Seahawks’ Schneider shares insight into how he picks pro days to attend

The Seahawks’ offseason has plenty of important dates and markers to keep tabs of.

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Teams can begin using the franchise tag on Feb. 21, the NFL Scouting Combine starts Feb. 28 and teams can officially sign free agents from other teams on March 15.

And, of course, there’s the NFL Draft, which this year begins Thursday, April 27.

Between the combine and the draft are different meetings and whatnot between teams and prospective players, and a big part of that are pro days, where draft prospects work out in front of scouts, coaches, executives and others at their university.

That’s a big part of the scouting process for the Seahawks and the 31 other NFL teams.

“After the combine, we’ll get into organizing where we’re gonna go and what we need to see,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider told Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob during the debut edition of The John Schneider Show on Thursday.

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The Seahawks have a number of scouts who cover essentially every single pro day that occurs, but Schneider, a former scout himself, does make trips across the country to various pro days.

How does Schneider decide which pro days he’ll personally attend?

“Questions that haven’t been answered in the past, or quarterbacks that I didn’t get to see play live, corners and didn’t get to see play live,” Schneider said.

That occured both in the 2017 and 2018 drafts with two quarterbacks who wound up becoming the best in the league.

“In the past, like, I had a trip to go see Patrick Mahomes that was canceled, so I went to see him at his pro day,” Schneider said. “And then also Josh Allen at Wyoming … something happened here so I couldn’t go.”

And with Schneider being a key decision-maker for the Seahawks, him attending or not attending certain pro days is a big part of the offseason.

“It’s all about getting our questions answered and the comfort level that we have. Now there’s certain guys you don’t want to show too much interest in and it becomes a big poker game once you get past the combine, so you’ve got to be very careful where you go, where you show up,” he said. “But we have scouts at every pro day, all of our guys.”

Schneider said that the Seahawks stress “not having all the answers” until right before the draft begins, which he thinks helps the team’s scouts.

“That gives our scouts freedom to be confident in their opinions and confident in their contacts and knowing the person,” he said. “So we’ll take that right up until the week before. When we get to a week before the draft, they have to put a stamp on the guy if he’s a Seahawk or not.”

You can listen to the full John Schneider Show at this link or in the player below.

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