With the NFL season officially coming to a close this past weekend, many Oregon Ducks fans are excited to watch their top players from last season find new homes during the 2026 NFL Draft.

While most of the attention is geared towards star tight end Kenyon Sadiq this offseason, there is another name that is starting to receive first-round hype before the big day.

In his most recent mock draft following the conclusion of the 2025-26 NFL season, Bleacher Report’s Brent Sobleski had the reigning Super Bowl Champions selecting Oregon star safety Dillon Thieneman with the No. 32 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

“The Seattle Seahawks' secondary may undergo a significant overhaul this offseason, with Coby Bryant, Riq Woolen and Josh Jobe set to enter free agency,” Sobleski wrote. “Mike Macdonald's defense blossomed in 2025 and earned its standing as the game's top-scoring unit. By adding a talent such as Oregon's Dillon Thieneman, the Seahawks can retain significant flexibility within their defensive scheme, particularly after Nick Emmanwori's emergence.”

Prior to spending the 2025 college football season with the Ducks, Thieneman had an incredible two-year run with the Purdue Boilermakers, recording 210 tackles, nine pass deflections, six tackles for losses, and six interceptions.

His elite play enabled him to enter the transfer portal in 2024, which ultimately led to him landing at Oregon last season.

Luckily for Lanning and the Ducks, Thieneman continued his dominant stretch of play this past year. In 15 games, the prolific defensive back tallied 96 tackles, five pass deflections, three tackles for losses, and two interceptions. Thieneman also finished as PFF’s 6th-highest graded safety across the entire FBS landscape in 2025.

While many draft experts have projected the young safety to fall to the second round, there is a possibility that the Seahawks could pull the trigger on Thieneman with the last pick of the first round.

Seattle was able to land star defensive back Nick Emmanwori in the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft, who quickly proved to be a franchise-altering playmaker as a rookie. Pairing Thieneman with a young, blossoming safety like Emmanwori would give the Seahawks an electric secondary unit, which also includes cornerback Devon Witherspoon.

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