Instant reaction: 710 ESPN Seattle on Seahawks 1st-rounder Jordyn Brooks

The Seahawks went a direction nobody saw them going in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, taking Jordyn Brooks, a linebacker from Texas Tech, with the No. 27 overall pick Thursday night.

Seahawks keep 27th pick and draft Texas Tech LB Jordyn Brooks

For the full rundown on Brooks, read Brandon Gustafson’s story here. But in this post, we’ll look at what six 710 ESPN Seattle’s hosts had to say on our draft show about Brooks after the Seahawks picked him.

Brock Huard

I was going to see Brooks’ final college game but he didn’t play because he had a shoulder injury, and I was bummed that I did not get to see him because he was a tackling machine. Texas Tech, not known for defense – this is the one thumper, this is the one speed guy. He’s only 6-foot, he’s 240 pounds. The concern is the durability and the size. But if we want thump and we want tackling on the Seattle defense, a guy that is vicious and has a nose for the football, you’re gonna find him out of Lubbock, Texas. And you’re right, this is a surprise that nobody saw coming.

Bob Stelton

This is not the position I thought they’d go for. This is not a name I heard attached to them. Here’s how much of a surprise this was. I don’t know how many mock drafts I looked at – maybe 15, 20, 25. I don’t recall even reading this guy’s name.

Dave Wyman

I’ve been sitting here with a big smile on my face because this is such a John Schneider move right here. Nobody would have thought that the Seahawks would take Brooks. You watch him play, he’s incredibly tenacious. He’s a bulldog. He had nearly 400 tackles in college – he reminds me of back in the day when Mike Singletary came out of Baylor. He’s a little guy – this guy’s 6-feet tall and he just made every play on the field. All he did was just make tackles everywhere.

Jake Heaps

If you’re trying to get into the Seahawks’ thinking, then you’re looking at a player that you get really excited about because you’re talking about a player who brings attitude, who brings physicality, who’s rangy as an inside linebacker. When you watch his film, and I had to do it real quick because I didn’t think linebacker would be the area they would go in early this draft – go figure with Pete Carroll and John Schneider – but you can see quickly, it’s not just him tackling guys, it’s him physically bringing the boom. You see heads snap back when he’s tackling guys on the field. You see him go sideline to sideline, and that’s something they were missing.

Stacy Rost

The thing that impressed me and I’m wondering what changed, if he ironed something out or if he picked up a new technique, is that in 2018 he has 47 solo tackles, 78 total, 6 1/2 tackles for loss. Then in 2019, he jumps that up to 108 total tackles and 20 tackles for loss. That jumped off the page for me.

Tom Wassell

There’s always two ways to react to a draft pick. One is to decide whether you like the pick, but the first thing I try to do is to get inside the thinking of Pete Carroll and John Schneider and think, OK, where does this guy fit? We’ve been talking about O-linemen, D-linemen basically the whole way, pass rush specifically. We haven’t talked about linebacker at all as a position of need, but if you look out over the next couple of years, maybe it will be. The big thing on him that I saw on the tape, and this what they tried to stress as soon as they started rolling highlights of him on the TV broadcast, is it seemed like whenever he was on the field, he was the best player on the field. He was the one making the biggest difference, he was the biggest impact player. It’s still Pete Carroll, it’s still a defensive team. They’re gonna need this type of player going forward. I actually like the pick. I think the more that we talk through it, I like it.

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