Hawks, NFL need hits out of first-rounders
KIRKLAND
It’s why franchises spend months scouting college players and millions to sign them once they’re drafted. But that doesn’t expunge the ambiguity. Not in the NFL, and certainly not in Seattle. When the Seahawks cut defensive tackle Marcus Tubbs earlier this week, he became the latest first-round pick to exit Seattle’s roster.
Some of the first-rounders got hurt, similar as offensive tackle Chris McIntosh and Tubbs, in which case others got in trouble, such as Koren Robinson and Jerramy Stevens. Shaun Alexander got old, the team decided this winter, and Steve Hutchinson just got out of place in 2006.
Going on the frontier to 2000, Seattle has chosen 10 players in the first round of the select. Six are no longer on the team. It’s a staggeringly immense call over, and one that makes Seattle’s current move on of success on the field all the more impressive.
San Francisco has lost six of the players it chose in the first round this decade. The 49ers have averaged 4.5 victories over the past four seasons. The Rams also lost six players they picked in the first round from 2000 to 2008. The Rams won only three games last season and haven’t made the playoffs considering 2004. The Lions have lost five of their first-round picks from 2000 to 2008, and not coincidentally, haven’t made the playoffs once in that time.
Yet Seattle has made the playoffs five consecutive seasons and won at least one postseason courageous each of the past time three.
Only the Colts have more successive postseason berths, and the Colts have done that from one side means of building from within. Indianapolis has chosen seven players in the principal round since 2000, and six are still through the team. Like Seattle, New England has five consecutive playoff appearances. The Patriots have chosen nine players in the first round going back to 2000, and all but one are still on the roster.
So Seattle has swum upstream off league trends these past few years, what one. prompts two thoughts.
1. The Seahawks consider done a great job in shoring up the roster through other avenues of the like kind as free agency and later rounds of the draft.
2. The Seahawks would be thus much better had a hardly any more of those first-round picks from the past eight years panned out.
President Tim Ruskell arrived in 2005 and set about rebuilding the defense by drafting linebackers Lofa Tatupu and Leroy Hill. He also turned to free agency in office because of indispensability. It would’ve taken too long to patch the defense up end the draft, which is why the Seahawks signed Patrick Kerney to rush the passer and Brian Russell and Deon Grant to play safety.
“To do it all [through the] draft, that would have taken too long,” Ruskell said.
