Only for Guild Members » Seahawks acquire Brett Hundley:

What it means for Alex McGough David Moore Jersey Green , Austin Davis Early Wednesday morning it was reported by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport that the Seattle Seahawks have traded a sixth-round draft pick for Green Bay Packers backup quarterback Brett Hundley. The former UCLA star was in competition with DeShone Kizer, and obviously we know how that’s turned out.Hundley started more than half of Green Bay’s games last year while Aaron Rodgers was out with a broken collarbone. To put it kindly, the results were bad. Two of his starts ended in shutout losses, his completion percentage was 60.8%, he threw 12 interceptions to just 9 touchdowns, and his ANY/A was 3.7. He’s not a good quarterback, but he has starting experience, and based on Pete Carroll’s comments, he’s going to be the #2 QB behind Russell Wilson this year.“He’s going into his fourth year now,” Carroll said of Hundley (via The News Tribune). “He’s played quite a bit; he started a bunch of games last year. We’ve been able to see him, how he’s really developed. And we liked him coming out of college, as well. He’s big. He runs well. He’s got a good arm. He’s got good vision of the field. He’s made big throws and big plays.“He really gives you the thought he can come into a game and keep it moving. So, we just thought it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”What about Alex McDough and Austin Davis?Seattle had their own backup QB competition throughout preseason between Austin Davis and Alex McGough. Davis may have won that spot last season over Trevone Boykin, but he has been dreadful and close to unwatchable through three games, so he’s surely a goner after Saturday. McGough is a different story. The rookie had a difficult debut against the Indianapolis Colts, but showed significant improvement against the Los Angeles Chargers, and had a mixture of good and bad moments against the Minnesota Vikings. He’s obviously much younger than Davis, more mobile, more athletic, a better arm, but it’s doubtful that he’s ready to be even an NFL second-string QB.Carroll had this to say about McGough on Wednesday: (Also from The News Tribune)“He’s been up and down some. He’s shown really bright spots. He’s shown the athleticism and good arm and all that stuff. It’s not hard to tell that. But he just needs to try to embrace the offense, handle and take care of the football the way we need him to. He’s made some really big plays and some great throws. You can see the upside. And we can also see the newness. It’s just going to take some time, to keep developing. But he’s made good progress.”This certainly sounds better than Pete’s own admittance that McGough was struggling during training camp, but hardly a ringing endorsement that he should be Wilson’s backup. However, unlike Davis, if the Seahawks choose to waive McGough, they can hope no one claims him and stash him on the practice squad. There’s also the slim chance that he makes the 53-man roster and is slotted as the third-string QB, but most NFL teams are only keeping two, and Seattle hasn’t had three since the Wilson/Tarvaris Jackson/B.J. Daniels era of 2014.So the 2018 Seahawks quarterback depth chart figures to definitely have Wilson and Hundley, possibly have McGough either as third-string or (far more likely and hoped) practice squad, and definitely not Davis. We’re nearly there. No, I’m not talking about the latest Avengers movie releasing next week. I’m referring to the Draft endgame that commences next Thursday. Despite such close proximity to hearing..."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections VideosCoffee and CigarettesGame AnalysisThe Numbers GameCigar ThoughtsNFL DraftThe Offseason2019 NFL DraftNFL Draft: The meanings and motives of pre-draft meetings and visitsNew,13commentsPDTShareTweetShareShareNFL Draft: The meanings and motives of pre-draft meetings and visitsTrevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY SportsWe’re nearly there. No, I’m not talking about the latest Avengers movie releasing next week. I’m referring to the Draft endgame that commences next Thursday. Despite such close proximity to hearing “The Seattle Seahawks are on the clock” and the glorious bell jingle, there is one area I still don’t properly understand. What do meetings and prospect visits actually mean?Fans and analysts get excited whenever their team is reported to have met with a player, particularly if it’s their draft crush. The rumors drive the pre-draft media cycle. In my first year attending the Senior Bowl, I hungrily tweeted about players I could see sitting down with teams in the lobby of the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel. I eventually realized that pretty much every player was meeting with every team. For some clarity on the meetings and visits part of the pre-draft process, I enlisted the help of Dan Hatman. Hatman has scouting experience in NFL Front Offices, including an internship with the New York Giants that ended in a Super Bowl XLII ring. He now runs the Scouting Academy, an opportunity for anyone to learn how to evaluate players. The program has plenty of alumni in the NFL and college football.I first asked Hatman whether my ideas around the Senior Bowl and Combine meetings were correct:Hatman’s response confirmed my pre-conception:I then questioned whether the ‘1 of 30 visit’ was the most important: I expected Hatman to tell me that the ‘30 visit’ was by far the most important. His answer surprised me:Hatman raising the subject of recruiting future UDFAs was an interesting point. Looking at Brandan Schulze’s excellent tracker and the brilliant work of Alistair Corp http://www.seahawkslockerroom.com/authentic-12th-fan-jersey , there are a number of UDFA types on there.Hatman forced me to re-evaluate what the purpose of meetings, visits and private workouts is. The motives behind seeing a prospect vary from team to team and player to player. Reports of combine meetings rarely distinguish between whether it was formal or informal. Facing this barrier, I came up with 6 pieces of rationale behind a team talking to prospects:1. Face valueMost of the time, the reasons for the interest can be taken at face value. The team likes the player, they want to find out more about them. Schneider has talked about finding players with the “take jobs” mentality. Speaking to them, staring contests included, helps. It was no surprise that long cornerback Lonnie Johnson had a formal interview at the NFL Combine with Seattle. 2. Future processEven if the player isn’t picked by the team interviewing them, or if the prospect won’t last to the team’s pick, it helps a Front Office evaluate players down the road. How accurate were they in their projection? This particularly applies to the enigmatic quarterback position. You’ll remember that John Schneider attended Patrick Mahomes’ pro-day. If he had an elite grade on Mahomes, who was a divisive prospect coming out, Schneider knows he did a solid job. 3. Trades or free agencyThe same applies to trades or free agency. A highly picked player perceived to be a bust may become available via trade or in free agency. At that point, a Front Office has to know as much as possible about the player. They need to know what the person is. Did the player bust because of a poor attitude? Or it was due to the many other potential explanations, such as bad coaching or terrible schematic fit. 4. Gain information on a teammateIt was hypothesized that Seattle was doing this with Parris Campbell, instead preferring Terry McLaurin. The interest in Campbell seems too strong for this though. Asking a quarterback about his stud offensive player is an option though. Seattle’s meeting with Gardner Minshew at the Senior Bowl would have proved valuable. Minshew, clich茅 I know, is a coach on the field—he almost gave up playing to be a grad assistant under Nick Saban. Asking Minshew about his Left Tackle, Andre Dillard, would have been illuminating.5. SmokescreenThe draft is prime lying season—just look at the games being played in Arizona with the “will they, won’t they?” of Kyler Murray. Using certain players as a smokescreen, to hide true drafting intentions, is something that all teams do. Sometimes a player will be so coveted by a Front Office that they are terrified of showing a pre-draft interest in him. After all, scouts will have met that player during the college football season anyway. The Packers meeting with Daniel Jones after going all in during Free Agency feels like more of a smokescreen. The key is that a smokescreen must be believable. For instance, if the Seahawks hosted a cornerback who projected to the outside yet didn’t have long arms, a team wouldn’t bite on that. Gain more complete evaluationsUltimately, both meetings and visits are designed to gain a more complete evaluation of a prospect. This doesn’t just help with picking capable players. It also helps project where players are going to go, avoiding massive reaches but also reducing the chances of being sniped by another team. Sometimes the eval might already be complete, as was the case with Tyler Eifert and Greedy Williams:Yet this is rare and gaining as deep an insight as possible into a player is crucial to an optimal process. The formal meetings, pro-day interest and ’30 visits’ likely reveal who is on a team’s draft board. Yet teams have about 100 players on their board, so it’s not an all-encompassing, big reveal. For instance, this year the players Seattle has met with, visited and hosted all make sense. If predicting the Seahawks’ draft board, all these players would have been on there. Some may have been moved up the board by the Front Office based on having a promising character, and some may have been removed from the board entirely based on a poor mentality. Similarly, Derrek Thomas’ private workout was likely designed to give Pete Carroll the chance to see if Thomas had enough traits that he could convert into a quality NFL corner. On the other side of the draft business, player agents are prone to leak to the media if their player visited teams to try and inflate the draft stock of their client. We never hear of every visit, meeting or private workout plus certain agents are more aggressive.It’s under a week until the draft and we still don’t know what order the prospects are on the Seahawks’ draft board, or who John Schneider and Pete Carroll really want, because we aren’t privy to how this massive part of the draft process went. Things will become much clearer after next week.