I am a bit late, but wanted to give this some thought, before going on the record. Its tough to make some of these calls, since the choice in one round would affect others. For example, I wanted an OL in round 1 or 2 (not both), but with none taken, I liked Caldwell in round 3. Also, there is a lot of hindsight available as far as who ended up in each round. In any case, here are my thoughts, by round:
1) Cushing was not a bad choice, given who was left (I wish Jenkins or Orakpo had fallen
). Id have gone with Oher, myself, but I understand why they didnt. More than that, though, I think the players picked in the 21-28 range (except the WR/RB) were just as good of options as Cushing. I know the rules of this thread were no trade-down, but Id have taken a trade down into that range (even if not getting full value for the trade), and picked up one of those players: Oher, Mack, Wood, Matthews, Jerry, or even Davis. I would rather have one of them plus something else than Cushing alone.
2) Barwin has grown on me, but I still think he was not the best player or biggest need at this point. Id have gone with Unger here. I dont know how Unger will do for the Seahawks, but I think he would have been perfect in our system, and we missed a major opportunity there (I wouldnt have expected him to last to this point; Id even have been willing to take him in round 1 after a trade-down!). If not Unger, I think William Moore would have been a good option, and made more of a difference for us.
3) Given who we had already taken, I like the choice of Caldwell. This was where I was hoping wed get a RB, but the way things fell out, it didnt work. Im glad we didnt reach for one, and Id have been upset at the time if we had traded up to get Coffee, but given the way the whole draft played out, maybe a trade-up wouldnt have been a bad idea. If wed picked up an OL (and not a DB) in an earlier round, Id have taken Rashad Johnson here instead.
4a) Again, depends on who we had taken earlier, and this is where my knowledge of the players is falling off. If we had not taken Barwin in round 2, maybe Brandon Williams would have been a good option here (overall, I like the sound of Max Unger, Rashad Johnson, and Brandon Williams more than Connor Barwin, Antoine Caldwell, and Glover Quin). Getting help in the secondary seems worthwhile, but I dont know that Quin was worth choosing at this place.
4b) In retrospect, I would have taken Gartrell Johnson here, although at the time I thought he would last until round 5 (and might have been upset if they had reached for him). I was probably one of the only people that was hoping we would draft a blocking TE, but I didnt figure wed get him in round 4 (I was thinking round 6-7). I like Hill fine, but I probably wouldnt have chosen that position that early. I would have probably picked for need here, depending on which of the defensive positions (OLB, pass rushing DE, Safety, DT) we didnt address earlier I dont have a specific name, though.
5) I like the Casey pick. It feels like a luxury, but seems like a good risk at this point.
6,7) I dont like to second-guess late round picks, since I know little about the players, and trust the ones they picked are ones theyve seen something in, that I wouldnt have known about.
Im disappointed that they did not come away with an RB, but after seeing the way things played out, I cant fault their choices at the times (the better RBs seemed to go earlier than I had expected). I dont think of the players in rounds 6 and 7 as much different from UDFAs, so Im not upset that we didnt pick a RB then.
