The Seattle Seahawks desperately need to shore up their pass rush heading into the 2020 season. A unit that featured Jadeveon Clowney, Ziggy Ansah and Jarran Reed was led in sacks by Rasheem Green, who had just four.
Clowney, Ansah and Reed are all free agents, and while Seattle will certainly try to get at least Clowney back, it’s no secret this team has some serious shopping to do in order to effectively get to opposing quarterbacks in 2020.
The NFL draft is almost certainly going to be an area where Seattle looks to upgrade off the edge, and while this year’s class is not as strong as the 2019 group, there are still a handful of players the Seahawks could look to in the first round, should they keep their pick at No. 27 overall.
One of those is Yetur Gross-Matos, an edge defender out of Penn State University who Bucky Brooks of NFL.com mocked to the Seahawks in his latest first round projections.
Gross-Matos declared for the draft back in December, and is considered one of the five best edge defenders in the class. He had an extremely accomplished career at Penn State, recording 94 tackles, 17 sacks and 34.5 tackles for loss in his final two seasons with the Nittany Lions.
He is an explosive athlete off the edge who, with some refinement in his technique, could become an elite NFL pass rusher. Most scouts think he’ll take a year or two to acclimate to the NFL game, which may not be ideal for the Seahawks, but a player with his athleticism and explosiveness off the edge might be just what the doctor ordered for this Seattle squad.
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