At some point

I'd like to see this team go a completely different route in the draft, even if it's just one year. We obviously have starting talent and good enough depth to make back-to-back SB appearances. So for one year, why not put a couple picks together to move up and get players who have more of a chance of being major factors in the near future. In fact, why not do that a few times in the same draft to try and walk away with more quality rather than quantity. I know this team has had tons of success by finding good value picks late in the draft. But looking at our wr's, all we have are 'good value' guys. Instead of having a bunch of mid round picks, pool a few together with our first or second and try to get a game changer early on. The only wr I see as a definite upgrade that might be available at 31 is Strong, from ASU. And most mocks have him going much earlier. So why not put our first together with a couple mids to get someone like him. I think the trading down and accumulating picks is great for building depth, but now we have that depth. So change gears and move up a couple times.

Sorry to be so long winded but I don't see where this team needs to add 12 more rookies to the mix to see if we can get lucky on a couple guys.

Why change what got us here. These calls to move up are just immediate gratification plights. I hope we are patient and have a plan to go after who we want and need in correlation to our draft position.

I am a believer that shity teams should draft where they are. The steep price teams pay to move up in the draft,,especially the first round just reaks of desperation.

Despite many here saying that this is a weak draft, there are so many players that we can get in just the first four rounds that could contribute to this team immediately. Would anyone here be disappointed to get Tevin Colemen late in the 3rd round or one of my favorites ,,Ladarius Gunter (CB Miami) in 5th or 6 th round. We still have yet to even see our last year guys really contribute. Lot of WRs, RBs, CBs and many more coming out of college this year.

Whatever PC and JS do however I will support. I am a " true believer"

Interesting. I take a slightly different view. I wouldn't mind seeing the team try to trade as many of their picks as possible for picks the following year. Not sure it would be a good thing this year or not but I think we could have done it the last two years and would have hardly noticed the lack of draft picks.

cheese with who we need to resign and the cap space we have it seems that you do not understand the situation.

We Lost alot of depth in 2 years. We went from RICHES on dbs and Dline to shambles from injuries and losing free agents.

I think we have ~ 24 free agents this year. granted its not "core" guys but its a tad less then half our roster. So any notion of not needing to add a INFLUX of players is delusional.

resting on your laurels is the exact opposite of what carroll preaches. The second we stop adding and competing we will grow stale and die.

And because im such a nice guy ill lay it out for you.

We have a high need for starters and depth

DE / Leo
DT
OG
LT
DBs
LB
WR
TE

As pointed out above, it is a great thing we have a lot of pics this year. Attrition caught up with us last year, and as pointed out, we have a LOT of F.A.'s

That lack of depth resulted in Simon playing CB. While he may improve, our situation at CB isn't very rosy right now. Especially with Maxwell being a prized F.A.

This is a very important draft IMO for the Hawks being competitive and going far.

I have a problem with that idea, mainly because of how it will affect the team 2-4 years down the road. You've recognized that our front line players are pretty well set, and that our first tier backups isn't too bad. However, the players we draft this year will need a couple of years of coaching to break into the lineup , even if they never become 'starters.'

This is why I only put passing interest in the draft. If you want the team to win games and contend for championships, you have to accept that you're going to be drafting far from the top 10 picks. I suspect there are many fans who suffer from "pick envy" for those picks, which are out of reach in any rational scenario one can dream up.

I know you only proposed using "a couple of picks" to move up, but that won't get a lot of movement anyway, and losing those extra picks could create a hole in our team in a couple of years. There's a reason Pete and John get the big bucks. They know what they're doing.

cheese22":3h4y7qsw said:

Sorry to be so long winded but I don't see where this team needs to add 12 more rookies to the mix to see if we can get lucky on a couple guys.

Click to expand...

I see it a bit differently. Besides the obvious observation that our program is built on adding many players. Let's just look at position groups. I've omitted futures contracts/PS players. Position counts based on final 53 man roster of 2014

WR: 7 positions. 1 lock (Baldwin). 1 PUP/IR probable (Richardson). 5 positions open for competition/upgrade
TE: 3 positions. 1 lock (Willson). Miller spot unsettled. Helfet position open 2 positions open for upgrade
OL: 9 positions. 5 locks (Okung, Unger, Sweezy, Britt, Bailey). 2 Reserves: Gilliam, Lewis. 2 voids
RB: 4 positions. 2 locks (Lynch, Turbin). 2 open (Coleman, Michael).
QB: 2 positions. 1 lock (Wilson). 1 void

11 open positions. 3 voids

On defense:

CB: 9 positions. 6 locks (Sherman, Thomas, Chancellor, Simon, Lane, Shead). 3 Open positions: (Burley, Terrell, Pinkins).
LB: 5 positions. 4 locks (Wagner, Wright, Irvin, Pierre-Louis). 1 Open positions (Coyle).
DL: 11 positions. 4 locks (Avril, Bennett, Hill, Marsh) 5 open positions (Mebane, McDaniel, Staten, J Williams, Scruggs)

Open positions: 9.

Obviously there are some positions more open than others. Staten/J Williams are long shots to even make the roster. Terrell likely as well. I would have added them as voids, but technically, they are under contract.

That's 20 upgradable positions with a justifiable 5 voids on the roster. Next year will be much MUCH worse. In reality, Seattle needs to expect to add about 25 contributing players over this year and next. Many of them in starter roles. That process needs to start this year. Even this season, there are more open positions than we have draft picks. If you add the expected losses of Richardson and Lane to injury this upcoming season -- we have significant need for guys that will be expected to play substantial roles in the upcoming season.

Ideally we can just stay put with all our picks (10 or 11) and just hit on more of them (duh). It seems like our early round guys, for whatever reason, just aren't making as big or as consistent an impact as we'd like since Earl and Okung (who is also debatable at this point). Irvin has potential but disappears at times and Michael and Robinson, while showing flashes, just aren't adding much or won't be for a while.

It's great that we've found so much value in our mid-rounders, and I agree with the notion that we don't need to fix what isn't broken, but almost as important for us as depth THIS YEAR is finding another impact player or two. I doubt it will happen, but if Pete and Schneider really have their sites on a particular guy, I won't mind if they go nab him at all.

It's a very odd year given that we had 17-18 guys, many of them younger with lots of potential, go on IR last year. I'm sure Pete and John haven't forgotten them, but assuming the majority can come back healthy then I'm even more comfortable with moving up.

I hate the offseason.

It sure would be nice to know the conditions of all of our IR'd guys and how their progress in rehab is. Mebane tweeted he's doing well. We no nothing about many of the others like Marsh, KPL, Hill....and the list goes on.

Fortunately the F.O. DOES know and will draft accordingly, but as was stated above...THIS draft and the next are going to be make or break drafts for us to remain in a position to make the playoffs.

The one thing I will say about this team having a lot of draft picks that I think is unfortunate is that it seemed like last year we watched several players not make the final cut and end up on other teams rather than the Hawks' practice squad. I hate seeing that much quality/potential head out the door. I think that points to the fact that possibly fewer numbers of picks but higher quality of picks would have been nice. That said, I don't really see it this year. I think there's more room than there has been the last two years for rookies to come in and make the team.

There is no WR in this years draft I would move up more then 5 at max for, it's honestly a fairly deep group but I don't think there is a Mike Evans in this mix.