Field Gulls
The Seahawks just don’t take many FCS players, let alone in Round 1.
One of the most common names linked to the Seattle Seahawks in mock drafts (fan-generated or from professional draft analysts) is North Dakota State offensive lineman Grey Zabel. He has the positional versatility to play literally anywhere on the line but projects best as either a center of a guard, and we know the Seahawks need improvements along the interior OL.
From a needs perspective combined with the fact that he’s a Senior Bowl standout, Zabel fits the Seahawks quite well. While I don’t disagree with the idea of Zabel on the Seahawks, I’m skeptical that he’ll be taken at No. 18. It has nothing to do with the fact that he’d be a likely guard, which in itself would be uncharacteristic for a John Schneider draft to draft one so early, but something a little deeper than that. Yes, even deeper than the potential snarky comment regarding Schneider and offensive linemen.
The Football Championship Subdivision is a level below the Football Bowl Subdivision. Once upon a time the FCS was Division I-AA and the FBS was Division I-A. The Seahawks have rarely drafted FCS alums, even from a powerhouse like North Dakota State.
2011: S Mark LeGree - Appalachian State (was an FCS school at the time), 5th round
2012: CB Jeremy Lane - Northwestern St (LA), 6th round
2013: DT Jared Smith - New Hampshire, 7th round
2015: CB Tye Smith - Towson, 5th round
That’s four drafted FCS players out of a possible 213 since Schneider became Seahawks GM in 2010. All of those players were off the board no earlier than Round 5 and none since 2015. Schneider has drafted more Division II players (David Moore, Dareke Young, Michael Jerrell, Michael Bowie, Ty Powell) in that same span. They have obviously been willing to dip into the UDFA market for an FCS player like Jalen Sundell, but not a whole lot else beyond that.
Zabel would not only be the first FCS player the Seahawks have drafted in a decade, he’d be the first one taken in Round 1 by Seattle since Terry Taylor in 1984.
This was a comment left by Field Gulls deputy editor John Gilbert in one of the Pre-Snap Reads articles recently.
The article in question was from 2018 and included extensive data on the common theme among Schneider’s early-round picks:
And there we see that every single player John Schneider has drafted in the first two rounds during his tenure as the general manager for the Seahawks has been a starter for at least two full seasons in college. There have been zero exceptions to this, so while the sample size is still limited to just fourteen players, Schneider definitely seems to have a preference for players who have multiple years starting in college.
This pseudo-requirement has been...
