Devon Witherspoon, vets welcoming Nick Emmanwori squarely into Seahawks defense

Yahoo

5 hours ago

The Seahawks' new No. 3 is opposite the old one.
He's huge.
A couple weeks into his first NFL practices, rookie safety Nick Emmanwori is also hugely into Seattle's plans on defense for 2025. And well beyond.
That was obvious during the team's three organized team activities (OTAs) open to the media last week.
A month after the Seahawks traded up 17 spots to draft Emmawori at the top of Round 2, he was in the middle of their starting defense. He played third safety closer to the line of scrimmage, like a linebacker — like, dare we say, Kam Chancellor — when coach Mike Macdonald was trying out 'big' nickel alignments with five defensive backs.
With the head man and defensive guru watching a few yards away, Emmanwori also was practicing some at outside linebacker in run-defense work. He was blitzing quarterbacks. He was covering receivers down the field.
And he was joking comfortably with Devon Witherspoon and Seattle's veteran starters.
Witherspoon is the Seahawks' non-stop, Pro Bowl cornerback. The 24-year-old Seattle drafted fifth overall in 2023 is a constant combination of running, pushing, pointing, talking — and woofin'.
During warmups at the start of the fifth OTA practice last Wednesday, Witherspoon led fellow starting cornerback Riq Woolen plus returning starting safeties Julian Love and Coby Bryant in joking and laughing with Emmanwori. It looked and sounded like the 21-year-old new guy had been there for years, not weeks.
From goal line to midfield and back, Witherspoon shouted and howled laughs while he stretched, high-stepped and karaoke-stepped up and down the field. Emmanwori trailed behind, smiling.
At one point, Emmanwori turned and leaned in toward Bryant to joke with him. Witherspoon, Love and Woolen laughed again.
It was obvious Emmanwori appreciates being 'in' with Witherspoon and the veterans, especially after just parts of two weeks on the field with them.
The rookie's coaches appreciate how Emmanwori has instantly meshed with his teammates and the defense.
'He's locked in,' defensive coordinator Aden Durde said.
Emmanwori looks bigger than the 6 feet 3 and 220 pounds the Seahawks list him as. That might because the last first-teamer to wear his No. 3 jersey for Seattle was Russell Wilson.
Wilson was measured at 5 feet 10 and 5/8 inches and 204 pounds at the 2012 NFL scouting combine. That was a month before the Seahawks selected the too-small quarterback from Wisconsin in the third round of that year's draft.
The night they drafted Emmanwori April 25, Macdonald and general manager John Schneider immediately likened his size and planned use in Seattle's defense, this year as a rookie, to Kyle Hamilton, the safety Macdonald coached into an All-Pro with the Baltimore Ravens — and Seahawks legend Chancellor.
Emmanwori said Macdonald and the Seahawks told him of Hamilton even before they drafted him that 'me and him are very similar.'
'But, no,' Emmanwori said. 'I can still work on some things to get up, you know, to his even to his All-Pro level as he is.'
Yet so far, entering the Seahawks' mandatory minicamp Tuesday and Wednesday, nothing Emmanwori is doing or being with his teammates is tempering those meteoric expectations.
He immediately became on-field friends with Witherspoon, Love and the veteran starters the last week of May. Macdonald, Durde and new defensive backs coach Jeff Howard absolutely noticed the rookie made multiple plays against new quarterback Sam Darnold and the starting offense in the first, closed practices and first week of OTAs.
'He's just going through the rookie process,' Durde said. 'He's playing a couple of different positions at times, but he puts the work in. He works really well with Jeff Howard.
'He made a couple of plays last week. It was cool to see.'
1. First-round pick Grey Zabel enters minicamp this week exactly where Macdonald and Schneider indicated he would the night they made him Seattle's highest-drafted guard since Hall of Famer Steve Hutchinson in 2001.
Zabel is the starting left guard. He's been that since the first practices of rookie minicamp and OTAs.
2(b). Elijah Arroyo was mostly with quarterback Drew Lock and the second-team offense during OTAs. The 6-5, 254-pound second-round pick from Miami did get first-team reps outside as a slot receiver at times during 11-on-11 scrimmaging. He had multiple passes go off his hands incomplete last week.
3. Jalen Milroe was the third quarterback behind Darnold and Lock in OTAs. At times he overthrew receivers and threw behind them, allowing defenders to break up the throws. Other times, Milroe launched pretty, rainbow passes deep onto the hands of receivers behind defenders in third-team scrimmaging.
He also showed what he was best at doing for Alabama, and what he will have a package of plays to do this season for Seattle. During a drill new quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko was coming off the edge unblocked mimicking a free rusher and forcing the QBs to make snap decision, Darnold and Lock threw the ball quickly. The 6-2, 216-pound Milroe instinctively took off running around the 'pass rusher.'
Janocko yelled his approval for that choice.
'He's a heck of an athlete, number one,' Kubiak said last week.
'The number-one thing that stands out is: The guy's a worker.
'You see him in there at 4:30 a.m. on the field going through his plays.'
Wait ... 4:30 a.m.? On the practice field?
'Nobody asked him to do that,' Kubiak said of Milroe. 'But he's out there putting in extra time.
'I've seen him grow a lot from rookie minicamp to now, so I've been impressed with the kid.'
5(a.). Defensive end and fifth-round pick Rylie Mills has been watching practices wearing his new No. 98 practice jersey and a leg sleeve over his surgically repaired knee. The 6-5, 296-pound Mills tore his anterior cruciate ligament during the College Football Playoffs in December. He was walking through some plays with teammates at no speed late last week.
Seahawks doctors and trainers believe Mills will be practicing by fall.
5(b). Tory Horton is running full go like his season-ending leg injury last season at Colorado State didn't happen. The wide receiver and fifth-round pick practiced returning punts and caught passes mainly from Milroe last week.
5(c). Rookie fifth-round pick Robbie Ouzts from Alabama is in his transition from college tight end to fullback, the Seahawks' newest-old position in new coordinator Klint Kubiak's offense. Outzts and Brady Russell, Seattle's converted Seattle tight end and special-teams mainstay, did fullback drills with running backs coach Kennedy Polamalu last week separate from the other running backs.
6. Sixth-round pick Bryce Cabledue played tackle and guard for Kansas. He was the right guard on Milroe's third-team offense at Seahawks OTAs.
7(a). Damien Martinez has BIG legs, making the running back from Oregon State and Miami who Seattle drafted in the seventh round look bigger than his listed 6 feet and 217 pounds. He showed nimble cutting and quickness at the line cutting off the new, outside-zone blocking in Kubiak's system.
'It's early. You'll see the pads come on in the fall and then we'll see who our best running backs are,' Kubiak said. 'This time of year, we're out there practicing in underwear. So their main skill set doesn't get to shine through.
'But I've been really pleased with the detail they're putting in. They have a phenomenal coach in Kennedy, and he's going to stay on them.'
7(b). The Seahawks list Mason Richman as a tackle and a guard. The 6-5, 307-pound seventh-round pick from Iowa was the right tackle next to Cabledue blocking for Milroe on the third-team offense last week.
7(c). Ricky White III from UNLV was running crossing routes galore during OTAs, catching most of what usually Milroe was throwing near him.
White's true chance to impact as a rookie won't come until the pads come on in training camp. Camp begins in late July.