Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, but I’ve always been an Arnold Ebiketie guy.
Way back in the
2022 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks headed into the second round with picks No. 40 and 41 with their eyes on a pass rusher. As you can probably guess, my personal preference was for Arnold Ebiketie out of Penn State. It seems like the Atlanta Falcons agreed with my assessment at that time as they traded ahead of the Seahawks to pick No. 38 and selected Ebiketie from right under John Schneider’s nose. Reading John Boyle’s wonderful behind-the-scenes article from that draft gives us some insight on how the draft room reacted.
4:27 p.m.
The Giants trade the 38th pick to Atlanta, and the Falcons select Penn State’s Arnold Ebiketie, one of the players in a cluster of remaining prospects at the top of the board, a group that also includes Boye Mafe.
The room deflates a little, but as long as Mafe survives the next pick, the Seahawks will be in great shape.
The wording of that last sentence would lead me to believe that Seattle would’ve chosen Ebiketie over Boye Mafe, whom they would eventually select. At the time, I was writing for a different publication and heard from a good source that the Seahawks were somewhat split on Ebiketie vs Mafe. Apparently, Pete Carroll wanted Ebiketie while then-defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt liked Mafe. Of course, we never got the chance to find out since Atlanta sniped Ebiketie from the Seahawks.
All these years later and I still can’t quit Ebiketie. Just for fun, let’s look at a career comparison between Ebiketie and Mafe.
Mafe has more sacks and way more tackles, so there’s no contest here, right?
Check this out.
Let me draw your attention to the snap counts on defense. Mafe has played nearly 36% more snaps than Ebikietie up to this point. If we do a little math, extrapolating Ebiketie’s sack numbers out to the same snaps as Mafe, he would have 19.5 sacks.
Both players have also had an underwhelming start to the 2025 season.
The snap count disparity is even more glaring as Mafe has more than doubled Ebiketie’s total. While Ebiketie always had a lower snap count, it’s down from his average this year due in large part to the EDGE competition in Atlanta which includes 2025 first-round picks Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr along with veteran Leonard Floyd. The Falcons also have Bralen Trice, but he’s still on IR with a knee injury.
That’s a lot of mouths to feed, particularly with two first-rounders. Ebiketie, like Mafe, is in the last year of his rookie contract and would be a free agent in the offseason. As such, he might not command a huge offer to bring him in. It just so happens that Ebiketie might be available.
Here’s the excerpt on Ebiketie from the ESPN article.
To me, Ebiketie is a better pure pass rusher than Mafe. My description after the 2022 NFL Draft was that Ebiketie was a pass rusher who also happened to be a good athlete whereas Mafe was a good athlete who also happened to be a pass rusher. Ebiketie has such an explosive first step.
Maybe Ebiketie would only be relegated to a pass rush specialist if acquired by Seattle.
So what??
If he can consistently get in there and harass the opposing QB, he’d be worth the mid-to-late round flier it would cost to acquire him. You can’t tell me that he’d have less of an impact than Connor O’Toole, who is still on the 53-man roster. Ebiketie has played special teams in past seasons, so that shouldn’t be an issue.
Yes, this is a bit of a pet project of mine wanting to see Ebiketie in Seattle. After the season, you could decide between him or Mafe on who should be kept for the future. It’s quite possible that Ebiketie would be a better fit for Mike Macdonald’s defense than Mafe has been. Seattle has already traded with the Atlanta Falcons this season, so we know John already has a connection. Let’s make this happen and solve one of the Seahawks past draft mysteries!
