The biggest story of the 2025 NFL Draft was probably the slide of Shedeur Sanders. Why am I talking about that in an article about the Seattle Seahawks? Well, the Cleveland Browns traded with the Seahawks to select Shedeur Sanders – sending No. 166 to Seattle, which the team used to select WR Tory Horton from Colorado State. Horton is another player who suffered an injury in 2024 which potentially dropped him farther down the draft board than he should have slipped after a productive college career.

Athletic Profile/Comps
Relative Athletic Score (RAS)

Mockdraftable

Finally, we have a (mostly) full athletic profile to look at after a few weeks of partials! Again, Horton suffered an injury last college season but was able to recover enough to do most of the testing at the NFL combine except the agility drills. Good thing too because he scored well in nearly everything. If this is how fast Horton was able to run with limited time to train after his injury, I think it’s a safe bet that he’s actually faster than his 4.41 second 40-yard dash time.

In fact, Horton confirmed that he was running in the 4.3’s post-injury during his training.

Tory Horton has real deal speed — says he was in the 4.3s in post-surgery training before the combine — and on top helping the WR room, he should be an option as a punt returner. Took multiple to the house. Seahawks talked to him about it during 30 visit. pic.twitter.com/JlD07kVk30

— Dugar, Michael-Shawn (@MikeDugar) April 26, 2025

Oh yeah, he’s a dangerous returner too but we’ll get to that later!

Hey look, there’s a Freddie Swain sighting in the comps! I want to dig a little deeper into the D.J. Chark one though.

This one is pretty interesting especially considering Horton was running in the 4.3’s in training which would bring the speed even closer. Chark was a little better in all the categories. However, Horton could be a major steal in the fifth round if he can prove to be the down-field threat that Chark has presented at times in his career.

Horton kind of reminds me of another former Seahawk, Paul Richardson, so let’s look at the RAS comp with these two as well.

Horton is taller and heavier than P-Rich, but a lot of the other scores are pretty darn close. Richardson had some good moments for the Seahawks as a down-field threat which is likely how Horton will be able to immediately contribute.

Gut reaction to the pick

Every year, there’s at least one pick that I just have a feeling about and it’s Tory Horton for me this year. I won’t claim to always be right in the end because the gut feeling pick for the last three classes has been Coby Bryant, Olu Oluwatimi, and Sataoa Laumea, respectively.

Hmm, maybe I just have a thing for late rounders since it’s potentially easier to outperform their draft status?

Regardless, I really like the Horton pick and think he can bring an explosive aspect to the offense that will be much needed after the departures of DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.

I know I mentioned it before, but he’s also a fantastic returner with a punt return TD in each of the last three seasons and could bring stability to a position that was a complete dumpster fire for the Seahawks last season.

Rookie season prediction

Horton will most likely see the field most as a punt returner in his rookie season and will be a huge upgrade to that position, yet won’t house one this season, settling for a few 25+ yard returns instead. He’ll also bring a vertical threat to the offense and it will be clear by the end of the season that he will take Marquez Valdes-Scantling’s role – if MVS even makes the team out of camp. I think Horton will have a rookie year similar to Paul Richardson with an extra TD, so let’s go with 30 catches for 350 yards and 2 TDs. That might not sound like much, but let’s remember that Horton is a fifth-round pick, which aren’t usually guaranteed to make the roster.