Seahawks 2025 draft: Kam 2.0? Predicting Nick Emmanwori’s rookie season

The Seahawks traded up in the second round to land the South Carolina safety. What can he do as a rookie?

If you watched the John Schneider and Mike Macdonald press conference after the opening round of the 2025 NFL Draft, you could tell that there was definite excitement about the prospects still on the board. It didn’t take long when the Second Round opened for the Seattle Seahawks to make a big move up the board to select South Carolina Safety Nick Emmanwori at No. 35. He’s an athletic freak whom the coaching staff is eager to carve out a role for on the defense.

Athletic Profile/Comps

Relative Athletic Score (RAS)

Mockdraftable

Whew…I might need a moment after looking at this athletic profile.

If only Emmanwori didn’t have small hands, his Mockdraftable chart would be even more impressive! That should be expected after Emmanwori was literally the best-testing strong safety ever according to RAS. We’re talking ELITE athleticism on a big frame. This is with the obvious caveat that he didn’t participate in any agility testing. Maybe he wouldn’t have performed as well on those tests and that’s why he didn’t do them? Even so, let’s not lose focus on his historic combine showing.

Emmanwori’s comps are littered with some worrying names, particularly Obi Melifonwu who appeared on both the Mockdraftable and RAS lists. He was another ultra athletic safety, yet was out of the NFL after a few seasons.

Derwin James also appeared on both lists, so let’s look at that one a bit closer.

Emmanwori is bigger, faster, and more explosive than James, only falling a rep short in the bench. James gets dinged on his agility scores, possibly a cautionary tale for Emmanwori in his reasoning to not do those tests. There were rumors that the Seahawks would’ve drafted James in 2018, but he didn’t make it to their pick.

A few other comps to look at just for fun are former Seahawks Legends.

Both Josh Jones and Tanner Muse started off on other teams before eventually making their way to Seattle as depth players, with Muse transitioning to LB in the NFL. Jones, like James, had poor agility testing. Muse may be even more impressive since he was a star in every test except vertical. Clearly, the hope is that Emmanwori is closer to Derwin James than Josh Jones or Tanner Muse as a player – and ideally even better than James.

Gut reaction to the pick

Need I say more?

Nick Emmanwori was my favorite player in the entire draft. Truthfully, part of that is simply his athletic profile in combination with excitement about the way that Mike Macdonald will potentially use him. There’s a lot of trust and belief there.

Seattle’s front office and coaches obviously feel the same way since they packaged No. 52 and No. 82 in a trade with the Tennessee Titans to move up to No. 36 in order to select Emmanwori. John Schneider said that they had him graded similarly to Zabel and considered trading back into the first round to secure him. They weren’t interested in waiting around too long on the second day to see Emmanwori go off the board.

It’s not like Emmanwori is just a good athlete, he’s good at football!

Emmanwori led South Carolina with 88 tackles while also snagging four INTs and returning two for defensive TDs.

I’ve always had a soft spot for safeties and Emmanwori is no different. I love, love, love this pick. I suggest checking out this behind-the-scenes draft video to get a better look at the person behind the player.

Rookie season prediction

You may think that since I’m so high on Emmanwori, I’ll predict a Defensive Rookie of the Year kind of season. In reality, I think it will take some time for him to find a clearly defined role in Mike Macdonald’s defense. I have the utmost faith that Macdonald will cook up something awesome and put Emmanwori in the best position to flourish…it may just take a while.

Emmanwori will start off in the dime and nickel packages and that’s where he’ll stay in his rookie campaign. He’ll show his value as a matchup defender against TEs and will make a handful of plays that showcase his jaw-dropping athleticism, a mark of things to come. Let’s say Emmanwori ends up with 40 total tackles, 1.0 sack, 1 INT and 5 passes defensed. That may not seem like great production for a second-round pick but remember that Kam Chancellor spent his first season mainly on special teams. Emmanwori’s development could chart the same course and the wait will be worth it.

He’s already doing his best to ingratiate himself with the 12s!