The excitement started early in the second round for the Seahawks with the trade for the 35th overall pick to select Emmanwori—Seattle sent a pick later in the round (52 overall) and a third rounder (82) to Tennessee in the trade—and continued with a couple more picks that had Schneider, Macdonald and everyone else in the Derrick Jensen Draft Room thrilled with the day’s draft haul.
After picking Emmanwori, the Seahawks used another second-round pick on Arroyo, a player Schneider said could have been a Top 15 pick if not for his injury history, then after a long wait to their next pick in the third round, the Seahawks added Milroe, a dynamic dual-threat quarterback who was a two-year starter and two-time team captain at Alabama.
“Talk about all three guys, having just a consensus, a plan for them, a vision for them joining our team,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. “All three really exciting in their own right. Yeah, it’s a great day.”
The Seahawks gave up a third-round pick to move up 15 spots in the second round to get Emmanwori, which is not an insignificant price to pay, but given how highly they thought of him, it was a price Seattle was happy to pay to add what they considered to be another first-round talent.
“We had him right next to Grey (Zabel),” Schneider said. “Your question last night, ‘Other people you’re interested in?’ Yeah. Great relationship with Chad Brinker, Tennessee (Titans president of football operations). We were talking to a couple clubs there. Yeah, it worked out great. We were a little nervous that things were going to fall apart there. Not sure how far he would have gone. Felt like a way. 50, 52 felt like a far distance. He wouldn’t have fallen there. This is one of the best Combines I’ve ever seen.
“We felt like we added two first-round draft picks. When you’re doing that, we’re giving up a third-round pick, then you have to figure out what the third round is going to look like once everything is picked apart there. It was just evident to Mike (Macdonald) and myself, everybody in the room, that it was well worth it.”
As Schneider detailed, the trade was one the Seahawks began talking about the night before after attempts to trade into the first round for Emmanwori didn’t work out.
“Last night we had a lot of conversations about, ‘How do we do this?'” Schneider said. “We almost traded back up in to get Nick. Everybody was extremely passionate about it. If we would have come out of the draft without him, we would have been disappointed. Now, same thing with Elijah (Arroyo). Everybody was talking throughout the process, throughout all of our meetings. ‘Are we going to be ok with this guy? Are we going to be able to use him? How do you add that guy?’ All four, the people, the competitors, the athletes, they just feel special. I can’t describe it any different than to say they feel special, like they feel different. It’s a great thing, like I said last night, respecting the group of players that are here right now, to be able to add these guys in. It’s going to be outstanding.”
In Emmanwori, the Seahawks are getting a player who is nearly as big as Seahawks Legend Kam Chancellor, but who also put up off-the-charts testing numbers at the NFL Scouting Combine, including a 4.38-second 40-yard dash, an 11-foot, 6-inch broad jump and a 43-inch vertical leap.