SEATTLE — The night before the first round of the 2023 NFL draft, Pete Carroll had a hankering, and then a hunch. On his way to Popeyes, the Seattle Seahawks head coach stopped at a red light near the fast food restaurant and saw an Illinois license plate on a car in front of him.
Funny, Carroll thought, because he had just been thinking about Illini cornerback Devon Witherspoon, who along with Alabama outside linebacker Will Anderson Jr.
was one of the two highest-rated defenders on the Seahawks' draft board. Seattle is 1,900 miles away from Illinois' western border, so you can imagine Carroll's surprise when he pulled into the drive-thru and found himself right behind another car with an Illinois plate. «I thought, 'Whoa, what kind of sign is that?'» Carroll told Seattle's Sports Radio 93.3 KJR-FM. "… The fact that it all came through, what the heck, all those mock drafts, all those times, I should've just looked at the cars in front of me.
I would've figured it out." Few mock drafts, if any, predicted Seattle would take Witherspoon with the fifth pick. Many had the Seahawks going with quarterbacks Anthony Richardson or Will Levis.