A week from now, the Seattle Seahawks will be done with their 2025 draft. The team will obviously look different, and hopefully, some needy position groups have been addressed. Based on how general manager John Schneider has previously approached drafts, if a unit could use some upgrades, it does not mean that unit will be fixed in the first or second rounds.
One aspect that might be different for Seattle this year compared to last is that head coach Mike Macdonald might have more input on who is chosen. This should not be confused with Macdonald having the final decision. He won't. Schneider does.
Things have changed in how Seattle approaches draft picks compared to when Pete Carroll was with the Seahawks from 2010 to 2023. Carroll had the final say over all roster moves, and his title of Vice President of Football Operations ranked above Schneider's title of General Manager.
ESPN has the Seattle Seahawks making an unlikely first-round choice in the 2025 NFL draft
Though neither Carroll nor Schneider made much of an effort to take an interior offensive lineman in the first round of the draft, this was the case even though the team's greatest need was the same a decade ago as it is now. Seattle needs high-quality guards and an excellent center.
In a recent article by ESPN NFL insider Peter Schrager, who predicts how the 2025 first round will go based on what he has been hearing from teams, he has a sensible choice for Seattle. The issue is that the Seahawks are oftentimes illogical early in drafts. Schrager has the team choosing North Dakota State offensive lineman Grey Zabel. That probably won't happen.
Not that Zabel is a bad player, because he is far from it. He has excelled at every level and in college all-star competitions. For instance, at Senior Bowl week this year, he transitioned to center (a position he had never played before) and dominated whomever was playing opposite him. Zabel is strong, athletic, and big enough at 6'6" and 312 pounds to play right away.
But he is also likely to play guard or center in the NFL (he was an offensive tackle at NDSU), and Schneider is not going to take a player at that position so early. We can hope that anyone who makes that safe assumption is wrong, but they probably will not be.
The Seahawks are far more likely to take the best player available. That probably means the team takes a wide receiver, cornerback, or edge rusher first. Those specific players might turn out to be quite good, but they won't help fix Seattle's great need, and Grey Zabel would.
