Field Gulls
Arroyo is the first tight end drafted by the Seahawks in the first or second round since 2008.
After selecting Grey Zabel in the first round and moving up to get Nick Emmanwori in the second, the Seattle Seahawks still had one more Day 2 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. The pick was not another offensive lineman or defensive lineman. A trade down was even considered to try to recover something after the trade-up, but that was not what happened either. The pick was TE Elijah Arroyo, from Miami.
What is the impact of the pick? Where will he play? Can he contribute as a rookie?
We will discuss all of this in this article.
Arroyo was born in Orlando, but due to his father’s work he had to move to Mexico when he was six years old. He had the opportunity to play American Football in Mexico, playing as a QB, LB and RB. At age 12, he returned to the United States, where he played as a QB in his freshman year (note that he is left-handed). In his sophomore year, he transitioned to receiver and received a lot of attention.
He was a four-star prospect and was the second highest-ranked TE in Texas, behind only Ja’Tavion Sanders (who is now with the Carolina Panthers). He received offers from UConn, Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Penn State, Texas, Texas A&M, SMU and USC. The TE chose to play for Miami, a university where he had watched games with his father and grandfather.
Arroyo played his freshman season, was injured the next two years and then returned for a fantastic season in 2024. He had 35 receptions for 590 yards and 7 touchdowns, which earned him Second Team All-ACC honors.
His mentality of fighting for every snap is something incredible.
Not afraid to sacrifice his body in blocking.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, many teams had Arroyo as a top-20-25 player in the draft. The problem was the injuries the player had (we’ll talk about that later) that made some teams give up on his selection.
Let’s look at John Schneider’s history of drafting TEs:
So, in addition to being the highest TE drafted by John, Arroyo is the highest TE drafted by Seattle since John Carlson was drafted in the second round in 2008 at 38th overall. In franchise history, only two other TEs have been drafted higher than Arroyo. One of them is Jerramy Stevens, in the first round of the 2002 Draft at...
