Seattle Seahawks: The 10 Worst First-Round Draft Picks in Team History
As soon as the draft ends each year, the talking heads, writers and fans all give their instant feedback and grades on how the teams did.
Every year, it's impossible to tell how a team drafted the day after the draft; you need perspective for these things. Player development takes time, after all.
The glamor round of the draft is the first round, which gives some extra weight to a first-round pick. A good choice can end up being the building block to a successful run, playoff appearances and Super Bowls.
A bad choice can hamper a team for years to come.
The Seattle Seahawks head into the 2011 NFL Draft with a lot of positions to fill and choosing wisely has never been more important.
Like most franchises, the Seahawks have had their first-round ups and downs.
They have had their good moments, like selecting Walter Jones, Shaun Alexander and Curt Warner with first-round picks.
However, for all of the good picks, there have also been bad ones.
Because hindsight is always crystal clear, it's with a strong sense of smugness and "I told you so" that we review the 10 worst first-round draft picks of the Seattle Seahawks.
10. Aaron Curry: 4th Pick Overall, 2009
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It's hard to label a third-year player as one of the 10 worst draft picks for an entire franchise, but if you look at the way Curry's development is trending, you'll see some red flags.
The Seahawks were in desperate need of some defensive beef coming into the draft in 2009 and used the fourth pick overall to take the Wake Forest linebacker.
In his two seasons with Seattle, Curry has shown great speed, but he lacks any real football instinct and he is constantly out of position.
Seattle has tried to make him a pass rusher with little success and he looks lost when trying to drop back in pass coverage.
When a team has a top five pick, they need to take an impact player and they missed here.
Looking back, they had to look no further than the West Coast to find better options with the fourth pick.
USC quarterback Mark Sanchez was taken by the Jets with the fifth pick and you have to wonder where Seattle's quarterback mix would be now if they had Sanchez.
If linebacker was the way they wanted to go, USC's Brian Cushing and Clay Matthews—who have both already been to Pro Bowls—were on the board and selected later in the first round.
9. Lawrence Jackson: 28th Pick Overall, 2008
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You might be able to cut the Seahawks some slack for missing with the 28th pick in the draft—but not much.
Seahawks general manager at the time, Tim Ruskell, was supposedly a great evaluator of defensive talent and took the USC star, Jackson, with the first-round pick to provide a needed pass rush.
Jackson was given the cool nickname of LoJack but sadly never played to the level that warranted cool nicknames.
He only managed 6.5 sacks in his first two—and mostly invisible—seasons with Seattle.
When the Seahawks hired his former college coach in Pete Carroll prior to the 2010 season, there was some thought that now was the time the fans would see the real LoJack.
If anyone could get him to perform, it would be the guy who knew him the best.
Apparently, Carroll did know him best and quickly traded him to Detroit before the season started, ending Jackson's Seahawks career after two seasons.
Lasting only two seasons as a first-round pick gets you on top 10 lists such as this.
8. Chris McIntosh: 22nd Pick Overall, 2000
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The 2000 draft wasn't all bad for Seattle, as they had two first-rounders and used the first to nab Shaun Alexander.
It's their second first-round selection of Wisconsin tackle Chris McIntosh that makes the list.
McIntosh should have been the right tackle to complement Walter Jones on the left side for a decade. He was a big, strong masher who had some nastiness to him.
He started 10 games his rookie season and unfortunately ended up injuring his neck. The neck injury was bad and lingered into the 2001 season and limited him to three games.
From there, his injury became career ending and, sadly, McIntosh retired after the 2002 season, never giving himself a real chance to live up to his potential.
Sometimes first-round busts aren't anyone's fault, yet McIntosh still makes our list. Had he stayed healthy, the Seahawks may never have had to get in bed with Sean Locklear.
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7: Jerramy Stevens: 28th Pick Overall, 2002
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The West Coast offense utilizes the pass-catching tight end as well as any other system. Most teams who run it well have a stud tight end.
Coming into the 2002 draft, the Seahawks were starting to put some pieces together and were missing that tight end on offense.
After swearing up and down that they weren't going to draft a tight end in the first round because he didn't believe in doing it, Mike Holmgren selected the Washington star with the 28th pick.
On the field, Jerramy Stevens appeared to be a perfect fit for Holmgren's offense. He was tall, fast, had decent hands and could stretch the field.
However, off the field, Stevens was a mess. While in college, he had a couple of run-ins with Seattle's finest—which should have been a red flag—but Holmgren was convinced Stevens had turned the corner in his personal life.
Stevens started out well, having his best season during the Seahawks' Super Bowl season, in which he caught 45 catches. However, in the week prior to the Super Bowl, he started a war of words with Steelers linebacker Joey Porter and then went out and had several killer drops in the game itself.
After that, Stevens began to run into off-field trouble again and Seattle eventually parted ways with him after the 2006 season.
6. Lamar King: 22nd Pick Overall, 1999
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When the commissioner announced the Seahawks had selected Saginaw Valley State's Lamar King with the 22nd pick in the 1999 draft, Seattle fans collectively said: "Who?"
King played for a small school and thus flew under the radar, so it was surprising when Mike Holmgren made him his first draft pick as Seahawks general manager.
Sadly for Seattle, King showed why the big schools passed him up in college, as he never developed into an NFL-caliber defensive lineman.
King lasted five seasons in Seattle and bagged a disappointing 12 sacks during that time.
Even more sad is that taken only seven picks later was Patrick Kearney, who ended his career with 82.5 sacks, including 14.5 in 2007, when Seattle finally got their hands on him via free agency.
How much better would Patrick Kearney have made the Seahawks in 2005 when they were a Super Bowl contender?
5. Koren Robinson: 9th Pick Overall, 2001
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Looking for a playmaking wide receiver, Mike Holmgren used his ninth pick in the 2001 draft to take Koren Robinson out of North Carolina State.
Robinson looked the part—tall, fast and, as a former tail back, could run after the catch.
Robinson missed a great deal of training camp after being selected and he had a stunted rookie year, but he made Holmgren look like a genius when he caught 78 balls for 1,240 yards in 2002. It seemed the Seahawks had found their big-play guy.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the Pro Bowl. Robinson, who had some off-the-field issues in college, began to run afoul with the law again.
On top of his DWIs, he started to miss team meetings and, despite being given chance after chance by Holmgren, he continued a downward spiral.
Holmgren finally pulled the plug on Robinson after the 2004 season.
Even more troubling is the fact that there were 10 Pro Bowlers selected after Robinson in 2001, including big-play wide receivers Santana Moss and Reggie Wayne.
4. Brian Bosworth: Officially 22nd Pick Overall, 1988
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Simply known as The Boz, the Seahawks drafted the Oklahoma star linebacker with the first pick in the 1987 supplemental draft, thus giving up their first-rounder in 1988.
The Boz created a larger-than-life persona (imagine if Twitter had been around then!) and brought some national recognition to the Seahawks.
The Seahawks signed him to a then rookie-record contract of $10 million for 11 years.
Bosworth turned out to be injury prone, only lasting three seasons before moving on to B-movie stardom. His career highlight is getting run over by Bo Jackson on Monday Night Football, in what was an embarrassment to him, the team and the city.
By giving up their 22nd pick in the first round, they missed on selecting Pro Bowl linebackers Chris Spielman and Ken Norton Jr, two guys who were a lot quieter—and better.
3. Dan McGwire: 16th Pick Overall, 1991
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The Seahawks were in need of a new franchise quarterback, as Dave Krieg was nearing the end of his Seattle run.
They looked to 6'8" San Diego State star Dan McGwire, whose biggest claim to fame might have been his mullet and his older baseball-playing brother.
At 6'8", McGwire looked statuesque in the pocket—and played like a statue as well. He only managed to start five games in his four-year Seahawks career and threw for only two touchdown passes.
That's only two more than you did and several hundred fewer than Brett Favre, who was selected in the second round that same year.
Perhaps the biggest sin McGwire can be blamed for is that when the 1993 season rolled around, the Seahawks were still in need of a quarterback (see No. 1 on our list).
2. Steve August: 14th Pick Overall, 1977
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You might be wondering why an image of Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett of the Dallas Cowboys appears under the heading proclaiming offensive lineman Steve August as the second-worst first-round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks.
There are two reasons.
First off, Steve August's seven-year Seattle career—which was solid—was so obscure that there is little-to-no photographic evidence of it.
Secondly, Tony Dorsett is the player the Seahawks should have drafted. Imagine a 70s and 80s Seahawks team with Jim Zorn, Steve Largent and Tony Dorsett!
Coming into the 1977 NFL Draft, Seattle had the No. 2 pick. The top two players coming out were Heisman-winner Dorsett and USC's Ricky Bell. Tampa Bay had the first pick and was coached by Bell's former coach John McKay.
McKay was going to take his guy first overall.
The Seahawks traded the No. 2 pick to Dallas for the 14th pick and three second-rounders. They used the 14th pick to draft offensive lineman Steve August.
Part of the reason for this is that Dorsett had expressed concern about playing for an expansion team and Seattle may have been worried about being able to sign him. The Seahawks should have picked him anyway and convinced him to run in the Pacific Northwest.
So, nothing personal against poor Steve August, but he is no Tony Dorsett.
1. Rick Mirer: 2nd Pick Overall, 1993
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On September 20th, 1992, the Seahawks traveled to Foxboro Stadium to take on the New England Patriots. Seattle managed to squeak out an ugly 10-6 victory—one of only two wins that season—against the Patriots.
When the season ended, both the Seahawks and the Patriots were tied with identical 2-14 records. Since Seattle won the head-to-head matchup, the Patriots "won" the tiebreaker and the No. 1 pick in the 1993 NFL Draft.
Both teams were in desperate need for a quarterback and two, clear top college signal-callers were there for the taking. One was Washington State's Drew Bledsoe and the other Notre Dame's Rick Mirer.
There was a lot of debate about which one of the two would make the best pro. Bledsoe was big and had a rocket arm. Mirer played for Notre Dame, showed some moxie in college—and even looked a little like Joe Montana.
The Patriots ended up selecting Bledose and Seattle snatched up Mirer.
While the Patriots ended up in the Super Bowl a few years later, Seattle was mired (pun intended) in a decade-long darkness.
It wasn't a disaster right away for Mirer and the Seahawks. He showed some promise his rookie season, but after that, his inability to grasp a pro offense and lack of arm strength caused his demise.
He ended his four-year Seattle career with a whopping 56 interceptions.
Somehow, the Seahawks were able to dupe the Chicago Bears into trading a top 10 draft pick to the Seahawks in 1997, which they turned into Shawn Springs.
When Mark Brunell was still on the board later in the 1993 draft, Seattle considered picking him. But since they already had Mirer in the fold, they decided not to.
Other notables drafted after Mirer were Jerome Bettis and Willie Roaf.
What would the 90s have been like if Seattle fielded Bettis and Brunell?
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