Seahawks keep addressing guard need in 6th round of NFL draft: Bryce Cabeldue from Kansas
The trend of the Seahawks inviting prospects to pre-draft visits then selecting them continues.
Weeks after he was at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center meeting with general manager John Schneider and offensive line coach John Benton, Bryce Cabeldue become a Seahawk. Seattle drafted the Kansas University offensive tackle in the sixth round Saturday — to play guard, their position of most pressing need.
The Seahawks began Saturday without a sixth-round pick. They got one in a trade down in round five with the Cleveland Browns. The Browns used that fifth-round pick from Seattle to select quarterback Shedeur Sanders, four rounds after some thought the Colorado star would go.
The 6-foot-4, 308-pound Cabeldue is the first native of New Mexico drafted into the NFL since 2019 (Zach Gentry, by the Steelers). Cabeldue was at home in Clovis, N.M., Saturday afternoon when the Seahawks called to change his life.
When that call came, 'Dad was on the smoker. Made some ribs and some pork butt,' Cabeldue said by telephone from the family home.
'We were playing some corn hole.
'I have a lot of pride being from New Mexico, being one of the only (among) a very seldom group out of New Mexico that's ever been drafted.'
Cabeldue is the fifth of Seattle's first eight selections this year to go on a top-30 pre-draft visit to the Seahawks this spring. It used to be the opposite: The team didn't end up drafting most players the team invited to Renton.
New regime with Schneider and first-time head coach Mike Macdonald in charge.
'Yeah, whenever I went out there, I had an amazing time. I love Seattle,' Cabeldue said.
'I knew I was in good graces with them.'
The visits that Seattle's first two of three picks in round five Saturday — Rylie Mills, a defensive lineman from Notre Dame, and Colorado State wide receiver Tory Horton — made to the Seahawks were because of the team's injury concerns with them.
There are none of those concerns apparent with Cabeldue.
He allowed three sacks and eight pressures on 344 pass-blocking snaps last college season as a Kansas tackle.
The Seahawks see him as a guard because he plays with low, advantageous leverage and good quickness off the ball. He played guard at the East-West Shrine Game for NFL scouts this winter, and impressed there.
'I'm really quick off the ball,' he said Saturday.
The Seahawks' first pick in this draft was a guard, Grey Zabel from North Dakota State. He and his parents arrived at the team's Virginia Mason Athletic Center for the first time Saturday afternoon (he did not have a top-30 visit with the Seahawks).
Zabel, picked 18th overall, is the new starting left guard. He's the first interior offensive lineman the Seahawks drafted in the first round since Hall of Famer Steve Hutchinson in 2001.
Cabeldue joins with the chance to backup Zabel. He also played right guard at Kansas, and can compete there in Seattle. The Seahawks went through three right guards last season before 2024 sixth-round pick Sataoa Laumea finished the season as the starter there.
Cabeldue can also be a swing backup tackle.
'I was just hopeful,' he said near Dad's smoker in New Mexico, 'and thankful that they ended up picking me.'
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