookies
• Three adjustments for top Seattle Seahawks pick Devon Witherspoon
