The first round is hardly everything. But it is the single biggest thing in the NFL draft. And it's one thing the Seahawks haven't done very well during the otherwise highly successful tenures of coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider.

The Seahawks are scheduled to pick 21st in the first round Thursday. Even the shyest snow leopard at the Woodland Park Zoo is aware that Seattle wants to trade down to acquire more picks, because at the moment they have four, fewest in the NFL and in club history. It's a result of borrowing against the future, a draft principle Schneider was loathe to violate, but did so anyway.

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Amid the welter of metrics, backhoes and rubble that were part of a media tour of the rapidly shrinking KeyArena Thursday, one factoid stood out -- 44 million pounds.

That's the weight of KeyArena arena's roof. Preserved as a historic civic landmark, it must remain while the new home of Seattle's 2021 NHL expansion franchise is installed underneath.

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John Schneider was on the phone with owner Paul Allen in April 2012, just after the Seahawks in the third round of the NFL draft selected Russell Wilson, a highly successful but vertically challenged college quarterback.

"So you took the little guy, huh?" Schneider recalled Allen saying.

"‘Yeah, I did. I did, Paul. We did. We did. Uh, yeah."

Allen hung up. Schneider handed the phone to coach Pete Carroll.

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From the perspective of successful football business, here's the best thing about the Russell Wilson contract extension:  He's the main reason the Seahawks have a +269 point differential in the fourth quarter since 2012, best in the NFL.

Best thing about the deal from fans' perspective: They are spared from the specter of Wilson playing on what amounts to a series of three consecutive one-year contracts (this season plus two via franchise tags) that would have kept 12s in tinfoil hats, speculating conspiratorially whether Wilson's play choices or decisions to avoid contact were "business decisions" to save himself or to improve his personal stats at the expense of the team's best interests.

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Among the high highs and low lows in the life and career of Tiger Woods, the lowest may have come four years ago at Tacoma's Chambers Bay. Not the lowest psychologically, emotionally, physiologically or professionally. The lowest below the surface of the earth.

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Sweep your eyes across the Seattle spring sports landscape, and prepare to have them spinning spirals. Not long after the Washington Huskies won a game in the NCAA men's basketball tourney for the first time since the Great Permian Die-Off, the Mariners and Sounders started seasons nearly spotlessly, while the Seahawks in their off-season are running scared.

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What we know with high confidence regarding the 10-2 start to the 2019 Mariners season, best in club history and tops in MLB:

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Unlike the highly visible, decade-long media hype and angst around Mariners star Edgar Martinez, Seattle's most recent pro athlete to receive his sport's highest honor, Jack Sikma's moment found him alone in his Eastside home. He was watching the livestream of a game in Germany's Bundesliga Basketball League featuring his son, Luke, who a year ago was named the BBL's most valuable player.

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Jack Sikma, who in 1979 helped lead the Seattle SuperSonics to their only NBA championship, has been selected for induction to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA., a source told Sportspress Northwest. The official announcement will be made at 9 a.m. Saturday PT (ESPN2) in Minneapolis, site of the Final  Four.

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The Mariners are doing it wrong. Starting the season with the best eight-game record in club history is backward. To paraphrase Tom Hanks' character in A League of Their Own, there's no winning in tanking.

The Mariners set out in 2019 to be bad in order to be good, someday. Mortifying as was the decision to back off being competitive, especially for fans 22 and under who have no real recall of a live baseball playoff game in Seattle, there was a certain logic trading away expensive yet serviceable players for the hope of more talented prospects.

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Finally, we can officially engage in the the biggest Seattle sports story of 2019 -- the football future of Russell Wilson.

Perhaps you thought the biggest story was the Huskies making the NCAA men's basketball tournament for what seems like the first time since Marv Harshman had dark hair. Or what the KeyArena roof will do floating above Seattle Center in a windstorm. Or the Mariners becoming the most accidental good team in MLB history.

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If you are puzzled about the Mariners' first week, imagine how it must be for the Red Sox. They came to Seattle as defending world champs, then stumbled out of town with pants below, well, their red socks. Had the Mariners not trotted out an injured reliever Friday night, Boston would have lost all four games.

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As sweet introductions go, the Mariners' home opener Thursday was right up there with chocolate meeting peanut butter. Either that, or it's a step-back season for the world champion Boston Red Sox.

A team with zero expectations met a team with every expectation. So, of course, the Mariners won 12-4 (box) while blasting Chris Sale, one of the game's best pitchers. Big deals are not supposed to be made of such early anomalies. But since it happened during the home opener, caution and restraint are legally set aside for giddiness and whimsy.

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To the Mariners' more casual followers -- whose numbers grew exponentially after news that the club was taking a "step back" from their torrid 21st century pace of one playoff season per generation -- the easy assumption would be that the 2019 season has been given over to youngsters for development.

That view would be scored: E-fans.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- For as much as fans thrill to the memorable upset, the NCAA Tournament is filled with many more routine routs of the sort witnessed Sunday at Nationwide Arena.

Tourney seedings expose the many layers of college basketball, even among the 68 teams that are, more or less, the best of the 330-plus outfits eligible to participate in the amusement.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- As someone who freely admits he's "49 going on 14," Mike Hopkins at the moment is all Disneyland, horse rides and slip-n-slide. In his second year as a college basketball head coach after a two-decade apprenticeship, his giddy meter has pinned the needle.

"We're in March Madness playing against North Carolina," he said, beaming, Saturday afternoon. "I mean, is there anything better?"

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The wheels weren't exactly coming off. But as Washington's 12-point halftime lead shrunk to 54-53, a few lug nuts seemed to be visible on the Nationwide Arena floor. After a grim first half, Utah State was making its run in the NCAA Tournament opener.

That's when the lessons of December paid off.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- For a gregarious guy who has been to 18 previous NCAA Tournaments as an assistant coach at Syracuse, Mike Hopkins was unusually low-key, maybe even tense, as the Huskies head coach lingered Thursday here around a milestone  -- Washington's first appearance in the Big Dance since 2011.

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Two ways to look at the University of Washington's first appearance in the NCAA men's basketball tournament since the simpler days, back when the FBI wasn't the the principal force in college basketball.

From 30,000 feet: Sunday's selection marks an astonishing accomplishment, given that two years ago, following a 9-22 season and the firing of coach Lorenzo Romar, the program looked as bleak as Australia's Outback in The Road Warrior.

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The Seahawks' latest free-agent signings include a couple of relative old-schoolers who combined to play only 15 games last season. Brought back was LB K.J. Wright and brought in was LG Mike Iupati, both of whom had injuries sufficient to have their hires bear question marks.

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