Seahawks draft DT Byron Murphy II with 16th pick in NFL draft
SEATTLE – There was no trade for the Seahawks on Thursday night.
Instead, the Seahawks saw a player regarded as the best defensive lineman in the draft fall into their lap – Texas’ Byron Murphy II – and decided to take him with their first pick in 2024 draft at No. 16 overall.
Murphy was just the second defensive player taken after the first 14 were all offensive players, a surprising development that left the Seahawks with almost all of the defensive players their its board available to be taken.
The 6-foot-1, 308-pound Murphy will give new head coach Mike Macdonald a young, dynamic defensive tackle around which to build his defense.
The Seahawks have Jarran Reed and Johnathan Hankins as their projected two starting tackles heading into the season. But both are 31 or older and neither is under contract beyond this season.
Seattle can throw out a rotation of Reed, Hankins and Murphy for its interior defensive line to pair with ends Leonard Williams and Dre’Mont Jones – each signed to big contracts over the past two seasons – as the Seahawks attempt to beef up a defense that disappointed greatly the past two years.
Seattle finished 30th in points allowed last season and 25th in yards allowed and also allowed 4.6 yards per rush to rank 27th, while finishing 31st in rushing yards allowed.
Murphy should provide not only more stoutness against the run but also projected as one of the best pass-rushing interior defensive linemen availabnle in the draft.
Lindy’s draft preview described Murphy as the “quickest defensive tackle” available in the draft and wrote that “his first step won’t be matched by many NFL linemen.” Murphy had five sacks last season as well as seven QB hits and 8.5 tackles for loss. That included three tackles, including one-half tackle for loss, in the Sugar Bowl against Washington.
Murphy’s athleticism was also on display in how Texas used him on offense in a jumbo package. He scored two TDs out of that package, including a 1-yard TD in the Sugar Bowl against UW, an eventual 37-31 Huskies win.
“Murphy brings elite-level strength and athletic ability to trench play, earning a spot on Bruce Feldman’s 2023 Freaks List,” Pro Football Focus wrote in hits scouting report of Murphy. “Murphy’s punch and press are violent and strong, allowing him to utilize his lower leverage to dictate run-defense battles. Teams may think they can run at him due to his measurables, but he has great lower-body strength and doesn’t yield much ground versus combo blocks. Perhaps nothing better sums up Murphy’s strength than that he played nose tackle despite 360-pound T’Vondre Sweat’s presence along Texas’ defensive line. His strength and explosiveness led to excellent pass-rush grades and win rates.”
Murphy is from DeSoto, Texas, and was named as the Big 12’s Defensive Linemen of the Year in 2023. He had 45 QB pressures last season as charted by PFF, fifth most among all defensive tackles.
Seattle president of football operations John Schneider said the team would consider options to trade down to acquire more picks.
The Seahawks have no second-rounder after dealing it last October to the Giants as part of the Williams trade and will not pick again until 81st overall in the third round.
But the allure of taking Murphy proved too strong. For all of Seattle’s reputation for trading on draft day, the Seahawks have not traded their first-round pick on draft day since 2019.
Murphy will get a slotted four-year contract that will pay him $16.083 million over four years, which includes an $8.5 million signing bonus. He will carry a $2.924 million cap hit in 2024.
The Seahawks arrived at pick 16 with their choice of every defensive player in the draft other than Laiatu Latu, the former Husky who turned into one of the best edge rushers in college football last year after reviving his career at UCLA.
Latu’s pick at 15 came after the first 14 teams all went with offensive players. It was reported to be the first time that many players on one side of the ball had been taken consecutively.
That run of offensive players to start the draft included six quarterbacks in the top 12, the last being Bo Nix of Oregon. Earlier, UW’s Michael Penix Jr. went to Atlanta at eight.
The Seahawks had planned for the chance that no QBs considered worth taking in the first round would be gone by 16 by trading last month for Sam Howell of Washington. The 23-year-old Howell is younger than both Penix and Nix and already has 18 NFL starts.
They could still take a quarterback in the middle rounds, or wait until after the draft to sign one as an undrafted free agent to fill out a quarterback room that for includes only Geno Smith and Howell.
It was the first time six quarterbacks were taken in the top 12 picks and the first time six were selected in the first round since the famous 1983 draft that included future hall of famers John Elway and Dan Marino.