The Seattle Seahawks have given this former top pick numerous chances to reward them for their faith. Now it’s past time for the team to cut their losses and move on.
The Seahawks have are on a run of some pretty solid drafts in the past few years. Devon Witherspoon, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and Zach Charbonnet all paid immediate dividends last year, and several other 2023 draftees may pay off this year as well. Charles Cross, Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker III, and Riq Woolen are all excellent starters picked up in 2022. Depending on his health, you can certainly add Abe Lucas to that group.
If we go back past that, though, the drafts weren’t quite as productive. Seattle only had three selections in 2021, and the results have been – oh, I’d say uneven. 2020’s draft did produce one top-flight player and a few more productive pieces, but only two starters. Neither of those players is still with the team, incidentally.
I can think of a pair of Hawks that should have been long gone by now instead of them. To date, neither have shown anything in camp this year, either. One in particular stands out, though. I’ll tackle the other player another time. Yes, that’s an obvious hint, 12s.
If it wasn’t already clear that using their top pick in 2021 on D’Wayne Eskridge was a mistake, this training camp has clarified that. Yes, I am on record as being quite happy with the selection back in 2021. What can I say? I was young and foolish. Okay, fine – I was old and foolish. The fact remains that Eskridge was almost universally seen as a top-10 prospect at wide receiver.
As we all know, his career didn’t exactly pan out that way. His career was derailed by injuries in his first two seasons, then a six-game suspension at the start of 2023 for violating league rules regarding domestic violence. Still, Eskridge appeared in 24 games over three seasons. He rewarded the Seahawks with the not-so-grand total of 17 catches in those 24 games. Yes, he was terribly misused by former Hawks OC Shane Waldron, but so was JSN at first, and he managed 63 catches as a rookie.
A lot has been made of Eskridge’s return ability last season, and how much more important the return game will be this year with the new kickoff rule. But really, what exactly did he do? Eskridge returned
eight kickoffs for a total of 224 yards. That’s a sweet average until you remember 66 of those yards came on one return. I’m entirely not discounting that play; it was spectacular, to be sure. But without that return, his average is a very – sorry, but it is – average 22.6 yards.
But it was also almost 30 percent of his total yards. Other than that return, his career-best is a 30-yard gain. What I’m saying is, he’s no Tyler Lockett as a return man. As a receiver, he’s not even a Freddie Swain – although I thought he’d at least be better than that. No, you’re not going to strike gold in the second round every time.
You certainly can’t expect to find a player like 2015’s third-round pick and future HOF member Tyler Lockett. But at this point, undrafted free agent Jake Bobo has already contributed more to the Seahawks than Eskridge. Between Laviska Shenault, Dareke Young, Dee Williams, and even Tre Brown, the Hawks have no shortage of candidates for the role.
Cutting Eskridge would benefit the team financially as well. Cutting or trading him now would save Seattle just over $1 million. As bad as he’s looked in camp, I can’t imagine anyone trading for him, but at least one NFL “expert” proposed just that. I’ll give him credit; at least he was right about the Seahawks getting a center.
But with Eskridge dropping more passes than catching them in camp, the best they could expect at this point is his Panini rookie card – current value, somewhere between $1.50 and $3.00. I think if you make the offer now, the Hawks will pay the shipping.
