Seattle had other needs.
The Seattle Seahawks could have gone a lot of different ways with the 16th pick in the 2024 NFL draft. The team had a dire need at offensive guard and center (it still has that need). Expecting general manager John Schneider to choose an interior offensive lineman would seem foolish because that is not anything he had done before.
Still, many mock drafts (including on this very site) had Seattle going with a player such as Troy Fautanu in the first round. The 2024 draft turned out weird, though. While Fautanu went to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle passed on him, the first 14 picks were all offensive players. This meant the Seahawks had their choice of all defensive players on the board except one.
With their first pick, the Seahawks chose defensive tackle Byron Murphy II from Texas. He also fit a need the team had. Seattle's run defense was terrible in 2023, and new head coach Mike Macdonald hoped to fix that quickly. Schneider gave Macdonald the gift of an interior defensive lineman.
Bleacher Report gets Seattle Seahawks' 2024 first-round pick all wrong in re-draft
Murphy was decent but not great in his first season. He also got hurt and missed a few games. The DT had 21 total quarterback pressures, 17 run stuffs, and missed just two tackles. He likely will be much better in 2025 while playing next to Pro Bowler Leonard Williams. Ironically, Murphy simply needs to improve his run defense.
What Seattle did not need was an offensive tackle. Charles Cross was set at left tackle for the foreseeable future, and the Seahawks were hoping to get right tackle Abraham Lucas back early in the season (that did not happen). Maybe Seattle could have taken a player who was a tackle in college and then moved him to guard, but the team did not need a pure tackle.
This is where Bleacher Report's recent 2024 NFL re-draft goes wrong. Instead of Seattle taking Murphy, B/R believes the Seahawks should have chosen Alabama offensive tackle JC Latham. Seattle, in theory, would have had no place to put Latham, though. When healthy, Lucas is a fine right tackle, and the hope is he will stay healthy enough to lock down the spot for the next five to eight seasons.
Taking Latham would have meant Seattle was ready to give up on Lucas, and it wasn't. It still isn't.
Plus, Latham was pretty bad as a rookie. He allowed 47 total pressures and seven sacks, had 10 penalties, and was worse at run-blocking than he was at pass protection. Maybe he will be decent because being a rookie offensive tackle in the NFL is not easy. Still, Seattle did not need an offensive tackle.
Bleacher Report's better choice for Seattle would have had the Seahawks taking West Virginia offensive lineman Zach Frazier. He went to the Steelers in the second round and started at center. He allowed just one sack all season, and only 12 total pressures.
He could have started at guard or center, but had Seattle chosen him and had him play center then the Seahawks would have avoided signing veteran Connor Williams. Williams retired midway through the season after not playing well before that.
