Seattle Seahawks 2024 NFL Draft: Best Pick, Worst Pick, and Biggest Steal
The Seahawks had an interesting 2024 draft. Here is their best pick, their worst pick, and their biggest steal.
The Seattle Seahawks have been one of the more interesting teams in the NFL over the past half-decade. It’s been a while since this team was bad, and they’ve been able to stay afloat in the NFC playoff race for quite some time now.
Seattle traded Russell Wilson before the 2022 season, which marked the end of an era for them. The Seahawks found themselves contending for the playoffs almost every year with Wilson, but after trading him, the future seemed a bit cloudier.
Then, Geno Smith stepped in, and has become much better than expected for the Seahawks. With Smith at the helm, Seattle has gone 9-8 in each of the past two seasons, making the playoffs in 2022, and narrowly missing them in 2023.
Now, their long-time head coach, Pete Carroll, won’t be on the sidelines anymore. Seattle now has Mike Macdonald in charge.
This season truly is the beginning of a new era in the pacific northwest, and the team knew they had to ace the 2024 NFL Draft. Seattle had eight picks, and made each of them count. With that in mind, here is the Seahawks’ best pick, their worst pick, and their biggest steal from this year’s draft.
While many suggested the Seahawks could trade back from this spot due to their lack of a second-round pick, they made the right decision to stay and select Byron Murhpy in the middle of the first round. Murphy was considered to be one of, if not the best defensive tackles in the entire class, and he’ll go to a team that badly needed help in the interior of their defensive line.
That part of their defense was one of Seattle’s most glaring issues heading into draft day. While the Seahawks did have multiple trade offers to move down, they decided to stay put. By doing so, they filled one of their biggest needs, and took one of the best players remaining on the board at the same time.
Seattle addressed a need, grabbed one of the best prospects at his respective position, and didn’t reach, making this their best all-around draft pick in the class.
Byron Murphy II Scouting Report
Murphy has a smaller build than most defensive tackles, standing at 6’1″, 297 lbs. However, he makes up for his lack in size with explosiveness and overall quickness. Murphy has a very quick get-off, and can cut in front of guards’ faces with ease. Although he’s smaller in stature, strength isn’t an issue for him. Murphy can beat a lineman with his strength alone, and rarely allows himself to get manhandled.
Because of his lack of size, Murphy does have shorter arms. He also could be better with his hands, as he sometimes allows guards to get a latch onto him, and from that point on it can be tough for him to escape. Finally, once Murphy does get into the backfield, he could do a better job of finishing the play back there, as he occasionally misses tackles behind the line of scrimmage.