Doing a 2026 mock draft before the 2025 season has even kicked off may seem like a fool’s errand, but I have to admit that ESPN's Field Yates nailed his selection for the Seattle Seahawks. If Mike Macdonald has the chance to add Texas linebacker Anthony Hill, Jr. to his defense, the pick will be in before Roger Goodell has the chance to make a bad joke.
I live in Maryland, smack dab between the Washington Commanders and Baltimore Ravens. That means I see those teams play. A lot. When Seattle chose Macdonald as its head coach in 2024, the first thing I did was begin matching up defenders.
I didn’t necessarily assume the coach would try to build an exact copy of the Ravens’ defense that was so good for him in 2023. But I did look for similarities.
How does Texas LB Anthony Hill fit the Seattle Seahawks’ defense?
Macdonald inherited a better version of lineman Nnamdi Madubuike in Leonard Williams. He had a younger Marlon Humphrey in Devon Witherspoon. But he was still missing several key ingredients to create a fast, versatile, aggressive unit that can attack an offense all over the field.
Heading into his second season as coach, Macdonald is addressing those holes. The emergence of Brandon Pili and possibly Quenton Bohanna gives Seattle a more natural nose tackle who can tie up blockers and collapse the interior of the line. That was a key to Macdonald’s defense in Baltimore.
The move to draft Nick Emmanwori gives him a big, fast all-field defensive back with the potential to dominate from the back end of the defense. The Ravens have the best in the league at doing that in Kyle Hamilton. Emmanwori has a ways to go before reaching that level, but that is where his ceiling could take him.
Even if Pili and Emmanwori thrive, there is still one huge piece missing. As good as Ernest Jones IV was for the Hawks last season, he is not Roquan Smith. Roquan Smith may have been the most integral part of that 2023 Ravens' defense.
Anthony Hill, Jr. could be that player. If anything, he is a little bit bigger and faster than Smith, and he has shown the instincts needed to play in the middle of the field. Hill, like Smith, uses those instincts and his great lateral speed to make plays all over the field.
He does his first job – filling holes on runs – very well. But that 4.5 speed allows him to chase down ball carriers from sideline to sideline and get to the quarterback, to the tune of eight sacks along with more than 100 tackles in 2024. In Baltimore, Smith didn’t record many sacks because Macdonald doesn’t like to blitz a lot. He runs plenty of games with his four primary pass rushers, but rarely sends extra men.
If he adds a player like Smith to his defense, it will be interesting to watch if the coach begins to bend that philosophy a bit.
Like Smith, Hill is also solid in pass coverage. He essentially patrols the middle of the field and cleans up anything that makes it past the line. Or behind the line, as he did to current Seahawk receiver Tory Horton in Texas’ shellacking of Colorado State early last season. The Rams tried a screen early on to their best outside threat and Hill was on him before he could take a single step.
Or watch his seven tackle/two sack performance against Oklahoma. Or his sack and pick six against Louisiana-Monroe. Doesn’t matter what you ask him to do. Anthony Hill Jr makes plays.
Seattle’s current linebacking tandem of Jones and Tyrice Knight is solid. So was the secondary heading into this offseason. That didn’t stop Macdonald from snagging Emmanwori because of his playmaking ability. That is exactly what Anthony Hill, Jr. would add as a linebacker.
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