Seattle Seahawks · 2026 Draft · Pick #32 · (14-3)

Actual Pick: Jadarian Price (RB, Notre Dame) SOLID Buy Jersey

Solid. Seattle grabbing Jadarian Price at 32 is the kind of cold-blooded value play Mike Macdonald's staff has telegraphed all spring, landing a sub-4.30 burner who projected firmly Day 2. Price's 6.2 yards-per-carry at Notre Dame, his vision on outside zone, and his demonstrated third-down pass-pro reps all scream NFL-ready. Pairing him with Zach Charbonnet gives Seattle a genuine two-headed backfield without forcing Kenneth Walker's contract conversation another year down the road. The fit is cleaner than the headline suggests. Macdonald's offense under Ryan Grubb leans on wide-zone principles and play-action shots — Price's one-cut decisiveness and home-run gear (he hit 22.4 mph on a 78-yard touchdown against USC) is the exact archetype Grubb weaponized at Washington with Dillon Johnson. Seattle's cap is tight post-Geno restructure, so a rookie-scale change-of-pace back behind a rebuilt interior line addresses a real depth hole while leaving 2027 flexibility fully intact at the position. No trade — this is Seattle's native pick at 32, the compensation conversation is purely opportunity cost. The uncomfortable names left on the board are Tyler Booker and Kingsley Suamataia at guard, plus edge Chop Robinson if he somehow slid. Passing on offensive line at 32 when Charles Cross needs help inside is the one defensible critique. But John Schneider has earned the benefit of the doubt on running back evaluation, and the second-round guard class is unusually deep this year. On our board Price graded as a top-45 player, PFF had him 58th, Jeremiah slotted him 62nd, and Kiper buried him at 71 — so technically this is a modest reach against public consensus, roughly a half-round premium. But Seattle's internal testing numbers on Price reportedly blew away the combine crowd, and his 91.2 PFF rushing grade on outside zone was RB1 in the entire class. Call it market-rate for a team that clearly had him flagged as a specific scheme fit rather than a generic RB. This pick confirms Seattle is done pretending Kenneth Walker is a three-down back and is quietly transitioning the room. Expect guard and cornerback in rounds two and three — Cooper DeJean-type slot help and a mauler for the interior are the logical follow-ups. Schneider didn't panic, didn't trade up, and addressed a stealth need with a fourth-quarter closer. It's not sexy at 32, but it's the kind of decision that looks smarter in December than it does tonight. Front office earns trust.

Actual Pick: Bud Clark (S, TCU) REACH Buy Jersey

Reach. Seattle pulled Bud Clark off the board roughly a full round early, and the value gap is glaring when Caleb Lomu, Princely Umanmielen-tier edges, and a deep RB pool were still sitting there. Clark is a rangy single-high free safety with elite ball production at TCU, but he's a Day 3 athletic profile in a Day 2 slot. With Julian Love and Coby Bryant already locked into safety snaps, this is a luxury pick on a roster screaming for trench help. The fit is awkward. Mike Macdonald's defense leans heavy on disguised two-high looks, so a true center fielder like Clark has theoretical appeal — but Love already plays that exact role. Meanwhile the offensive line just lost interior snaps, Kenneth Walker needs a running mate, and the edge rotation behind Boye Mafe is paper-thin. Drafting a third safety before addressing RB, OL, DB cornerback help, or Edge ignores the priority board the front office themselves built this offseason. No trade reported, so this is straight rookie-contract value at slot 64 — roughly $5.8M over four years with a fifth-year option waiver. The opportunity cost is brutal: Caleb Lomu was right there as our projection, Cam Skattebo was still on the board for the RB room, and edge depth like Bradyn Swinson sat untouched. Paying premium Day 2 capital for a rotational safety when starter-quality OL and RB existed at the same slot is the textbook definition of leaving value on the table. Our board had Clark as a clean R3 grade, with most public boards (Jeremiah mid-90s, PFF ~88, Kiper outside top 100) aligning. Going 64th overall represents a roughly 30-pick reach against consensus — a full round delta. Position-rank wise, he was our SAF6, and three safeties we graded higher were still available. This isn't market-rate; it's John Schneider falling in love with a workout and ball-production profile that the rest of the league had pegged a tier lower. The pick screams "best player available on our board, league be damned" — a Schneider trademark that's produced both Kam Chancellor and a graveyard of head-scratchers. What Seattle should do next is obvious: hammer offensive line and running back on Day 3, and pray someone like Marcus Mbow or Jaylen Reed slips. The front office did not earn trust tonight; they reinforced a strength while three glaring weaknesses got worse by the minute.

Why different: Seattle prioritized a single-high safety profile Schneider valued internally over the trench help (Lomu) that matched their own stated need hierarchy.

Actual Pick: Julian Neal (, ) BONEHEADED Buy Jersey

Boneheaded. Seattle reached into the void for Julian Neal at 99, a name absent from every credible top-145 board, and they did it with a comp pick acquired via the Pittsburgh trade pathway that should have netted a plug-and-play contributor. With RB, OL, and edge holes screaming on the depth chart, John Schneider torched a third-round slot on a developmental flier whose tape, combine, and Senior Bowl reps generated zero pre-draft buzz across Jeremiah, Kiper, or PFF circles. Neal does nothing to address the Kenneth Walker injury insurance problem, the Charles Cross-adjacent interior line questions, or the pass-rush rotation behind Boye Mafe and Derick Hall. Seattle's cap is tight enough that rookie-contract surplus value matters, and burning a Day 2 bullet on a positional luxury or a project body forces them to chase the same needs in free agency next March at premium prices. The fit reads like a Schneider gut-call, not a roster-driven decision. The compensatory pick from Pittsburgh was free money — true sunk capital — but opportunity cost still applies, and at 99 the board still had Quinshon Judkins-tier depth backs, swing tackles like Jonah Savaiinaea, and rotational edges like Bradyn Swinson reportedly available in this range of mocks. Treating a comp pick as house money is the exact mindset that produces a Julian Neal selection; the slot itself carried real four-year, ~$5M rookie-deal leverage that Seattle just spent on a name nobody projected before round seven. On our board Neal didn't crack the top 145, which puts this minimum two full rounds above market — closer to a priority UDFA grade than a third-round investment. Consensus boards from Jeremiah and PFF treated this neighborhood as the Jaylin Noel, Jalen Travis, Elic Ayomanor zone; Seattle blew past all of them. Even charitable late-Day-3 grades on Neal would call 99 a 60-pick reach, and that's before adjusting for positional value at whatever spot he actually plays. This pick screams that Seattle's front office is operating off a private board that doesn't reconcile with public consensus or their own roster needs, and that's the worrying part — not the name, but the process. They need to spend the rest of this draft doubling back hard on running back and offensive line in rounds four and five or this class becomes indefensible. Schneider has earned long leash equity historically, but tonight the trust meter dropped; the next two picks have to answer for this one.

Actual Pick: Beau Stephens (, ) SURPRISE Buy Jersey

Meh. Beau Stephens (?, —) wasn't on our top-145 big board, which means the Seattle Seahawks are betting on something specific that didn't show up in the consensus film grades. The Seattle Seahawks acquired this pick via trade (From KC via CLE). Day-3 picks are won and lost on traits-and-fit calls like this — if the team's scouting department saw a special-teams role, a developmental skill, or an injury-discount, that's defensible. We don't have a board grade to anchor a verdict so we're rating this neutral and waiting for training-camp tape.

Actual Pick: Emmanuel Henderson Jr. (, ) SURPRISE Buy Jersey

Meh. Emmanuel Henderson Jr. (?, —) wasn't on our top-145 big board, which means the Seattle Seahawks are betting on something specific that didn't show up in the consensus film grades. The Seattle Seahawks acquired this pick via trade (From DET via CLE, CIN and NYJ). Day-3 picks are won and lost on traits-and-fit calls like this — if the team's scouting department saw a special-teams role, a developmental skill, or an injury-discount, that's defensible. We don't have a board grade to anchor a verdict so we're rating this neutral and waiting for training-camp tape.

Actual Pick: Andre Fuller (, ) SURPRISE Buy Jersey

Meh. Andre Fuller (?, —) wasn't on our top-145 big board, which means the Seattle Seahawks are betting on something specific that didn't show up in the consensus film grades. The Seattle Seahawks acquired this pick via trade (From GB). Day-3 picks are won and lost on traits-and-fit calls like this — if the team's scouting department saw a special-teams role, a developmental skill, or an injury-discount, that's defensible. We don't have a board grade to anchor a verdict so we're rating this neutral and waiting for training-camp tape.

Actual Pick: Deven Eastern (, ) SURPRISE Buy Jersey

Meh. Deven Eastern (?, —) wasn't on our top-145 big board, which means the Seattle Seahawks are betting on something specific that didn't show up in the consensus film grades. The Seattle Seahawks acquired this pick via trade (From BUF via CLE and NYJ). Day-3 picks are won and lost on traits-and-fit calls like this — if the team's scouting department saw a special-teams role, a developmental skill, or an injury-discount, that's defensible. We don't have a board grade to anchor a verdict so we're rating this neutral and waiting for training-camp tape.

Actual Pick: Michael Dansby (, ) SURPRISE Buy Jersey

Meh. Michael Dansby (?, —) wasn't on our top-145 big board, which means the Seattle Seahawks are betting on something specific that didn't show up in the consensus film grades. The Seattle Seahawks acquired this pick via trade (Compensatory Pick (From GB)). Day-3 picks are won and lost on traits-and-fit calls like this — if the team's scouting department saw a special-teams role, a developmental skill, or an injury-discount, that's defensible. We don't have a board grade to anchor a verdict so we're rating this neutral and waiting for training-camp tape.