With the signing of T.J. Houshmandzadeh and the likelihood of the top two offensive tackles being gone before the Hawks step up to the podium on draft day there really is not a player I am in love with at the fourth pick. John has convinced me that Stafford is a viable choice at four, but he is not a prospect that keeps me up at night thinking about him wearing blue and green. There are however, many players projected to go in the last first to early second who could be huge assets to the Seahawks, such as Duke Robinson, Knowshon Moreno, Patrick Chung, and Brian Robiskie. The lack of top end talent and the overall depth of this years draft has lead me to believe that trading down from the fourth overall pick is the best option for Seattle.

While we cannot know the likelihood of trading down, or another team’s interest in moving up, we can estimate the expected return for the fourth overall pick due to the adherence to the trade value chart (thanks to Nate Dogg for the link) by NFL GMs. I want to state, this is not a prediction of what the Hawks or any other team will do, it is simply a list of trade possibilities following the trade value chart. I did not include the options of trading for future draft picks or current players because their value far too difficult to predict.

The chart says that the fourth pick is worth 1800 points; I tried to undershoot 1800 on the return due to rise in rookie salaries.

My first thought was to start with the teams owning multiple first or second round picks to identify possible trade partners. Detroit and Philadelphia are the only teams with two first round picks. Miami, Cleveland, and the New York Giants have two second round picks, while New England has three.

Trade possibilities include:

Detroit’s 1.20, 2.1 and 3.1 total of 1,695 points.

Philadelphia’s 1.21, 1.28 and 3.21 total of 1,625 points.

New England’s 1.23, 2.2 and 2.26 total of 1,640 points.

Miami’s 1.25, 2.12, 2.24 and 3.23 total of 1,675 points.

New York Giants 1.29, 2.13, 2.28, 3.27 and 4.29 total of 1,569 points.

*I will return to Cleveland later.

Regardless of likelihood, according to the draft chart these are the five teams with the ability to move from the bottom of round one up to the fourth overall pick without including a player or future draft picks. I started this to get an idea how many teams in addition to Philadelphia could be possible trading partners with Seattle that would allow us to pick up multiple picks in the late first to early second range, once I dug into it I became curious about the more likely trade scenario of moving back only a few picks into the early to mid first round range.

The following is what is required for Seattle to trade down to picks five through twelve. The return in these trades is much closer to the 1800 points Seattle is giving up because the salaries jump is much less extreme when only moving a few picks.

Cleveland’s 1.5 and 4.4 total of 1,786 points.

Cincinnati’s 1.6 and 3.6 with Seattle sending the 5.1 along with the 1.4, total of 1,802.5 points

Oakland’s 1.7, 3.7 and 4.26 total of 1781 points

Jacksonville’s 1.8, 2.7 and 4.7 with Seattle sending the 3.4 along with the 1.4 total of 1,740 points.

Green Bay’s 1.9 and 2.9 with Seattle sending the 5.1 along with the 1.4 total of 1,802.5 points.

San Francisco’s 1.10 and 2.11 total of 1,770 points.

Buffalo’s 1.11, 2.10 and 5.11 total of 1,762.6 points.

Denver’s 1.12, 2.16 and 3.15 with Seattle sending the 5.1 along with the 1.4 total of 1,777.5 points.

Excluding the five teams I named earlier it is nearly impossible for Seattle to trade lower then 12 without including something other then 2009 draft picks. Washington at 13, New Orleans at 14 and San Diego at 16 do not have second round picks. The New York Jets at 17 do not have a third round pick. Houston could make the trade but would have to send Seattle their picks in the first four rounds. Chicago at 18 and all the teams drafting after them do not have enough total points in the entire draft to match the 1800 of the fourth overall pick.

These are all the possible trade partners for Seattle, I know we have thrown Philadelphia out there quite frequently but do any of the other teams make sense?

M's GM Jack Zduriencik expected to hire two members of Brewers staff

Larry Stone is reporting that Zduriencik is bringing Tony Blengino and Tom McNamara with him to Seattle. Stone claims that Blengino “has a strong background in statistical analysis.”

Dave over at U.S.S. Mariner posted this link to an article about Blengino’s view on statistics in his "Thoughts From Milwaukee" piece.

This isn’t what I would call a strong background in statistics, but it’s hard to see this hire as anything other than encouraging. Hopefully it is the first of many good hires, and a move towards more progressive thinking.