2012 NFL Draft Order Preliminary Look for Seattle Seahawks
The preliminary 2012 NFL Draft order is out, giving Seattle Seahawks fans a good look at where the team will get to select players during the offseason. Losing on the last weekend of the season (Jan. 1 against Arizona Cardinals) will give the Seahawks a good position in the 2012 NFL Draft. Quite a few 7-8 teams won games in that last week to improve to 8-8 and finish with better records than the 7-9 Seahawks as well.
In the 2012 NFL Draft order, Seattle will have either the No. 11 or No. 12 overall selection. The Seahawks finish tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for that No. 11 spot and now a coin flip at the NFL Scouting Combine will help decide which team goes first. That's not too bad at all, as it means the Seahawks should have a shot at some elite level talent at that point of the first round. With a lot of teams needing a quarterback that draft in the top 12 though, it's hard to envision any elite quarterbacks staying on the board for very long.
As for the other teams in the NFC West, the St. Louis Rams will draft No. 2 and the Arizona Cardinals will draft No. 13. We won't know where the San Francisco 49ers will get slotted until they are eliminated from the 2012 NFC Playoffs. It means some more elite college football prospects are coming to the NFC West, a division that appears to have started hoarding picks in the top 10.
The Sporting News projects the Seahawks will target LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne in the first round of the draft, but that pick doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Maybe this is another web site that doesn't pay much attention to football in the Pacific Northwest, but the biggest strength of the Seahawks is their secondary. Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman and Brandon Browner are all returning for the 2012 season, so the Seahawks need to look at other areas of improvement before adding more depth in the secondary.
Hopefully a number of underclassman that haven't committed to the next draft do so to help strengthen the field and further guarantee that Seattle can get a nice player at No. 11 or No. 12.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ycn-10783449