1st. Rd. Pick #31, Germain Ifedi, OT, Texas A&M

[bjornanderson21]

Out of all the potential OL that were rumored to be possibilities, Ifedi was my least favorite.

His body and frame are certainly intriguing, and at least there is no chance he fails because he lacks size.

My problem is that he seems like a raw project who may have only succeeded so far because he's always been so much bigger than his competition.

He won't have as much of a size advantage in the NFL, and the guys who he'll be blocking are all more polished.

At pick #26 (or 31) you can't really expect a polished T without flaws, but you also don't want them to fall into "project" territory.

If he has a true competitor's spirit in him, and he is motivated and driven, then that would be enough for me to take him out of "project" status and more into the "boom or bust" label which is totally acceptable for 1st rounders.



My initial grade : B-

We got a physical specimen with a lot of potential upside at a position we need, we saved about $1.25M in cap space over the next 4 years by dropping back to 31, and we picked up a late 3rd rounder. On the downside, nobody is really projecting him to be a LT, so if Gilliam doesn't succeed we will still be missing the biggest piece on the OL

 

[bjornanderson21]

I'm really surprised at all the distractors.

We have all been singing the praises of our front office (PC/JS) for some time. We have been loving their ability to find talent. They have a knack for finding guys that "fit".

The OL was the one area that we agreed needed to be addressed and we did it with our first pick.

Where is all that praise and trust now.
I'm happy with the pick period but when I remember how I/we feel about our front office, I'm ecstatic.
They had other options and still picked this kid. That speaks volumes to me. I believe with everything I've got, that they saw some things in this guy. Intangibles, attitude, teachable, work ethic, or whatever. I can/won't stop trusting our FO, they know something we don't, actually a whole lot of somethings.
This is a great pick IMO.

That's part of the problem.

People still act like the Hawks have been awesome at drafting lately. They haven't. Our last good draft was in 2012. That's 4 years ago.

Can the Hawks have another good draft? Of course.

But go back and look at the 2013 and 2014 drafts. Try to find ONE TEAM who added less talent to their roster. Good luck.

You make it sound like Pete and John are consistently on top of everything and are right when "everyone else" is wrong.

So to answer your question, there aren't as many blind loyalists anymore because LITERALLY anyone on this message board would have drafted better in 2013 and 2014. For as much time as Pete and John spend on this stuff, and for as much money as they get paid to deal with this stuff, they did MUCH MUCH WORSE than any of us would have done 2 years in a row.

There's nothing wrong with being optimistic, but Pete and John's track record with the draft is no longer special.

 

[MagHawk]

Really not much to say beyond this!

Bravo!

 

[drdiags]

To me, if the coaches and scouts truly are in agreement on a player then it is up to them to get the player to the highest level the player is capable of. With the OL, Pete/John and Cable have been trying to get it right since they have been here. They could have drafted Tunsil but if either side doesn't buy in you still end up with a mess.

I know folks spend a huge amount of effort trying to imagine how the team can improve themselves. It is a season all within its own. I can understand why some are disappointed because they see what the player did in college and don't buy 100% that in this area the team can help the player become exceptional.

I am happy the team got a player in the area they need help, with a player who isn't going to be a conversion project, more a technical coaching up job. If you trust the team, they say he has the nasty and physicality so let's see what happens.

I used to be all in on following the draft but now I am just a consumer. Would like to see the Seahawks to start hitting in the OL as well as a few other spots. Okung was snake-bit. I thought he was a solid pick but in hindsight, Trent Williams was the superstar out of the two LTs from the 2010 draft. Sort of like Bryant vs Adams or Bledsoe vs Mirer, stupid team picking right ahead of the Seahawks got the right guy. It happens.

 

[LoneHawkFan]

Once again, our obsession with measurables makes us blind to the fact that some dudes just can't play NFL level ball. I am super thrilled that Schneider can move around the draft, but Ifedi shows very little ability to be an impact player, especially early on. When, exactly, is the last time Cable coached up a star athlete and turned him into a quality player? And yet we keep letting him try?

I'm sorry, but on a night when LA and AZ got stronger to exploit where we are weakest I just can't be anything other than disappointed.

I hope this guy turns out to be an actual football player, but all I see is a damned turnstile.


Sent from my iPhone, which is way better than Roland's Nokia.

You talk as if he was a 6th round project taken at 31. Cmon.

Pete/John are hardly the only ones evaluating him as a good player.

He needs some tweaks, but most of the guys after the top 15 do in one way or another.

PFF does have him as a sixth round project...

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2 ... nfl-draft/

To be fair, though, PFF grades purely on past performance and has virtually nothing to do necessarily with potential. Their OPINION that he'll take a couple of years just to break into our starting OLine is just f'ing stupidity and the concept of them evaluating talent going forward is not really their forte anyway.

 

[chris98251]

Team needed O line help, we draft O line, kid needs some coaching but if he takes to the coaching and with his natural abilities could be a solid player very quickly.

So versus Okung who had good ability until the blatant shoulder toss by the Eagle player was coming around as a good looking player, he was never ever the same after that play.

Since we are drafting at the back of the round instead of the front you have to have faith in your coaches and office to see something, Ifedi has tools and the risk versus reward of turning him into a very good RT I see is mostly boon.

Now we have at least three starter positions we need to fill on the Line, Hate on about picking guys for the O line because they don't fit a specific player that everyone should like by that posters opinion, but credit the John and Pete for addressing the need,

Spriggs, Whitehair, Clark, Coleman, Dahl, and a few others are all there as of now and we probably would have a shot at one or two of them, now as far as Center goes it gets much muddier unless they see a player as a conversion.

But we still need some pieces, LB's have been something we are good at finding in later rounds just as our CB's.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

I'm really surprised at all the distractors.

We have all been singing the praises of our front office (PC/JS) for some time. We have been loving their ability to find talent. They have a knack for finding guys that "fit".

The OL was the one area that we agreed needed to be addressed and we did it with our first pick.

Where is all that praise and trust now.
I'm happy with the pick period but when I remember how I/we feel about our front office, I'm ecstatic.
They had other options and still picked this kid. That speaks volumes to me. I believe with everything I've got, that they saw some things in this guy. Intangibles, attitude, teachable, work ethic, or whatever. I can/won't stop trusting our FO, they know something we don't, actually a whole lot of somethings.
This is a great pick IMO.

That's part of the problem.

People still act like the Hawks have been awesome at drafting lately. They haven't. Our last good draft was in 2012. That's 4 years ago.

Can the Hawks have another good draft? Of course.

But go back and look at the 2013 and 2014 drafts. Try to find ONE TEAM who added less talent to their roster. Good luck.

You make it sound like Pete and John are consistently on top of everything and are right when "everyone else" is wrong.

So to answer your question, there aren't as many blind loyalists anymore because LITERALLY anyone on this message board would have drafted better in 2013 and 2014. For as much time as Pete and John spend on this stuff, and for as much money as they get paid to deal with this stuff, they did MUCH MUCH WORSE than any of us would have done 2 years in a row.

There's nothing wrong with being optimistic, but Pete and John's track record with the draft is no longer special.

Interesting that you say the Hawks haven't drafted well since 2012 and then conveniently leave 2015 out of your further comments. Suppose you'd say it's too soon to judge it and you'd be partially correct though my suspicion is that even admitting it looks good so far doesn't fit your endless "the FO sucks at drafting/trading" narrative. We'll see about Frank Clark but so far everything looks very positive with him and Tyler Lockett was a steal and even if just one o-lineman becomes a decent starter it will be quite a good draft. Yeah man, in hindsight the Harvin trade sucked. And yeah, 2013 and 14 aren't looking great but no FO hits every year and I believe PeteJohn are back on track and got back on track last year.

Endless negativity is tiresome man. I was one of the first people here to start calling for Ruskell's head and I really didn't like him and made it clear often, but I always gave him credit when it was (rarely) deserved, e.g. Mebane.

 

[MysterMatt]

I'm really surprised at all the distractors.

We have all been singing the praises of our front office (PC/JS) for some time. We have been loving their ability to find talent. They have a knack for finding guys that "fit".

The OL was the one area that we agreed needed to be addressed and we did it with our first pick.

Where is all that praise and trust now.
I'm happy with the pick period but when I remember how I/we feel about our front office, I'm ecstatic.
They had other options and still picked this kid. That speaks volumes to me. I believe with everything I've got, that they saw some things in this guy. Intangibles, attitude, teachable, work ethic, or whatever. I can/won't stop trusting our FO, they know something we don't, actually a whole lot of somethings.
This is a great pick IMO.

Your daughter is a distractor. I am a Detractor.

But really, I've had my rant. The kid is now a Seahawk and I want nothing but success for him from here on out.

 

[MrThortan]

We needed to improve the O-line. We drafted a G/T who was projected to go around pick 31, and we got a 3rd out of it. Happy.

 

[brimsalabim]

For what it's worth the talking heads said TAMU played him wrong and he could be great if coached up by Cable in the Hawks style of offense.

Riiiiight. Cause Cable 'coached up' Drew Nowak. And James Carpenter. And Justin Britt...

right on target with this.

 

[ivotuk]

Just heard him on KIRO. He can't wait to get to work.

Unless your team is crappy enough (like we were when we drafted Walter Jones) you aren't going to get some monster O-lineman to come in and start flattening people. We picked 31 and got the best RT in the draft. You armchair GM's crack me up.

Why don't you go to work for an NFL team as a GM if you are so smart?

This is really a pointless thing to say. By your reasoning, why do we even have a forum? None of us are front office material, so what business do we have talking football?

Yet you say Ifedi is "the best RT in the draft"

We are here to discuss our thoughts on the draft and the prospects.

As far as Ifedi goes, I'm "meh" on him. He was a failure at LT in Texas, and at times struggled with the college game. So what makes him so good that he can be a force in the NFL? I don't see it.

I see Carpenter, Moffitt, Justin Britt, etc etc. This front office had made some big mistakes, and they made some phenomenal picks.

Except for no-brainers like Okung and ET, they seem to have real problems in rounds 1 and 2. It took Golden Tate 2 or 3 years to pan out.

And Alex Gibbs was the one who chose Okung.

I hope I'm proven wrong, but I think Germaine is a 2nd round talent.

 

[McGruff]

I hope I'm proven wrong, but I think Germaine is a 2nd round talent.

Well, a late first is basically a second round pick.

 

[thegreeninyoureye]

Watch the Jags get Jack too.

Called damn Still think we should of pulled the trigger Jags are going to be the real deal this year.