The Seattle Seahawks currently hold their own picks in Rounds 1-6 in the 2026 NFL Draft. While the 2025 NFL season starts on Sunday, college football is already underway. In this series, I’ll be profiling 2026 NFL Draft prospects based on their possible fit with the current iteration of Mike Macdonald’s Seahawks.
The second player I want to cover is Ohio State University safety Caleb Downs. Macdonald has been pioneering the safety position back into prominence since he helped grow Kyle Hamilton into an all-pro with the Baltimore Ravens. Downs has the chance to be the best safety coming out of college since Hamilton in 2022, and Hamilton just signed a market-resetting contract extension that surely gives future stars at the position hope.
Downs fits the prototype of a modern safety as well as any. While Macdonald’s Seahawks seem like a perfect fit for him, it would take one of two unlikely scenarios to pair them up: Downs not getting drafted in the top 10 or the Seahawks ending up with a top-10 pick.
Right now, Pro Football Focus has him as the No. 1 overall player on their big board. He’s a consensus top-10 pick even among those who try to factor in his lower positional value as a safety. He began his 2025 season on Saturday, picking up where he left off as a national champion in January. His Ohio State Buckeyes opened the season hosting the No. 1-ranked Texas Longhorns, led by polarizing prodigy Arch Manning. The Buckeyes won a defensive battle, 14-7, with their secondary making the difference, keeping the young, talented quarterback at bay and trapping him in a house of horrors.
NFL Insider Jordan Schultz reported thoughts from general managers who were in attendance and compared him to two of the greatest safeties of the 2010s.
Spoke with a few NFL GMs in attendance for Ohio State vs Texas. Unanimous agreement that #Buckeyes‘ safety Caleb Downs is a sensational prospect:
• “Flawless instincts”
• “Highly intelligent”
• “Scary closing speed”
But maybe my favorite quote: “There’s some Earl Thomas and… pic.twitter.com/czZwjsQqXo
— Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) August 30, 2025
As I mentioned in discussing Rueben Bain, when comparisons start to sound like “Pro Bowlr but better at his biggest weakness,” the ceiling truly begins to seem beyond anything we’ve seen play out before. But as football changes, the roles and responsibilities do too.
While the Seahawks won’t expect Caleb Downs to be available for them in the 2026 NFL Draft, he and Macdonald would be a fascinating combination. His upside developing in a system that centralizes safeties would be must-see television at an underutilized position. Imagining him learning from Julian Love and alongside Nick Emmanwori sounds simply too good to be true. As someone who believes in the Seahawks’ ability to contend for an NFC West title while Downs remains top 5-10 on draft boards this season, it likely is.