THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: A week from draft, and there's still no clue on these Seahawks

One week, and counting.

Yep, that’s when the Chicago Bears go on the clock.

Or maybe not.

The Bears could trade the first pick in the 2024 NFL Draft to, well, somebody — and whoever winds up with that selection will take USC quarterback Caleb Williams.

Or maybe not.

OK, I’m kidding that the No. 1 pick could be someone other than Williams.

For sheer talent, judged by a gazillion metrics and the still-critical eyeball test, along with more interviews in the neighborhood where he grew up than you’d find for a CIA undercover agent’s application, Williams has lapped the field.

And one thing will never change.

Success in the NFL depends on your quarterback.

Period.

For instance, consider an unlikely scenario.

If a team that already has a legit QB1 — say, Kansas City or Baltimore — somehow wound up with that first pick, I promise we’d see one of the more spectacular auctions in NFL history.

Quarterbacks mean everything, as the Bears can tell you.

They’re not only choosing their QB1 in the first round for second time in three years (Justin Fields, No. 11 overall in 2021), they’re dragging around the horrific legacy of bypassing Patrick Mahomes for Mitchell Trubisky (No. 2 overall after trading up one spot in the 2017 draft).

Hmmm.

Whatever happened to that Mahomes guy?

WE ARE now officially into “Rumor Week,” when guys off the street (and some bona fide professionals) insist they know every team’s choices, round by round. 

Once all this crazy yada-yada gets going, by the way, it’s almost impossible to stop it.

Want an example?

Let’s say there’s a rumor that a hotshot defensive end has had a couple of poor personal interviews with team bosses and, even without a shred of proof, this guy will begin to drop in mock drafts.

Then he falls to No. 23 in the REAL draft, costing him a Brink’s truck full of money.

Team personnel will swear they’ve never started or encouraged any kind of gossip, but it’s so, so easy to tweak the answer to a harmless question in a media scrum.

That gets the ball rolling, and there’s no goalie to halt the chatter.

Fans want answers with the draft looming, so some character in a coffee shop fills in the blanks.

Erroneously.

You’d hope that the football people in each team’s war room wouldn’t pay a lick of attention to rumors.

But are they?

That brings us to John Schneider, the Seahawks president of football operations.

(FYI, it was so much easier to just to describe John as the general manager, but there’s a new plate on his office door with Pete Carroll gone.)

Schneider is a great guy, which is hardly the image of a ruthless personnel executive.

He can handle it, though, and the funny thing is that other teams — and the public at large — can’t ever figure out if Scheider is fudging the truth.

He enjoys making everyone wonder.

Something to remember this year with Carroll gone is that Schneider now has the final call, although he’ll working closely with coach Mike Macdonald and an army of scouts.

We don’t know if Seahawks drafts over the past decade-plus reflected Carroll’s veto power (and personal calls on talent), or if Schneider has always been the top honcho on personnel calls.

Maybe we’ll learn something about that next weekend, as well.

BACK IN the day somewhere, I wrote a magazine story about an NFL scout, and I made a couple of trips with him to various schools.

This scout was a super guy, and a genuinely good time when around personnel people from other teams.

They’d invariably bump into each other on the road, share dinner and a few cold ones, and talk about the players they’d seen.

They were earnest and interesting.

They were also lying.

In other words, Schneider has been super enthusiastic about landing quarterback Sam Howell, a gunslinger type who will run, throw off schedule and to hell with the consequences.

Howell led the NFL in sacks and interceptions playing for a hapless, three-win team in Washington, and you wonder if Schneider, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and the Hawks staff might believe they can polish this diamond.

Schneider’s mentor in Green Bay, Ron Wolf, basically stole reserve QB Brett Favre from Atlanta a draft choice.

Those guys both know quarterbacks.

Could that mean, though, that Howell is simply a safety net on a rookie contract, available if something happens to Geno Smith?

That would suggest the Hawks are still on the hunt for a generational QB1?

Players like that are hard enough to find, but if you see things in a free agent like Howell, or potential draftee that other teams are missing, you have to take a shot.

But you certainly wouldn’t say so, not out loud.

Seahawks fans are dying to know if Schneider and Macdonald might draft the next QB1.

Geno could tutor the new boy for a year or two.

But hey, don’t look at me.

I’m just guessing, too.

Or maybe not.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”