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Draft Season
The Mock Draft Consensus Is Forming. Seattle’s Pick at 32 Has a Name.
Four weeks from the draft, and the fog is clearing. Seahawks.com published its fifth mock draft tracker this week, and a pattern has emerged that’s hard to ignore: cornerback is the position, and Tennessee’s Colton Hood is the name that keeps coming up.
4
Total draft picks the Seahawks currently hold entering April. They need every one to count.
Mel Kiper Jr. has Hood to Seattle at 32. So does NFL.com’s Chad Reuter. PFF’s Jordan Plocher. Multiple others. The logic isn’t complicated: Riq Woolen is in Philadelphia, Coby Bryant is in Chicago, and the Seahawks need someone who can press on the outside opposite Devon Witherspoon. Hood surrendered just 28 catches for 318 yards in 2025 and ran a Cover 3 scheme at Tennessee that mirrors what Mike Macdonald runs. The schematic fit is almost suspiciously clean.
Not everyone agrees. Daniel Jeremiah and Eric Edholm both mocked Notre Dame running back Jadarian Price to Seattle, arguing the backfield void left by KW3 is more urgent. SI on Seahawks made the case that Hood would be a luxury pick given the Jobe and Igbinoghene signings, and that running back or interior O-line should take priority.
The Seahawks have only four picks. They’ve been using all 30 available formal visits at the VMAC, and three of the confirmed names are defensive backs. At some point, the evidence stops being circumstantial. Whether it’s Hood, Avieon Terrell, or Brandon Cisse, secondary investment is coming. The question is whether Schneider believes the running back answer is already in the building or just hasn’t been found yet.
SOURCES →
League News
The NFL Ref Standoff Is Getting Worse. Seattle Fans Know How This Ends.
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The league is already compiling a list of roughly 150 replacement officials from small colleges, per ESPN. Onboarding could start in April. If that timeline sounds familiar, it should. The last time the NFL used replacement refs, the whole experiment lasted 110 days and ended with Golden Tate catching a ball that M.D. Jennings clearly intercepted while two officials made two different calls on the same play. September 24, 2012. Monday Night Football. Packers 14, Seahawks 12. The Fail Mary.
$350K
Average salary for an NFL referee. Part-time. Per Yardbarker, citing ESPN’s Kevin Seifert.
The NFLRA isn’t pushing for full-time employment. They want to keep the part-time gig that pays roughly $350K a year. The NFL wants more accountability, performance-based bonuses, and the ability to train low performers during what’s currently a three-month dead period. The refs don’t want anyone grading their homework. Of all the fan bases in the NFL, Seattle’s has the most complicated relationship with replacement officials. We technically benefited from the worst call in modern history, and we still never want to see those guys again.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
The Seahawks will become just the ninth NFL team to have played a game on every day of the week when they host the Wednesday opener on September 9. The last time Seattle played on a Friday was 1985 at the Kingdome. Against Denver. Some of us remember. Seahawks.com
Najee Harris visited Seattle on Wednesday and the Raiders next Thursday, per Ian Rapoport. Harris is still recovering from a September Achilles tear and his career average is 3.9 yards per carry. The Seahawks are kicking tires, not buying the car. Heavy
The Seahawks’ pre-draft visitor tracker at Field Gulls keeps growing. Three confirmed DBs among the names. QB is, in Mookie Alexander’s words, “not anywhere near presence of mind” for Seattle. What a novel concept. Field Gulls
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Nacua lawsuit took a turn on Friday: the accuser withdrew her temporary restraining order petition, though the civil suit remains active. Nacua’s attorney called it “completely meritless” and is planning a defamation countersuit. New video reportedly shows the accuser dancing near a passed-out Nacua after the alleged biting incident. The hearing is still set for April 14. The extension? Still nowhere. The Rams’ offseason remains a legal thriller nobody asked for.
NINERS
The Trent Williams standoff has upgraded from “entrenched” to “both sides pretending the other doesn’t exist.” Jason La Canfora reports there’s a “huge divide” between the two sides, and one source said it would be “misleading” to assume Williams finishes his career as a 49er. His cap hit is $47 million. He has zero guaranteed money. Kyle Shanahan says he’s “staying out of it.” Bold leadership strategy from a man whose left tackle situation is currently a $47 million game of chicken. Bears fans are watching this with binoculars.
CARDINALS
Arizona’s mock draft tracker is now a choose-your-own-adventure novel with at least eight different projections for the No. 3 pick: Mauigoa, Bailey, Reese, Styles, Simpson, Love, plus multiple trade-down scenarios. Heavy’s Gary Davenport projects them at 5-12 in 2026. The prevailing theory is they’re tanking toward Arch Manning in 2027. When your best-case scenario is losing strategically for another calendar year, your rebuild has entered the philosophical phase.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
The Seahawks’ 1984 defense was historically dominant, recording 63 takeaways, a single-season record that still stands in the Super Bowl era. That unit was anchored by safety Kenny Easley, who led the NFL with 10 interceptions that year and won AP Defensive Player of the Year. Easley was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame decades after his career ended prematurely due to kidney disease. What year was Easley inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
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Kenny Easley was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017, thirty years after his final NFL season in 1987. He was named a senior finalist and enshrined in Canton that August.
The Draft Is Four Weeks Away. Got Questions?
Should the Seahawks go CB at 32 or running back? Is the edge room thin enough to panic? Is there a trade-up scenario that makes sense? Send your draft questions to The Rooster and the best ones make the newsletter. Hit reply or use the form below.
Four picks. Thirty visits. One month. The board is almost set. Go Hawks. — The Rooster