John Schneider made the most momentous NFL draft pick of the 2010s surrounded by telephones, swiveling chairs and people who questioned him. Schneider, the then-40-year-old general manager of the Seattle Seahawks, knew precisely what he wanted to do in the third round of the 2012 draft. Months earlier, he’d called head coach Pete Carroll and raved about Russell Wilson. Come April, Schneider was “hell-bent” on drafting him. But the coaching staff, according to a source who was in the room that day, wasn’t so sure.
“Well, you know, he’s short,” the source recalled Carroll saying.