Ben Solak Talks Seahawks Free Agency & Beyond

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1:01get instant access to the men's and women's tournaments. Starting at just $4.99. You can catch all the action on TNT, TBS, ESPN, and ESPN 2. Want even more hoops than add an extra pack to your subscription for just $1. No overpaying, no overcommitting. Just tournament so crazy, they'd be crazy to miss. Visit sling.com to learn more. Sling, let you do that. What would you like the power to do? Keep getting up. There's more fight in you, so play on. Bank of America. Proud to be the official bank of U.S. Soccer and FIFA World Cup 2026. Bank of America and a member of FDSC. What's going on? I'm Archie Manning, Viori, Athlete and College Corvette. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unlining at home, I love doing it in my core shorts from Viori. With a breathable box of brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand-ups even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come with three in-seems and a ton of colors. Ready to try pair? Go to Viori.com, slash Arch, and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do. That's v-u-r-i.com slash ARCH,

2:03and get 20% off your first order. Exclusion's apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of HawkBlogger Mornings. I am Brian M. How's we can find me, and all that we do here on YouTube TikTok, Instagram, at HawkBlogger. Of course, you can get the audio version on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you like to get it, or the ad-free version on patreon.com slash HawkBlogger. Somehow, some way, this is the number one, the Seahawks podcast on the planet, for the number one football team on the planet, the Seattle Seahawks. And we have a really fun show this morning. We're going to have a guest on here, who we've talked about a fair amount, but we've never had the chance to actually talk to. And my preference is always to have the conversation live. And finally, we're able to get the Man the Myth, Ben Solak from ESPN on the show, Father of Two Children, Under the Age of Two.

3:04So let's be gentle. Let's be gentle with Ben Solak, because God knows if your parent, two under two, is real work. Ben, how are you doing this morning? Well, thanks for asking now. It's the bomb. You don't sleep very much, but really is the bomb. Yeah, well, every little milestone is a celebration, and that's not just their development, but the longer they sleep, the more they do themselves, all that's coming up. So it's actually my son's birthday, it's 25th, so a little bit different age range. But he can rent a car now. So that's a big day for us. I always tell my younger brother that I was like, listen, you know, they tell you 21 is a big one, 18 is a big one, 25 is a big one. No more extra charge for renting the car, that's real nice. All right, that's the enjoyable stuff. Well, happy birthday to Isaac. If you're down there, I'm sure he's not listening, but his friends might be. So Ben, you know, we haven't had you on, something we always do with first-time guests, is just kind of hear your story. So, you know, how did you get started? How did you get into this? Why did you get into this?

4:06Yeah, I was in college, and I walked into college with a major, and then by the end of year one, realized that was not the major. And so in year two, I was just doing the core curriculum and just trying to figure out what life was. And I was a big Eagles fan, and I was reading Eagles' pieces, and I'll come blog for this thing. I said, why not? I got like writing, I like the Eagles. I was just bored. I wanted something to do. That started to go well. And, you know, the editor then encouraged me to get on Twitter, kind of engaged with the community. And then from there, with the next couple years in college, I got, you know, jobs covering the draft, the draft network. I started working with leading green nation, covering the Eagles. And so by the time I graduated, I had like, you know, a job, right? I had like money. And so I was like, okay, we're not going to mess around with this. And then the next year was COVID, 2020 hit. And at that point, I had a job, and a lot of people didn't. So I was like, okay, let me take this very seriously. So COVID was when I really like, you know, put a lot of my back into the work, and then I started at the ringer a couple years later, was at the ringer for a few years, and then maybe it's been two years now. There's this upcoming summer. And so for me, it was a lot of it was the fact

5:09that I was kind of discovering it very late. I feel like a lot of people in our industry grew up on sports radio and grew up on ESPN and 30 for 30s. And just like, it's been their life or forever. For me, like, I didn't really have it much growing up. You know, we were a big, big football fan. We watched everything on Sunday, but like, we did not have the channel like ESPN. And if I'll never hurt anything, my dad was not like, you know, get the fantasy football magazine to the house sort of a guy. And so I just like, I like to me like the pinnacle of NFL coverage was, you know, Bill Cower on the CBS Morning Show. Like, they got to run the ball. You know, like, that was it. Like, that was all the keys to the smartest guy in the room. And then I got to college. I started to learn about like, you know, this was, this was mid 2010s. And so this was when like, you know, Mina was writing, right? And I would read Mina. I was like, oh my god. Like, I didn't even know this was a while. Like, I didn't know you could cover the sport like this. So my enthusiasm hit for the industry, hit like all at once, right when I was not like prime, like, you know, looking for a career window. And so I kind of took on the torrent and had a lot of energy for an enthusiasm for it. And 10 years later, here we are. Yeah, I think that for a lot of people

6:10that have the rise that you did, it's not just, you know, oh, they're just talented and they're good at what they do. But there's something in the coverage that you want to see that isn't out there and that you try to provide. I'm curious for you. Like what, what is it that you feel like separates, you know, your work and like your perspective on what you're trying to create? That's a good question. So one of the coolest things about United Health Group is bringing in-home treatment directly to patients, closing caregabs, identifying risks earlier and improving patient outcomes. In 2025, patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment. Right now, new fan dual customers can get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. Place a tournament bet using the token. And if it doesn't win, you'll get up to $300 back in bonus bets every single day for 10 days straight. You can even mix things up with same-game parlories for a shot at a bigger payout.

7:11Fan dual. It's time to dance. 21 plus and president selects seats. Bonus bets are nonwithdrawable and expire seven days after receive. Tokens are received in increments of one per day. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. Gamlin problem called 1-800-Gamler. Want a game-changing way to watch college basketball? With a one-day pass from sling, get instant access to the men's and women's tournaments. Starting at just $4.99. You can catch all the action on TNT, TBS, ESPN, and ESPN 2. Want even more hoops? Then add an extra pack to your subscription for just $1. No overpaying, no overcommitting. Just tournament so crazy, they'd be crazy to miss. Visit sling.com to learn more. Sling lets you do that. Bank of America. Proud to be the official bank of US Soccer and FIFA World Cup 2026. Bank of America and a member of FTSC. What's going on? I'm Archie Manning, Biori Athlete and college quarterback.

8:12Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unlining at home, I love doing it in my core shorts from Biori. With a breathable box of brief liner, a quick to dry, superversal, and stand-ups even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come with three inceems and a ton of colors. Ready to try pair? Go to Viori.com, slash arch, and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do. That's V-U-R-R-I. Dotcom slash ARCH, and get 20% off your first order. Exclusion's applied. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day. Discovering the industry, especially, again, talking about this mid-2010s period, it was like, draft breakdown was the thing. And so, first take, there was just like, film. You could just, you know, I demand to see all of Den Elplum freeze runs, and you could just have them. Like, that was crazy, right? That didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago. There was a lot more film that was available. And then, you know, we were at that stage. Again, this is when, like, we were really starting to get some ex-players into the industry, not just to, like, do, you know, Steve and Ethan Prussians, but it's like, hey, like, you know, this is what's happening on this play call. This is why this is going this way. This player's good. This player's not so good.

9:12It's strength and weaknesses. So the fact that there was just, like, clinics online from, like, coaches that I grew up watching, explaining how they did things was, like, mind-boggling to me. So, you're consuming all that content. You're loving it. But one of the weaknesses was that when you have exclusively ex-players and ex-coaches trying to get all this schematic information and all this, like, you know, very rarefied and withheld NFL information to the every man, they don't speak the everyman language anymore, right? It's a little bit like those who don't do teach sort of a thing where it's like, okay, these are the best of the best. They're not the best at getting it back down to Joe Schmoe, right? They're good at, like, actually, you know, doing an executing here. And so one of the boys that I experienced was, okay, if I can learn this, when I then go to do content around it, be like, wow, like, you know, I got the AJ Barner touchdown against the Rams in the comeback on week 16, right? Like that concept and how they got set up and then they brought it to the corner. Like, I can understand how that got set up, how clinic Quebec said that pitch, why that call worked. But hopefully, when I explain it as part of content,

10:14I can do it in a way that's a little bit more palatable and digestible to a guy who's never really broken down film before, relative to some of the wonderful ex-players we have in space doing some more thing. Because they just don't remember what it's like to be at zero, to not know and understand any of this. And like, you know, to point out, highlight some of the things that are going to be very surprising, very interesting to like the every man. So that's where I always try to find myself in the link is saying, like, all right, I'm on my, my content to be educational and entertaining. But I want to be extremely accessible, relative to what some of our Rx players do, which is really good. But they just don't speak the same language going up and down the chain the way you can if you're somebody who came from it from not a football background. Yeah, that's great. And I think that you absolutely accomplished that. I think one of my favorite, you know, watches for you this past season was, you're always great when you're on with Meena. You guys feed off each other. I think it's pretty cool that you're able to be on with the person that used to read Meena's been on this show all the way back when she was doing investigative stuff for GSP in the magazine and before. But I remember having her on after Frank Clark was drafted by the Seahawks and we had questions about that.

11:15So, but you guys before the Rams game, the first Rams game against Seahawks, your enthusiasm, your combined enthusiasm for how good of a game that was going to be. It was one of the only previews I listened to outside the market really outside anywhere that was so excited about the quality of football and why. And I just don't think that a lot of people genuinely feel that. So I appreciate that for both of you and seeing what was really the best two teams in the NFL clash three times last year was I think an underrated treat for football fans. NSC Championship game was a Super Bowl. It was a Super Bowl bad before Wild Quad round. We kind of had the sense that it was going to be the Super Bowl, I think. That was, you know, for me from A, I felt like a lot of betting content perspective. It just everything I was writing was like, NSC wins the Super Bowl, NSC Champion to win. Mickey, you just want to be futures in this division. That was clearly the strongest division. That was clearly the two best teams. I do think that if you sat down, you forced the third best team.

12:17It would be the 49ers and they were clear step below, but still like that the NSC West of 2025 will live in my head for a long, long time. Because I think when I look back in my last like six years, I really don't make exclusively NFL coverage. I think emphatically, like the best team I've seen not make a Super Bowl is at his last year's Rams. They were so good. They were without question the second best team in football. Very comfortable for the second best team in football. And if they weren't the first, right? Like over the bulk of the season before we obviously the CX win at all. They were not the first by literally like the hair on Zack Chauvin A's two point conversion city to chin man. Like he was right there. So I'll remember that that NSC West knew specifically had CX and Rams for a long time in terms of how that that season came down to those very, very tight coin flips. Yeah, well, and that's a good chance to talk about where we are now, right? So you've got the CX team who, obviously won the Super Bowl, had the highest point differential in the NFL. We're dominant in a lot of ways. I think lost by combined nine points over their losses for the season.

13:18You've got the Rams who are so close in every one of those games and so close to potentially raising the Lombardi Trophy themselves. And you got the 49ers and you got a bunch of other teams. And they've all done, taken kind of different paths through this offseason so far. We're into the first few weeks of free agency. And this is where we got times of fun. So like it doesn't matter what the rankings are for free agency at this point. It doesn't matter what anyone really thinks, but it is sure fun to debate. And we love on this show that saying, is we love being wrong because that's when you learn. So like there's definitely a good person on for that, man. I was wrong about quite a bit. So one of the things I was teasing you yesterday, you had your rankings of free agency come out on ESPN. And you ranked teams one through 32. And I joked with you that Ben Solaq had the Seahawks ranked

14:18really low again. They're probably going to win the Super Bowl for a second time. It's probably only like NSJ, because I won him like 27 this time. I'm 31 last year. That got them all the way there. All right. So not as far as that's true. You could have done the Seahawks a solid and just had them lower, but appreciate that. So I think before we get into this and understanding your thought process, I think it's really important. There's different ways you can do rankings. And you didn't do your rankings based off of, you know, who improved the most or who made the best signing. You had a different criteria for how you did your rankings of free agency. Can you share that with folks? Yeah. Well, I think that if every team went into the free agent period with $40 million, then we'd be able to rank, okay, who did the best and who did the worst. But the nature is that they don't. And so to do a free agency ranking, which is like, all right, who got the most better? It's the same as going over the cap, sorting by 2026 free agency space, going by, okay, who walked in with the most and going down to who walked in with the least. That's going to give you 80% of your rankings. All the Raiders and the Titans got a lot better. All the Vikings didn't, like, yeah, the Vikings had to get that $50 million over the cap.

15:19Like, they're never going to like, you know, subsequently add talent. So for me, I try to grab every single significant move, which is free agency acquisition, free agency signing, internal re-acquiring, right? Extending your guys, who you have to release, trades that you go through, and also how you sign your contracts, and like, you know, the value of the deals you get. And just every single move, like, I, you know, I have a big spreadsheet, I give it like a plus, two plus, three plus minus, two minus, one minus, or three minus. And then I try to say, okay, like, who, just, every single move that they made, who just, I felt like gained edges relative to the money, they spent the opportunity they had, and who do I feel like made moves that I wouldn't have made. After that first pass, things always look like super weird. And then you have to circle back and you have to say, okay, like, sure, I think that, like, the Monteric Brown internal extension from the Jaguars is good, but like, is that, like, how much weight does that actually have, relative to like, the Panther signing, Jalen Phillips, you feel like trying to calibrate to like, okay, this guy's gonna make a three-down player, this guy's not necessarily that, like, so you end up going through the waiting process to try to make it look a little bit more like, okay, yes,

16:21but like, even if this move is a little bit of an overpay, like, it's still such a good player, and so you have to give it some more weight. And then you end up, it was a very heuristic ranking. It's a very non-scientific, you know, put the plug and numbers in and you get it. And so after I list the player, the team's orders look at it. And I'm like, all right, they're gonna be mad, they're gonna be mad, they're gonna be mad. And when I listed it, I saw where I had the Seaxle like, all right, I'm screwed. But like, you know, I, you lost a lot of talent. You couldn't keep a lot of talent. That's the nature of being a super bowl team. It's, you're never gonna win the offseason after a super bowl. That's just really hard to do because you're almost inevitably gonna lose multiple starters. And so that's what the Seaxle right now. Well, so let's talk about that. I've actually really interested in a lot of your rankings. And, but I, we might as well start with the Seahawks. I'm sure that's where most people are interested to tune into this show at least. So what did you expect going into free agency from the Seahawks? What did you think that they should do that they did not do? So I, the, to me, like the big three in terms of the major free agents were Kenneth, Rashid Shaheed, and then Requelin. And I understand that for a lot of Seahawks fans,

17:23their response to Requelin is gonna be, no. Like, you know, is a guy who's, we've had, you know, frustrations with, like he at times had a bench and, you know, he started this season, like, you know, cornerback four and he wasn't even a part of the rotation. And then only when Nick and, and was, when he came back, he did get in the rotation. And so like, I understand that reaction. He like, let the lead in yours for coverage, snap aloud. He's six, one runs of four, three. Like, this is a valuable player, right? He went and signed the one year proof of deal with the Eagles at 15 million to set himself up for signing a contract in the mid 20s next year, right? Like, this is a player that was highly coveted in league circles in the thought that he was gonna get out of Seattle. So I know that Seahawks fans are like, you know, Wolland was not a guy that we were planning on resigning. The lead was thrilled about that. So Wolland Walker and Shaheed to me, were like the three bigons. I mean, Moffa is always getting out of the building. And then I should say Kobe Bryant, I thought it was very reasonable that he left behind or certainly he was gonna leave because you have so much depth and safety. The title, Kato, you know, breakout this year when Love was out was very impressive. But Brian was also like a really solid player. Which is Moffa and Brian, I kind of can sign myself to these guys

18:24who are gonna get out of the building. With the money that you had, because Seahawks like fifth right now in 2026 space, I know they have the Spoon contract coming up and with the JSN contract coming up, with the money that you had, you should have been able to keep two. You should have been able to keep two of the three and then lose the third. Seattle doesn't do that. And I think that they probably walked into the season, like they probably walked into the postseason particularly he get Kenneth Walker for $9 million. And then Kenneth Walker just caught fire once he were on VB and then Bruce Hull got a franchise tag and it's like, oh shoot. Right, like there we are in this price tag skyrocketed. So I think the Walker elevation is really what kind of caught them a little bit, like you know, by surprise and not what they wanted to be financially. But so the end of Walker gets out of the building, walling gets out of the building. They put the extension on Joe, they put the extension on Drake Thomas. One of the things that you gotta be able to do as a, when you have a Mike McDonald, we have a can-lead schema or say okay, some of the UDFA's and some of the late round guys we've been able to elevate are not the players that we want to be investing in because we should be able to do this again

19:25by going and getting day three guys and UDFA guys and plugging and charging the midterly spots. We kind of want to be paying at the top of the market and then churning that middle bottom tier of the roster. So that would have, I don't think that they were going to bring back both Joe and Thomas. I thought they were going to bring back at least one more of Walker and a walling. And to me, like they were a little bit too cautious and future oriented with the money. Now, excuse me, where this one's coming up and obviously we then saw they'd signed an enormous JSN extension, right? And so they're very clearly trying to be really cognizant of the future money Donald's going to want an extension after this upcoming year. So I understand that the future protection and they're also going to point where the team's getting sold and the team being sold always puts a little bit of a fridge on future money because you don't actually know who's paying out that 2028 roster bonus, and you might not be the current boss, right? So you have to be careful when you start borrowing from future years. So that was my overarching perspective on what they did this year. So one of the things that makes sense, especially the Ken Walker, that was, I think the most pivotal decision the CX were going to make this off season,

20:25given especially what had happened with Zach Charbonne's injury. If Zach Charbonne hadn't been injured, I don't think that there's, I don't think the CX would have brought him back at 10 million. I think the CX always planned to move on, whether or not I agreed with that or others, I think that was always their plan. But one of the things I was curious about, and this is kind of a juxtaposition, and we'll kind of get back to the CX. This is not fully updated, but a look at all the teams and now sorted in reverse order of how much they spent on external free agents. So the column, fourth column over there with 302 million for the Tennessee Titans with 11 players that they added were not on their roster is at the top of the league. So you talked about Ben, the Titans, the Raiders, had the most money to spend, no shocker that they spent the most money. And then he's five right there as a good perspective on five teams that are mad at me right now, right? Cause they're much higher on other people's lists than they are in my list. Like Pantless fans, I put the Pantless X-17

21:25because I thought they paid too much for Phelps and too much for Lloyd. And every Pantless fans of mine mentioned explaining to me that Jalen Pholps and Devon were good to understand that. I think you paid too much money for them. And that's helpful because I was surprised where you had the Titans. I actually liked the Titans off season, but now once I understood your reasoning, I could see where you got there a little bit more. But the important thing here is you scroll down to the bottom and there's really two teams that stand out. There's the Seahawks and the Broncos at the bottom, both play in their conference championships. The Broncos have literally spent $0 on external free agents. They did make a trade for Jalen Waddle, but in the Seahawks has spent $5 million on external free agents. So like you look here at the Broncos kind of off season and it's a lot of resigning their own guys, prioritizing comp picks, that kind of thing. And you look at the Seahawks off season so far. And it's again, resigning a lot of their own guys not affecting comp picks. And you had the Broncos at five or six, I believe, excuse me.

22:29Broncos were 23rd before the Jalen Waddle trade. Okay, so the Waddle trade held a lot of water for you. And I guess my question for you there is you trade a first, a third and a fourth and a fourth round pick swap to pay Jalen Waddle $28 million. The Seahawks trade a fourth and a fifth last year for a sheet sheet and pay him $16, $17 million whatever it ended up being. Why is one such a more positive move than the other? Well, one because the Broncos are at such a different team stage, in the sense that they have the rookie contract quarterback. It's worth noting, you know, a sheet trade happened mid season. I love the sheet trade, I was very proud. I think I was on meanest pod live when that happened. And I was like, heck, absolutely. So I was not the trade that got folded into my extremely erroneous ranking of the Seahawks for the agency period last year. So I like the sheet trade quite a bit for Seattle. The Waddle trade for the Broncos explicitly is,

23:30okay, you made the AFC championship game sick. Your defense is awesome. I love it. There was issues with that offense. United Health Group is bringing in-home treatment directly to patients, closing caregabs, identifying risks earlier and improving patient outcomes. In 2025, patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at UnitedHealthGroup.com slash commitment. Right now, new FANDUAL customers can get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. Place a tournament bet using the token. And if it doesn't win, you'll get up to $300 back in bonus bets every single day for 10 days straight. You can even mix things up with same game parlias for a shot at a bigger pale. FANDUAL, it's time to dance. 21 plus in present and select seats. Bonus bets are not with trouble and expire seven days after receive. Tokens are received in increments of one per day. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. Gamlin Problem Call 1-800-Gamler. One a game-changing way to watch college basketball? With a one-day pass from sling, get instant access to the men's and women's tournaments. Starting at just $4.99.

24:31You can catch all the action on TNT, TBS, ESPN and ESPN 2. Want even more hoops? Then add an extra pack to your subscription for just $1. No overpaying, no overcommitting. Just tournament so crazy, they'd be crazy to miss. Visit sling.com to learn more. Sling lets you do that. History is yours to make. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America champions, US women's soccer legend Michelle Acres, and everyone who dares to ask what's possible. Bank of America, proud to be the official bank of US soccer. Bank of America and a member of FDSC. It's going on. I'm Archie Manning, Viori Athlete and College Corvette. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just online at home, I love doing it in my core shorts from Viori. With a breathable box of brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come with three inseams and a ton of colors. Ready to try pair? Go to Viori.com, slash Arch, and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do. That's v-u-r-i.com slash ARCH, and get 20% off your first order. Exclusion's applied. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.

25:31Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day. Broncos fans do not like to talk about those issues, but they wear, right? It's substantially worse again. Zone coverage than where it gets man coverage. Over the last two seasons, bonus and tire career, he is the worst quarterback in the league of looking in terms of high-balling dropbacks on off-target rate, unthrowed 10-plus yards down the field, and successful enough throws 10-plus yards down the field. He is not particularly accurate when he has pushed the football. So you need to have a guy who, A, has a zone solution for you, because Coral and Sun's going to be your man-beater, and B, you need a guy who can create explosives without downfield targets, because that's never going to be the strength to your quarterback. Waddle is perfect for that, right? And they were talking about Waddle at the deadline last year, and it was like, all right, we're getting close. Like, is this happening? Yes or no? And I was hoping that they would get Waddle, because when you have a rookie contract quarterback, you're in one of two paths. You're in, oh my God, it's Superman, Drake Maypath. It's like, okay, we just want to be cap healthy and developing youth forever. Like, obviously, we're not like, you know, attack the rookie contract quarterback window now, because we have it, but like, this guy's always going to put us

26:32somewhere near contention. The second path, which I would argue is a bonus path, is, okay, when he's on the second contract, this could be really tough, right? This is not a, a, a, you know, this is more of a Clark Kent than it is Superman in terms of the impact. So we really need to be aggressive in this current contract window. And if the Broncos had walked through the entire off season and just resigned players, I was going to be a pest, right? I went on sports center, I want to say it was like the Thursday of the Friday of Fragedy Period, and they're like, give us your losers for Fragedy C, and I started with the Broncos. So I was like, Justin Trinod, right? Like, we were in the AFC Championship game, like, come on! And so to me, moving for Waddle, especially, I thought that the price for Waddle was quite good relative to his age and to his contract situation multiple years of team control. He was only 27, 20, 28. He's, it's rare to find a guy who can be a Waddle, C for one, but then also has a lot of values in Waddle, C for two. I think that he's one of those players because of the field stretching ability. So I love that trade for the Broncos. I just thought that that was exactly what that team need to be doing at this stage. Well, so one of the things that's, I think is interesting there. You talked about the Seahawks and the guys that left

27:33and some of the decisions there. You seem to understand, like, the boy Mafe thing was likely always going to happen. And he was the, the one way to look at this is, he was the fourth out of the four edge wrestlers on that team. So three of them were coming back, right? And then Kobe Bryant's, I think that was more of a question, but Tio Cotta started 11 games last year. The Seahawks were nine and two in those games that he started and he actually played more than 30 snaps and two others and they were 11 and two overall games he started. They were two and O in games that Kobe Bryant didn't play. That doesn't mean Kobe Bryant's not a good player, but also you can kind of understand the logic of where the Seahawks were going in terms of where their depth was. It sounds like a lot of it for you came down to the Ken Walker decision. And would you also put the, the Ric Wolland decision in there or do you kind of understand that that was always probably going to happen as well? No, so I would say that like, when the thing you asked me was like, what did I expect, what else was what happened? And that's where Ken Walker to me was surprising

28:36because they definitely were like in on trying to get it done. They were reporting up to the deadline, like will they tag, well, they're not tagging, I'm not gonna have to tag, but they clearly were engaged with him. So that was one that I thought could have gone the other way. Kobe Bryant is one where like, I'd certainly think it could have gone the other way. So that was when you asked me what decisions were surprising, those were the ones there. In terms of what it like come down to as the rankings, even if Mafe leaving is 0% surprising, so it isn't at all. This was a young productive edge rusher on low quality snaps, right? And so you have guys a high-pressure on low snaps. That's a great due to have in your bullpen because A, you feel comfortable hockey line in the line. And B, if somebody goes down and let's be honest, when you're starting edges with the Marcus Lawrence and you're chaining to low suit, that's a more serious concern for you than those from other teams, you should really good about that guy. That fourth player now is going to be, you know, we don't know, right? That's going to be an up position that is going to get drafted and developed. And as I said, speaking about Joe and speaking about Drake Thomas, your expectation is, all right, Mike, here's a fourth round pick, go find a guy who can be edge four

29:37and he should be able to do that, right? And that's how you have to be able to sustain at, you know, being an elite skimming coach in the NFL, if you think about like, you know, what you've been able to get at like, wide receiver threes from Sean McVeigh with the Rams, you think about what Kyle Constley does, remember his running backs get hurt, right? Like if you're a lead at something, you should be able to churn a little bit at the bottom of the roster. We don't need to invest in this too much. Niners are about example, because they keep spending picks on running backs for some reason. But this is the skill you're supposed to have is an elite skimmer. And so like even, even if a move felt inevitable, it still weighs when I think about whether or not you got better or worse as a team. Without question, Moffe should have left thoughts. Asia were told in that. If I was John Schneider's assistant, I was told him let Moffe, I leave the, you know, he's going to be way more valuable to another team into us. And he goes to Cincinnati and it's a good deal from Cincinnati. It's still hard to see us. Even if he was playing, you know, the fourth most nasty edge position, no, it still is impactful in the free space period. Yeah. And we're talking to Ben Solak of ESPN, who's kind of to join us for a few more minutes.

30:37And I think one of the things that's interesting there and part of why it was surprising to me, the kind of disparity between at least the Broncos high ranking and the C-OX low ranking is back in the 80s and 90s, right? No salary cap, plan B free agency at some point where you could protect your top 37 players and that kind of stuff. It was kind of the dream and kind of the cheat code to keep your team together. Like that was a casualty of this salary cap was that you wouldn't be able to keep your team. The C-OX now go into this period after winning the Super Bowl, having the number one point differential, being the best team in the NFL, they keep 61 out of 70 players that were on their roster at the Super Bowl. And then if you include IR or Tory Horton and a bunch of other guys were sitting there, 71 of 80 players that were with them last year return this year. And that includes 37 out of 39 on offense,

31:3731 out of 36 on defense, every starter on defense. And so I think part of what was a little surprising to me been in your evaluation was it is really hard to keep together the most talented team in football back to back years. You go back to the, who the, the, the Eagles lost a year ago before after they won the Super Bowl or that you don't want him for that. Looking up right now, so I want to like calibrate because the Eagles lost sweat. Mill Williams trying to think who else significant. Like Darius lay left that team, but he like, he kind of become more so corner two corner three. Yeah, they had McIbeckton, Milton Williams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, I, I'm curious. I mean, like, as you look at a team that was not necessarily looking to add many players externally, but keep the team that they had together, does that, does that strategy make sense to you? Yeah, it's, I mean, like it's,

32:39it, there's an inevitable talent drain after you lose the Super Bowl. How you go about it is kind of conditional on where you are in terms of your youth and your, your roster health and your capital situation for the Eagles last season, just what and no one's out of the building. They had drafted Nolan Smith and Jailess Hunt and Moro O'Jomo in anticipation of no one's and Joshua getting out of the building, right? You're, when you look at, like, say the Seahawks, I think there's like a different universe in which Horton stays healthy. And like, obviously, maybe would not have made the Shaheed trade. I know Horton got hurt afterward, but like, let's say Horton stays healthy the entire time. Maybe Shaheed's more likely to get out of the building because we drafted, we developed, we feel better about this position, this player in place. You brought up the Charbonne injury and how it affected the Kenneth Walker contract, right? So there's a little bit, even in the case of looking at just Super Bowl winners to Super Bowl winners, Apple Stoller and just because I don't think it is, I don't think I'm capable of looking at the Seahawks off season and going, okay, relative to the last 15 Super Bowl winners,

33:40how well do they do? Because each one is different enough that like the objective piecewise is to rank them relative to these off seasons, right? And so they're always gonna end up being a lower team just by virtue of their an expensive team that's gonna be losing contracts. They just won the Super Bowl. They had a, you know, these deals in place, they had a built around this. Now, their guiding light is correct, right? Like, there are some teams who, like the Cardinals, the Dolphins, I don't understand what the guiding light is. I don't understand what the North Star is, what's going on? The Seahawks' guiding light is Spoon, Jaysen, Sam probably next year. Like that is, those are, if you could list like the three most important Seahawks, those are like three of the top four, right? Like, you know, Leonard Williams probably gonna be your only other guy that I would argue for it. Like, those are your dudes. So, they're guiding light, I feel like it's good. And I don't fault the approach at all. You can't have this many snaps, I think the Packers were 30th for me. I don't understand what the Packers were doing.

34:40The Packers were soft resetting without question. You're still gonna come in low on Ben, so life's 20th, 26th graders you're ranked when 3000 snaps got out of the building, right? And it's a similar thing here for the Seahawks. Yeah, yeah, I get all that. And we only have you for another second here. But I do think that you brought up one area that I agreed with was, there wasn't just one. But the 49ers and the Rams were an interesting place where you had them on the rankings. And you had the 49ers, I think number two, I thought their trade, defensive tackle from Dallas was one of the better moves of the off season for what they needed and what they got. It maps the same way the Wallet trade bumped up for the Broncos, it was a big, big, big move. And so when you look at the NFC West, as it stands right now, do you feel like you've got an idea of which of these teams, how they stack up against each other? I think no. And I think you asked me after the draft and then I'll say no, ask me after a training camp and then add training camp, I'll say,

35:41okay, let me see you in a few weeks. The two best teams in football are now the Celux and Rams. And the two best teams we've put both three months ago and six months ago, the Celux and the Rams. I still believe that both teams still have some needs. The Rams have obviously made a huge investment in that secondary, I understand that that's like, you know, oh, we solved the problem. Buddy, I still look at that linebacker room and I'm like, give me, give me, give me. So I still think they've got issues there. I think they have wide receiver depth problem, right? Talk about living on the edge in terms of your health, staff from Nikua and Devante were on that thing. And they got nobody else behind in terms of the pass catchers. And so they need more in terms of depth. Seattle right now has a couple of questions that you need to fill out. The interior office of line is still spot to handle. You want to know the running back rotations going to look like San Francisco, they're good. How do you tell me who plays, right? When we get in the middle of the fall on December football. So Rams, the ox, tomatoes, don't fatically one, two, the best teams in the house. Who has best teams in NFL football? 49ers are top five roster. It's just, you know, this is a seed before we believe is sort of thing right now with their injury room. Ben really appreciate the time you spent with us.

36:43Tell folks what they have got coming up from you and where they can find you. Yep, it's all draft coverage. I've come in on the rest of the week. I'm at Benjamin Solack on all the socials. I've been so like ESPN on YouTube because somehow there's already a Benjamin Solack on YouTube. But Benjamin Solack on all the socials doing a bunch of draft breakdown stuff will be, you know, on TV the next month doing television. Do you can, it's on ESPN, you know, we're to find it. Ah, one last thing, Zion Young. Can you hear a quick Zion Young read? Zion Young's got hammer for hands and he loves football. Draft them. It's not hard one. Big fella Ken can bend the corner decently well, but just likes to hit two lights control bodies, ton of power, good run, defender, quick eyes. He's a good player. Would you go edge or inside interior offensive line up here, the C-ox at 32? Interior offensive line because we barely figured out a running game last year in time for the playoffs and we need to be more positive that we have at this season. And then defensively, I expect to be able to fill out that edge back up spot a little bit more than moderates.

37:45Appreciate it. Ben Solack, make sure you follow him. Appreciate your time, Ben. All right, now that was Ben Solack really, really appreciate him coming on and good explanation here like of how he came up to it. I think his process for how he decides his rankings is a little different than the way I would go about it, which explains a little bit more about why I see it differently. And I always try to walk a little bit of a line with guests. I'm not actually looking to really pick a fight. I do like to find out where we can disagree on things and have a conversation. And so I think I don't see the Broncos off season as positively different than the C-ox. In fact, I think the C-ox did something much more difficult than the Broncos did. And the C-ox were already a better team. So that was a little hard for me to kind of get behind. I also, as you guys know, I think that there's a little bit of an over-emphasis on the snaps

38:46that left the building. I've shown you the number I pulled up before that the amount of snaps that left the C-ox in 2013 when they won the Super Bowl significantly more than the amount of snaps that have left the building for the C-ox from the 2025 roster. And that includes Kobe Bryant who played over 1,000 snaps. So I think that this is still maybe a story not well told. But I do always really appreciate folks coming on to what could be an uncomfortable conversation with a fan base that does not agree with what he had said. So I do really respect that and appreciate that from Ben. And he puts thought into it. It's not like he just puts it out there to trigger people. He has his thoughts and he shares them and I respect that. So a few other things. If you haven't already given the show a like, click subscribe. Please do. If you haven't bought the book, we did not care. You can do so at hawkblogger.com slash book.

39:47It actually just at Barnes & Noble yesterday at Bell Square and I hadn't noticed it before. They had a whole display with my book all over the place. It was very, very cool. I kind of liked it. But you can get it. And I'm still trying to figure out more signings. I'm going to the league meeting in Arizona tomorrow. Maybe when I get back, we can figure out some more places to do some signings and get folks taking care of. But I appreciate everyone that has already bought the book and shared their experience behind the book with me. So a couple bits of news. And then we'll get in some other stuff as well. So the things that I guess I reacted to differently than some other Seahawks fans. We have a date and a time and a day of the week, maybe most notably, for when the Seahawks will open the 2026 season. And they will open the 2026 season. They will open it on a Wednesday night at 5.35 p.m. Pacific time.

40:50It is as far as I know the first time the league has started the season on a Wednesday. Typically, it's a Thursday night game. And United Health Group is bringing in-home treatment directly to patients, closing care gaps, identifying risks earlier and improving patient outcomes. In 2025, patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment. Right now, new fan dual customers can get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. Place a tournament bet using the token. And if it doesn't win, you'll get up to $300 back in bonus bets every single day for 10 days straight. You can even mix things up with same game parlies for a shot at a bigger payout. Fan dual, it's time to dance. 21 plus in present and select seats. Bonus bets are non-withdrawable and expire seven days after received. Tokens are received in increments of one per day. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. Gamling Problem Call 1-800-Gamler. Want a game-changing way to watch college basketball? With a one-day pass from sling, get instant access to the men's and women's tournaments,

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42:52Exclusion's applied. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day. The fact is they are doing an Australia game for the first time with the Rams and the 49ers. And that's happening on Thursday night, United States time. It'll be Friday in Australia when it happens. It'll actually be Friday at 10.30 in the morning when it happens for local time there for the Rams and the 49ers. But because of that, they needed to rethink through when the Seahawks would play. Or maybe they just didn't, maybe this was missed somehow. Maybe they knew the Rams game was going to be on a Friday, but they hadn't thought that actually that meant it was going to be on a Thursday in the States. I don't know. In any event, a lot of people really freaked out. They think it's really crap that the NFL is having

43:54the game on a Wednesday. I don't care at all. At all, why do I care? And here's my thought process. It's the first game of the season. It's not like you're playing on, quote, a short week. You'll have been going through training camp, preseason. You'll have been as rested as you're going to be. And it also is a pretty nice advantage for week two. I mean, keep in mind, like the 49ers and Rams are all the way in Australia playing that game. And yes, I think they get maybe an extra by week in between or something like that. I haven't looked. But the Seahawks are going to get an extra long break between week one and week two. That's a good thing. That's always a good thing. So I don't know why it's a big deal that they're playing on a Wednesday. Some people just don't like it. I saw Alaric Jackson, the Rams left tackle, tweeting out about, oh, the Seahawks,

44:55they had to find some place for the Seahawks to play. And I was like, what he wrote was, they had to make room for Seattle somehow, Shrug emoji. Oh my God, that Rams fanbase that absolutely loves to say, live and rent free in our heads, in your heads. Like the amount of Rams players and coaches that talk about the Seahawks every time they open their mouth is off the charts. And I mean, that's the last thing I saw from a Rams player was I think one of their offensive linemen saying, oh, the Seahawks know were better than them that like we had them last year. And then you had Jared verse talking about them, like he had all these people like talking about the Seahawks. I honestly don't care. Like I don't think about, oh, we're rent free and that whole saying is so stupid. They can talk about the Seahawks as much as they want.

45:55I'm gonna talk about the Rams as much as I want as well, but the fact that their mindset that just seeps in through every crevice of that organization is, oh, we were the best team. We are the best team. We were robbed. Like everybody knows we were robbed. It's such a loser mentality. It is such a loser mentality. And I continue to believe that it comes from the top. Sean McVeigh has exuded that loser mentality. And I think that good luck to them. You know, add talent which they've done, but when the moment of truth comes, are they going to make the play or make an excuse? So far, it's been really clear what the answer to that question is. And it's not the good one. So, you know what? They can continue to have sour grapes and throw shade, the Seahawks direction.

47:00Dark side lives in the shade. They're fine there. So keep it coming. I think the Seahawks will be just fine. So that was one bit of news. Another bit of news, these are all random pieces here, but free agent running back, Najeh Harris, formerly of the Steelers, formerly of the Chargers, was reported to have visited the Seahawks yesterday. And here's the thing. I don't love this news. I don't. Najeh Harris to me has always been, he's been, he rushed for a thousand yards and I think each of his first four seasons. I'm gonna pull that up to make sure I'm right on that. But I believe that's true. And I just was never impressed. I'm sorry, like he ran for 1200 yards as a rookie.

48:00Then yes, a thousand yards in each of the next three seasons, he never averaged more than 4.1 yards of carry. Those a thousand yards look impressive, but that is a lot of volume carries. He's getting 250 plus carries a season over 300 carries his rookie year. And he looked at things like his success rate, 46%, 48% was a high, not, he was a pretty effective receiver. So I give him credit for that as well. At least his first year, he had 74 receptions, which is crazy. I just see kind of a lumbering back who also had an Achilles injury that caused him to miss most of last year. They, his agent, Doug Hendrickson, shared video of Harris running on a treadmill and it quote, at full speed, it was not,

49:01it was not a pretty particularly impressive rate of speed. And people like, you don't know what that was set to. And I'm like, I've seen enough football players, pro athletes run on those, those curved treadmills to kind of judge it by eye, whether he's moving quickly. And other people like, well, he's just six months from an Achilles. So that's pretty good. That's all fair, maybe. But Naje Harris was never a speedster. And now he's coming off in Achilles. And you just signed a manual, Wilson, who is already a 230 pound known more for knocking guys over than he is for running past people. I just don't get it. I don't get the vision of adding a Naje Harris to this mix. It feels like redundant. And so we'll see. He's supposed to be going to visit the Raiders. It might have just been one of those things where they are checking in on his physical status, his medicals, and they can come back to him later

50:01if they need to. If it's more than that's nothing against him as a person. But just as far as roster construction, I don't get it. I don't get it. So I'm kind of hoping that's not where they're going. I would be more excited honestly if they got Alvin Camera. And I know not everybody would be. But at least I can kind of see where Alvin Camera would be additive to what they already have and create a nice floor from a veteran perspective of what they could get production-wise from the position. I don't know. So that's news. Just wanted to share, we'll keep going on. I will say, the Pukinakua memes, it's not funny what he did. It's just not. I mean, let them, since we talked about it last, I think there's been threats of a defamation lawsuit from Pukinakua's side against his accuser. The accuser has talked about filing a suit back against them for pain and injury and whatever.

51:03But the Pukinakua biting memes are so funny. I'm sorry. I'm just, maybe I should admit that they make me laugh. But you've got the Hannibal Lecter ones, you've got the Jaws ones, you've got the Dracula ones, the, I mean, I don't know. It's a long off season and it's nice to laugh. And those definitely have kind of caught my attention in a good way. So I'm trying to scroll through to see if there's anything else I missed. Oh, one of the guys that I spoke about and I actually talked about with James Foster, yesterday, if you missed the show with James Foster, yesterday, I highly recommend you listen. James is awesome. I'm going to try to have him back on the show more regularly. I really love his analysis. I think that website he's created is absolutely fantastic.

52:06So anyway, we were talking about running backs and both admiring Emmett Johnson from Nebraska. And I was kind of confused why he was so low on everyone's list. He's like fourth round for most people. And I think generally it's been his athletic testing that he, you know, is he fast enough? He's not going to be a breakaway guy. You could see that he's not, he's more of a lateral agility, like make you miss player than he is an explosive straight line speed guy. But at his pro day, yesterday, he ran a 446, 40, which is not terrible. And I still think that, you know, he's not a first round pick. He's probably not a second round pick. But Emmett Johnson, to me, if you take a spend a third round pick on him, I don't think that's a bad use of resources. If you can get him later than that, even better. But, you know, CX don't have a pick

53:06until the sixth round after the third. So that was, I think, at least somewhat news. And then we had a bunch of stuff from JSN and the press conference yesterday. And I will say, I really appreciate folks that when someone takes video that includes me asking a question that there's a lot of folks that get in the mentions, like, hey, you should credit Hawk blogger here. And I really appreciate that. That's nice of you all to kind of be on the watch for me. I will say, when somebody takes video, and there's no picture of who's asking the question. And even if there was, they wouldn't know who I am. I don't expect people to know what my voice sounds like. I'm not anybody. So I wouldn't expect Ari Mirover, whoever else that takes the video to know that it's my voice. But I do appreciate people trying to educate folks about who's asking the question. So anyway, my point reason to brought that up

54:06is I literally like opened my phone and to check my feed for something. And there's an NFL.com clip. And I hear my own voice asking JSN the question of, hey, you know, you've won offence of Player of the Year, you won a Super Bowl, you're the highest paid receiver in the NFL, what's next? Like, how do you reach that next level? And JSN answering, you know, the only thing better than winning one Super Bowl is winning two. And I think that is the mentality for this team. And I didn't get a chance to have a more one-on-one conversation with JSN. Hopefully we'll get to arrange that another time. But yesterday was not the day for it, as you did, about a million interviews. And I felt like probably was not going to get a lot of quality time in that situation. But I don't think it's an accident that John Schneider

55:07spends a lot of his time when answering questions about JSN mentioned who he is as a person, mentioned how he was raised, talked about how, when you're asking for this kind of long-term commitment financially from an owner, that you want to know who you're giving that money to. And JSN checks all those boxes. You have to know that in their minds, that is doing double duty when they say those things. I don't think they're doing it because it does double duty. But it does double duty in the sense that it is both complementing JSN for who he is and pointing out Pukinakua is not that guy. Like, he's just not. And the amount of times that Pukinakua has been either on a police blotter or a,

56:07his brother has been on a police blotter or in the wrong place or doing weird things. I mean, he's already probably done more in the last three months than JSN has done his entire life. And maybe for the rest of his life. So I don't think that was an accident. And I'm sure that it is a, I'm sure that it's a comfort for the Seahawks. And I'll give you a little bit behind the scenes. So for some of these signings, like they let employees know that they're going to do the press conference, the hall, the room that they do this in was absolutely packed, overflowing with people from the Seahawks organization all there to celebrate. His family was there, friends were there, which is also really cool. And the way the organization kind of encircles these players is cool. It's special. And I think I'm sure a lot of teams do similar stuff.

57:09But this was not like every other signing. And I think it meant a lot to the team. And I think when they do the Devon Witherspoon signing, which I expect to happen, you know, anytime now could happen today for all we know. Best guess will probably happen after the league meeting, but who knows? So I think that will also be a really big deal. But getting that done yesterday with JSN, seeing that he had kind of reached that point is just a, it's gratifying, I think, that the right things are happening to the right people. When that happens, world's a little bit better. And JSN certainly is one of the right people. All right, let's check on superchets here. There's a couple of other things. Oh my gosh, old-school Seahawk has donated 50 Hawk blogger memberships, unbelievable. Thank you for doing this, OSS, very, very generous of you. Love the generosity of this community. And if you want one of these free memberships,

58:10all you got to do is turn on gifting on YouTube on a YouTube account. Do that, consider, consider looking on Google for instructions on how to do it. Then all you got to do is like, subscribe, comments, watch, all those things that engage with this channel allows YouTube to decide who's going to get one of these free memberships. So you can get one if you are one of those people that are participating actively with the show. All right, very, very cool. All right, let's take out some superchets on Venmo, Venmo.com slash Brian-Nemhouser. All right, we have got Joey Hamilton with one. Says, do you think John Schneider is trying to get these big extensions worked out before a new owner comes in? How does ownership's input affect an offseason like this when a team is for sale? There's a good question, Joey. I don't believe that it has any impact

59:14on John Schneider's timeline. I think that his actions have been forecast really since last year. Brady Henderson has been on this show before, during last season, earlier last season, he surprised me when he said, oh yeah, they're going to definitely extend Spoon and JSN next offseason. I'm like, well, they didn't do that with Charles Cross. Why are you so sure they're going to do it with those guys? And he didn't really get into it, but he's just like everyone's different. And so this has been in the works for a while. Brady's pretty connected and I think knows his stuff in that regard. As far as how ownership's input affects this stuff, it could, like a new owner comes in and you're asking to spend a lot of his or her money, they're going to have questions. Generally, I don't think most people

1:00:14would come in and question signing the best receiver in football to the highest contracts before other players that are going to sign similar contracts get on the market because John Schneider probably saved the owner money in the timing of when he did it. But you never know. I mean, when you own a team, you can do whatever you want within the league rules and everybody's different. So I can't say for sure I really know how the owners are going to affect because it really depends on who that owner is. As far as with Jodi Allen, I don't think that she probably needed much more convincing on AJSN deal. And I don't think she'll need convincing on a Devon with her spoon deal either. I will say this, and I generally, I'm not that superstitious anymore, but I'm superstitious about a few things and injuries is one of them.

1:01:15I think that it is a little bit interesting that JSN and spoon are going to get these market setting deals. And both of them entered the league with injury concerns. Spoon not because he was injured, but because he was a slightly built, big hitting secondary player. And the question was how that was going to hold up in the NFL. And in fact, there's times where like spoons after the 2024 season, the thing that he was most proud of was that he made it through the whole year because he's really worked on his body to be able to stand up to the rigors of the NFL. And JSN entered with, yet the hamstring injury had missed a lot of time, wasn't able to do a lot of workouts. He had had some other injuries in college. And you look at him now, and you look at spoon now. But you look at JSN, I don't think he's missed a game in the NFL.

1:02:21And I hate saying that out loud because I feel like everyone's got a knock on wood. It's no guarantees of the future. But these are two players where there was durability concerns and two players who, for the most part, have proven otherwise. And the Seahawks had very... I wouldn't say they had very good injury luck last year. They had a lot of players. A lot of players get injured and missed time. Spoon, Nicki Minaj, Julian Love missed a ton of time. They had some games that had to Marcus Lawrence. They had some games that had to Chen and Uosu. Games that Charles Cross. They definitely had their share of injuries. But a lot of the injuries that happened were kind of coincided with where they had depth or players available. When spoon was out, Requel and was able to step back in after he'd kind of been benched from week one. When Nicki Minaj was down, you were able to bring in DeAnthony Bell.

1:03:22When you had all those guys out, Daryen Kendrick stepped in. Like, you had a bunch of guys kind of step up and step in in various roles. When Tory Horton went down, Rashid Shaheed just happened to have been traded for at the same time. So I think there was some fortune in how the injuries fell and what positions they fell at. And you have no control over that. You're like, there's no guarantee that that'll continue in future years. And I don't say anything about it during the season until it's over because I feel like it's a jinx. But the Seahawks navigated that last year and won a Super Bowl. Now they've got to go back again. And as of right now, to Ben's point earlier, they have a little bit of depth questions more than they did last year at certain positions. And the number one position there is probably running back. Number two is probably corner back. I think Edge is three. And I don't know that maybe you can go safety

1:04:24for depending on how you look at it. So I really do see the youth of the team working in the Seahawks favor. And that's part of why they've been able to endure and actually stay healthy. Whereas the 49ers, they are one of the oldest teams in the NFL. I think they are the oldest offense in the NFL. And they really didn't do anything to get younger. And so we didn't have enough time because I took too much time on other things. I was, you know, kibbuting with Ben. But I, that's my biggest question with the 49ers off season is like, why do you think that you're going to get healthier when you're just getting older and older? That just doesn't, doesn't make sense to me. Maybe they'll catch lightning in a bottle, but generally speaking, that offense is creaky. And if Trent Williams goes down, I mean, they haven't done anything,

1:05:24I mean, fedarian low that they signed, I guess. I think they're not in great shape in that regard. So I was going to do, let's do a quick mock draft. I said I was going to try to do one every day. Let's do it. Let's do a quick mock draft. And then I got to run. But let's do, I'm going to do the PFF Sim again. Because I like it. We're going to say, big board, we're going to do, we'll do, I don't know who Aiden Tucker is, but we're going to do Aiden Tucker's big board. All right. And we're going to do the Seahawks. And here we go. I'll put this up here so you guys can see it along with me. All right. So, I'm going to draft first. I am really getting like on the Emanuel Pregnant vibe. I do like that Ben is with me on Zion Young.

1:06:28I don't think Zion Young is a bad pick there either. We've talked about Daniel Ponds, Chris Johnson. This is a guy that you heard from James Foster yesterday is kind of exactly who I was describing as a great zone cover player who's also a good run defender, can play outside. I think Chris Johnson's a great pick there as well. I think the corner class is pretty deep. Let's do this. Let's do this. I don't think I've drafted Chris Johnson first. Let's see how that feels. I don't have a big problem. I want to trade back, honestly, but I didn't. So let's just play this out. So now we're at pick 64. And we've talked about Denea Dennis Sutton. We've talked about a bunch of these other guys. Devon Moore, Jill Farmer, who a James Foster compared to Anthony Bradford. So I'm sure a lot of people would jump in at that opportunity.

1:07:33Let's see, do we have some trade offers? Who do you have? From 64 to 75. Let's see what that, I'm just gonna play around with this. Let's see how this goes. I thought we could get, let's see. Well, if we did this, let's see how this goes. This is a little bit of an interesting move. We're gonna move up in the, we're gonna move down in the third round up. Sorry, down in the second round, up in the third round. And yeah, this is not a great trade, to be honest. I'm just going quickly. So, but here we are at 75 now. And there's Devon Moore.

1:08:34We've already grafted Chris Johnson. So we definitely don't need him. There's Emmett Johnson. This is a reasonable place to start thinking about taking him. This is obviously in round three. That could be a logical pick. Zaki Wheatley also is a guy I really like. Could be a logical pick as well. Let's see interior offensive line. Kaelin Rutledge is interesting. We're still got, most Devons is gonna be there a little bit later. So I think we could go that direction later. I am, I like Billy Schroff, but I'm not sure he's as good of a fit for what the CX are doing. Let's look at running back and see where running back is right now. I think Emma Johnson's maybe my pick here, honestly. Who's the best player at a position of potential need?

1:09:34I was looking at safety. I mean, Zaki Wheatley is a really interesting pick as well. But another, let's look at Edge. I think Edge starts to get pretty thin after this. There's Max Luellen. I mean, I think that's the problem with having not drafted an edge first is you just kind of lose some of the guys that are really interesting by the third round for sure. All right, let's do this. We are going to take, we are going to take Emma Johnson here with that pick. And we're back on the clock at 87. I mean, honestly, I'm tempted to take Devon more. I think he's the best player on the board here, but it'd be two corners. I don't love that. You could double up at running back. Don't really love that either. There's a key Wheatley. I think, honestly, I think that's the direction I probably go. The feature's crown over is a big dude.

1:10:38I think he's kind of an interesting one. There's Jalen Kilgore, who I know a lot of people are really big fans of. Could play a number of positions. Six, one, two, 11. Has a lot of different skill sets. I'm sure people are screaming to draft him right now. I'm not, oh, there's both Stevens. Our next pick that's coming up is at 130. Do we risk not getting both Stevens? I don't know. I feel like that would be a mistake. But here's the thing. I'm going to stick with drafting and the best player I think is on the board. And for me right now, let's look at Romello Hex. I don't think I've, I was too light, 240. I don't think that makes as much sense. I think, I mean, you could go Logan Jones at center. I just am not a believer that you really need a center. So we're going to go as a key Wheatley at safety.

1:11:38I like the key Wheatley. I think he is a really nice player to have coming up behind some of the other guys on that roster. All right, so then you're at pick 130 in the fourth round. Did we get lucky enough that we can get our interior offensive lineman at this point? There's Max Luellen. I would probably take him here. Let's take a look at interior offensive lineman. Oh, we missed him. Bo's gone. He's gone. No, all right. Well, I'm going to take Max Luellen. I like the rush moves that he brings, even if it is with the not most athletic profile. All right, then our last pick in around six. I can tell you already, I'm not going to love this draft.

1:12:39But I like to just kind of go through all these different scenarios to get a feel. Oh, there's Kendrick Law. You know I'm picking Kendrick Law. You know I'm picking Kendrick Law. But let's look just for the sake of looking at offensive lineman who's there. Oh, Keegan Trust. Ah, so this was the guy that Mr. Foster yesterday was telling us about that he really likes played right tackle. But it's going to probably slide inside the guard. Let's take Keegan Trust. I love it. Let's do it. I feel pretty good about that actually. I might be my favorite pick. So here we go. Chris Johnson, Emmett Johnson is a key Wheatley, Maxwell and Keegan Trust. I don't hate it. I don't hate it was a bad trade that I made in the second round. Yes, I know. I gave up too much and got too little.

1:13:42But I think each one of these players has something to offer the siox and could be could be really good picks in each of those rounds. So as far as going with best player available, I think that was a decent job in that regard. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Hawk Blower Morning. Hopefully you guys have a great rest of your day. I am Brian and I was there. Take care. Yeah. Right now. New fan dual customers can get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. Place a tournament bet using the token. And if it doesn't win, you'll get up to $300 back and bonus bets every single day for 10 days straight.

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