ClutchPoints
When the Seattle Seahawks selected Jalen Milroe out of Alabama with the 92nd overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, it got fans in the Emerald City hyped.
Sure, the Seahawks just signed Sam Darnold to a three-year, $100.5 million contract the month prior, and he will almost certainly start for the team this fall no matter who ended up in Seattle as his backup, but Milroe presents a unique athletic upside unlike almost any other quarterback to ever play in the NFL. He ran a 4.37 at Alabama’s pro day, has an absolute cannon for an arm, and left the Crimson Tide with 33 rushing touchdowns to his name, which is more than any other quarterback in program history.
And yet, considering Milroe is decently far away from being an NFL-caliber passer but can dominate on the ground, did teams think about moving the Alabama product to another position, be that wide receiver, running back, or even tight end, at the pro level? Well, according to Lance Zierlein during an appearance on Check The Mic, the answer is yes, as more than a few of his contacts imagined that getting the ball in Milroe’s hands should be a priority regardless of what position he technically plays.
“Talking to some team, and it’s not a popular thing to talk about publicly, in terms of the general reaction to it,” Zierlein said. “But teams have talked about if, ‘He he doesn’t work at quarterback, you’ve got an insanely talented, elite athlete, you’ve got to find a way to get him on the field and the ball in his hands.'”
Wow, while conversations about uber athletic college quarterbacks is nothing new, as the Las Vegas Raiders have already transitioned Tommy Mellott to wide receiver after selecting him out of Montana State, what does Zierlein think about Milroe’s NFL ceiling? Well, choosing to employ a baseball metaphor, Zierlein noted that Milroe is a home run hitter, and as a result, teams have to grade him on a curve while keeping that in mind.
“I think Jalen Milroe deserves a little longer leash and you grade him on a different scale than other quarterbacks because he has an opportunity to, he may not be as good of a passer, you want to get him to a functional level of passing, because he can do incredible things with his legs because of his speed and that ability,” Zierlein noted. “Backbreaking third-down conversions, backbreaking long touchdown runs. Things that really demoralize defenses.”
If the Seahawks enter the final year of Darnold’s current contract and he looks like he should be the guy long-term, then who knows, maybe Seattle will consider moving Milroe to another position to keep him part of their offense long-term. If, however, Milroe decides that he’s a quarterback and a quarterback only, then maybe the Seahawks will have to move on from the Alabama product and send him to a new team willing to keep developing him into Year 4.
The post [Seahawks...
