SEATTLE, Wash. - Over the past four seasons, few players at any position at the FBS level in college football have been more productive all-around contributors than Tyrice Knight, who stuffed the stat sheet for the UTEP Miners.
Seeing immediate snaps after starting his college career at the JUCO level, Knight totaled 392 combined tackles from 2020 to 2023, the ninth-most in program history. But he wasn't simply stacking tackles 10 yards downfield either. Making impact play after impact play for the Miners as both an off-ball linebacker and edge defender, he finished his time in El Paso with 33.5 tackles for loss, 9.5 sacks, two interceptions, five forced fumbles, and 13 pass breakups, earning All-C USA honors twice in the process and earning himself a spot in the Senior Bowl.
Still, despite producing a gaudy stat line, impressing in Mobile in January, and posting above-average athletic testing numbers at the NFL combine, many draft experts pegged him as a late round pick, unsure of his readiness to play defense at the pro level. Viewing the player in a different light, the Seahawks tabbed him as a potential successor to Bobby Wagner by selecting him with the 118th pick in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft, pairing him with new coach Mike Macdonald.
While some may think Knight will need extensive time to develop before he's ready to wrangle ball carriers in the NFL, former Seahawks All-Pro linebacker Lofa Tatupu isn't a member of that club. In fact, as others question the level of competition he faced at the college level, Tatupu has no doubts the incoming rookie's playmaking talents will translate to the NFL.
"Production will always win. Right?" Tatupu said of Knight during a recent episode of Locked On Seahawks. "If they made plays there, when they get to the next level, they gonna make plays at the next level. It's perspective... Perspective is the hardest to teach. If a kid has that perspective of making plays, he's got the intuition, the instincts - you can only incrementally give them a different vantage point of what they see and what to focus on - but some just have it innately. Eyes, hands, feet, leverage, those are tangible skills that everyone can teach, regardless of if they have the perspective. But he's got the perspective."
One of the best linebackers in Seahawks history, Tatupu knows a thing or two about making plays at the highest level of the sport. Just one of four off-ball linebackers to earn First-Team All-Pro recognition in Seattle, he led the team in tackles four straight seasons from 2005 to 2009, tallying 10 interceptions, two defensive touchdowns, 8.5 sacks, and 33 tackles for loss in six NFL seasons.
But before Tatupu took a rapid star turn in the Pacific Northwest, like Knight, he entered the pre-draft process with no shortage of questions from draft experts. Instead of focusing on his outstanding college career at USC, where he starred on former Seahawks coach Pete Carroll's defense, concerns about his size and whether or not his production could be replicated in the NFL emerged as the biggest storylines.
Ultimately, the Seahawks drafted Tatupu in the second round with the 45th overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft, drawing mostly negative grades from draft pundits. In the end, the franchise got the last laugh, as he eclipsed 100 combined tackles and intercepted three passes as a rookie, finishing second in Defensive Rookie of the Year balloting as he helped Seattle advance to Super Bowl XL in Detroit.
Though Tatupu and Knight aren't carbon copies and offer different athletic traits as well as skill sets, the three-time Pro Bowl selection sees parallels between the incoming rookie and himself from a sheer production standpoint.
As a senior last season, Knight finished second in the nation with 84 solo tackles and tied for sixth with 140 combined stops. Living in the backfield, he amassed 15.5 tackles for loss along with 4.5 sacks, producing 14 pressures on 40 blitz attempts according to Pro Football Focus. He also batted four passes down at the line of scrimmage and broke up a pair of passes in coverage, demonstrating a versatile, polished game that Tatupu believes will hasten his transition to the pros.
"I don't think he's facing much in terms of the jump to the next level," Tatupu remarked. "He's battle tested, he went through the fire, his numbers and his production speak for itself. He's well rounded and he's the kind of guy I love, unheralded, you never saw them coming, and then years later, he made a couple of Pro Bowls. He went through the fire. And that's adversity. That's part of the scouting process. What he's gone through adversity wise through his life, in terms of everybody telling him, 'You can't do this, you can't do this.' But then you show up and you do it at a very high level."
With training camp set to begin later this month, Tatupu doesn't think the Seahawks will have to rush Knight into the lineup before he's ready, praising the additions of veterans Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson in free agency. Citing both players as quality starters to help replace Wagner and Jordyn Brooks in the meantime, Macdonald and his new staff can be patient with the rookie's development, allowing him adequate time to grow in the new scheme while cutting his teeth on special teams.
As far as areas of improvement are concerned, Tatupu specifically hopes to see Knight work on not leaving his feet a step too early as a tackler, which he foresees as an "easy fix" with proper coaching. Even with that issue, ball carriers rarely got away from him in college, and Tatupu went as far as lofting high praise comparing the rookie to Wagner regarding his ability to seemingly suck up running backs with his long arms like a vacuum.
Playing behind a talented, deep defensive line featuring Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed, and first-round pick Byron Murphy II should only help matters for Baker, Dodson, and Knight, as being kept clean will create more opportunities to make plays near the line of scrimmage and in the backfield.
Once the Seahawks are ready to unleash him, whether that happens at some point this upcoming season or in 2025, Tatupu has no reservations about Knight being able to stack tackles, tackles for loss, and sacks in similar fashion to how he dominated opponents at UTEP. Production always wins, especially for linebackers who don't have clear and obvious flaws in their game and have a stellar defensive line in front of them.
"When you have no weakness, that's stronger than having one unbelievable strength. I try to talk to all these kids in high school and college, just work on your weaknesses and get well rounded so that there's nothing they can use against you. I'm excited to see what he becomes. But I know he's got that dog and so he's gonna be just fine. Just trust me, just let him learn and continue to develop. I think a lot of people are gonna be upset when they said it was a reach."
