I can't really say he's a specific reach.
One thing to understand, particularly with the NFL.com and CBS Sports projections, is that they are exceedingly generous to name school prospects (particularly ones that are fairly generic mid round prospects). They also do a very poor job of projecting players from smaller schools.
The other aspect that makes their projections fluctuate wildly, is that they really don't account for team fit at all. The projections are just very vanilla in that respect. By the time you're even looking at 2nd round picks, a DT for example may only be a real fit for half of the teams even looking for one. It's just a very blunt projection.
Smith looked like a day 3 project. That's where he landed. For Seattle, we all understand that Pete has a definite and narrow criteria for what he looks for in his CB projects. We catalogued those prospects before the draft -- but have to assume that maybe half of those probably weren't on our draft board for reasons we aren't privvy to. This draft, there weren't a whole lot of CB prospects that seems physically to be a fit.
Murphy was a slight surprise, mainly because he will switch positions. But I think it also highlights just how few CB prospects really fit what we look for. Seattle definitely focuses on the secondary every draft. So ensuring we get our kind of day 3 guy with a early/mid day 3 pick makes a lot of sense. I figured we'd go DB in R5, just not sure who would be that one.
With the lack of supply, I don't see whomever we took in R5 as a reach. And I certainly don't place a lot of stock on NFL/CBS projections for smaller school prospects. Every single year we see dozens of small school/undrafted rated players get picked ahead of and instead of big school mid round players. It's not just Seattle that doesn't buy into those projections.
