Injuries.

In a poll of Seahawks fans last week, I asked the question:

“If the Seahawks miss the playoffs, the biggest reason will be (fill in the blank)”

In the words of Steve Harvey, “Number one answer…”

Too Many Injuries.

Seaside Joe Community’s Top-4 Answers:

1. Defense suffered too many injuries: 45.6%

2. Brian Fleury experiment failed: 33.7%

3. NFC West too tough: 12.2%

4. Sam Darnold reverted to Jets days: 5.4%

Out of the six possible answers I gave you, “Defense suffered too many injuries” ended with a healthy (ironically) lead over “Brian Fleury experiment failed”.

I specifically point to defense, not offense or the entire team, because maybe that side of the ball has more suspects, unfortunately.

The average age of the defense is roughly two year senior the offense; Nick Emmanwori is already on the mend; Julian Love and Devon Witherspoon also both missed games last season; linebackers Uchenna Nwosu and DeMarcus Lawrence playing in almost every game was a little bit out of character.

An injury to the wrong player on offense could also be devastating, but less so if the defense and special teams is as good as they were in 2025.

In Seattle’s most injured game to the defense last season, Week 5’s loss to the Buccaneers, the Seahawks allowed 38 points and 426 yards.

Whether or not the defense has good depth is something to be determined when the games get real.

It’ll have to be proven by rookies, players who didn’t get to prove themselves last year like Rylie Mills and Jared Ivey, as well as vets like Noah Igbinoghene, Dante Fowler, and D’Anthony Bell.

If the Seahawks do miss the playoffs, taking too many hits on defense is a reasonable assumption. But if the Seahawks lose a lot of snaps to injury and do make the playoffs, it’s a reasonable assumption that Mike Macdonald should be the Coach of the Year.

And speaking of coordinators, the pressure has been on Fleury since the day he was hired.

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Macdonald says he’s been learning from Fleury this year, Sam Darnold calls him “even-keeled” and “consistent”, and Grey Zabel is excited to start blocking the run for him.

In the worst case, not as many fans think Fleury would be a problem as those who believe it would be injuries, but the offensive coordinator got a lot more votes than any other options.

Just 12% of you think the NFC West is “too tough” despite sharing a division with the Super Bowl favorites and a 49ers team that fell one win shy of the number one seed last season. But just because a third-place NFC West team made the playoffs last year, it doesn’t mean that one will this year.

Do we think that the Seahawks will miss the playoffs?

No. 68% of you believe Seattle will be better than they were last season:

But in the event that missing the playoffs does happen, as it could to any team (most definitely including the Rams), I wouldn’t be shocked if a tougher division and a tougher schedule was the culprit.

The Lions went 9-8 last season and finished in last place, the Packers went 9-7-1 and made the playoffs out of the same division.

Finally, in the realm of “some votes”, Darnold holding back the team took just over 5% of the votes.

I threw in “Hard Knocks distractions” just to see how many fans actually think it’s a curse (only 2.4% of you believe it could be), but the biggest surprise of all was how much expectations have changed for the Seahawks offensive line.

Only 2 people voted that “the offensive line” would be the reason for Seattle missing the playoffs.

How many times in the last 15 years would that option have won the poll in a landslide?

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I considered putting other options too, like “not enough skill player depth”, as the players other than Jaxon Smith-Njigba still do have a lot to prove compared to 2025. I think that’s fair. A game without JSN would be a huge test for Darnold, Fleury, and Rashid Shaheed, among others.

What options should I have included? Or is it pretty much injuries or Super Bowl?

Let me know what you think in the comments, unless voting was saying enough.

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Seaside Joe 2707

Nobody thinks the Seahawks would be better without Witherspoon. Some fans think that the roster could suffer if $30 million per year was wrapped around a cornerback, or they’re worried Witherspoon isn’t durable, or they question if he can shut down any receiver in the NFL like Richard Sherman.

One thing nobody questions is Seattle’s ability to manage the salary cap.

Seahawks criticized for free agency

If the Seahawks had “kept the band together” by re-signing the top four free agents who departed (the media never mentions how Seattle re-signed Rashid Shaheed, proving that they were okay with paying certain players), they would have had to commit a total of $155 million to them.

That’s an average total contract value of $40 million for Kenneth Walker, Coby Bryant, Boye Mafe, and Riq Woolen.

Players with an average age over 27.

On the surface that may not sound that bad, but what would actually be happening would be that the Seahawks would be committed to paying those players the most money in a year or two, when they’re roughly 30.

Instead, John Schneider targeted rookie replacements in the first three rounds of the draft, reinforced by value veterans.

The one exception to that rule, edge defenders, Seattle clearly feels as though the year they’ve spent with Jared Ivey, Connor O’Toole, and Jalan Gaines has upgraded those players from “undrafted free agents” to being better than a third or fourth-round pick.

By not paying players after the Super Bowl for what would have only felt like “for the sake of it”, the Seahawks gave themselves options.

• They got younger.

• They extended Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Derick Hall.

• They can afford more extensions.

• They won’t swallow the real cap hits of those contracts in 2027

And to those really paying attention to how Seattle won 14 games and the Super Bowl, the Seahawks don’t seem worse for free agency. If anything, their future seems better.

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Here were the four major player/contract swaps that the Seattle Seahawks made in 2026.

RB

Kenneth Walker III: 3 years, $43m, $28.7m guaranteed

Jadarian Price: 4 years, $16.8m, fully-guaranteed

If there was one free agent loss who truly tilted the field last season, it was Walker. This was even more apparent in the playoffs and Walker’s increased snap count because absent that unfortunate break for Zach Charbonnet, there’s little chance there would have been so much attention on Walker’s exit.

Because in the regular season, Walker had a 46.8% share of the snap count, including 10 games when he was under 50% and only one game when he was over 57%.

Walker’s highest snap count and season-high for touches both came in the Super Bowl. If Charbonnet had been healthy, there would have been no need for that.

As good as Walker is at improvising, which he probably still doesn’t get enough credit for, it’s still only as a running back who was regularly around 11 or 12 rushing attempts per game and without adding much in the passing game.

I don’t know what the Chiefs are expecting, but if it’s 20 rushing attempts and 5 receptions per game, that’ll be news to the Seahawks.

Instead, the Seahawks shift the investment at running back to a player who is signed for one more year than Walker (two, if you include the fifth-year option), is three years younger, and has almost no tread on his tires.

Whether or not Price is actually good, we don’t know. That’s the risk.

There’s also risk with signing Walker as a free agent. Seattle reinforced the move by also signing Emanuel Wilson, and also hoping that George Holani will be a worthy option as well.

The flexibility comes with the contracts.

2026 cap savings: $2.6 million

2027 cap savings: $14.8 million

Walker’s cap hit goes up to $18.6 million in 2027, which was what actually deterred the Seahawks from extending him. Both Schneider and Mike Macdonald expressed calm about Walker’s departure in free agency, with “other options out there” as the main reason for it.

Kenneth Walker will always be a legend in Seattle for the Super Bowl. That doesn’t mean Price can’t write his own legacy, if not a better one.

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S

Coby Bryant: 3 years, $40m, $25.7m guaranteed

Bud Clark: 4 years, $7.8m, $5.5m guaranteed

Bryant intercepted seven passes in the last two seasons, but I have a feeling that those turnovers will just transfer over to the next safeties in Macdonald’s defense. Between Julian Love, Ty Okada, and Nick Emmanwori, the Seahawks are already in the conversation for having the best safeties room in the NFL (depending how you position Emmanwori) and that’s before you get to Clark.

Not only did Schneider draft Clark in the second round as a player who could surpass Okada and Bryant in value to Seattle’s defense, the Seahawks also signed Rodney Thomas II and D’Anthony Bell.

The Bears were desperate to improve their safeties room, signing (I’d say “overpaying”) Bryant and drafting Dillon Thieneman in the first round, so it makes sense that Seattle couldn’t match their enthusiasm for an upgrade. The difference in cap space is substantial this year, but absurd next year.

2026 cap savings: $4.5 million

2027 cap savings: $15.8 million

Bryant becomes a $17 million safety in 2027. I can’t imagine any offensive coordinator or quarterback gameplanning around Bryant, which is the type of safety I’d expect to make that much money. With as much talent as there is around safety on defense, expect more errant balls to go towards Okada and Clark next season.

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CB

Riq Woolen: 1 year, $12m, fully-guaranteed

Julian Neal: 4 years, $6.7m, $1.3m guaranteed

Woolen expects to be better in Vic Fangio’s defense and maybe he will be.

But I wonder…If you were defensive of Woolen during his Seahawks career after he gave up a touchdown or earned another penalty that extended the other team’s drive, would you still feel like “he’s worth it” if you re-watched those games today?

Now that Woolen is no longer on the Seahawks, does it feel easier to say, “I’m kinda glad he’s gone”?

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Woolen signed a one-year contract but the cap hit is spread over two seasons: He has a $3.4 million cap hit in 2026, but then an $8.6 million cap hit in 2027, when Woolen will be a free agent again.

2026 cap savings: $2.2 million

Julian Neal comes with a cheap four-year rookie contract, but he’s been missing practices with an injury and that’s never good for your first training camp. Who knows how Neal’s career will go or not, but Seattle also reinforced this position with a veteran: Noah Igbinoghene ($1.7m salary, $500k guaranteed).

By not signing Woolen to the same deal that Philly did, the Seahawks also save over $7 million in cap space in 2027. Josh Jobe was a much smarter signing and as long as Witherspoon sticks around, still gives Seattle their two starting outside corners. It’s hard to imagine how keeping Woolen would have made the Seahawks better because it’s past the time to find out how the defense can do when they have a full year without him.

OLB

Boye Mafe: 3 years, $60m, $19m guaranteed

Dante Fowler, Jr.: 1 year, $2.5m, $500k guaranteed

The one case where the Seahawks went older, not younger. But in Schneider’s defense, Seattle is essentially replacing their fourth-best edge defender with someone who could be their fourth-best edge defender, and in the process they save $14.5 million in immediate cap space.

Mafe’s $17 million cap hit with the Bengals this year is unusually high for the first year of a contract specifically because Cincinnati doesn’t trust him.

2026 cap savings: $14.5m

2027 cap savings: $21.3 million (depending who Seattle signs)

The Bengals only gave Mafe $19 million guaranteed, giving him one year to prove himself after a disappointing season with two sacks. Mafe flourishes or flounders, and if he fails then the Bengals spent that much more money on a one-year contract than Seattle did for Fowler.

Could be that Fowler goes the way of Connor Williams or Jahri Evans, a “remember him?” Seahawks moment. But with as much money as the team is saving on these bets, the Seahawks can always take more swings—bigger swings—because they played it safe.

2026 cap savings total: $23.9 million

2027 cap savings total: $52 million

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Seaside Joe 2706

The ravings of a madman? No.

The ravings of many madpeople. Over 200 Seahawks fans so crazy…they just might be right.

Seaside Joe ran a 12-question survey this week for Seahawks fans, ranging from topics like training camp expectations to 2026 predictions. The point isn’t to find out what will happen, it’s to compare notes on what we think will happen. Because it should matter to us what other fans think.

Fans know more than the media does.

Don’t Miss: This week’s COMPREHENSIVE Seahawks training camp report

I’ve already covered a couple of your survey results this week, like who will win certain position battles. Now let’s move onto how you feel about Seattle’s individual standouts.

The Seahawks didn’t win the Super Bowl solely because of top-end talent, but largely because of depth and a lack of many weaknesses. The media is questioning if that holds true after Seattle opted (keyword: “opted”) to part ways with players like Kenneth Walker III, Coby Bryant, Boye Mafe, and Riq Woolen.

The skeptics are looking backwards. The fans who are crazy about the Seahawks are looking ahead.

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Barnyard Earns Yards

After paying him $42 million per season, Smith-Njigba is firmly seated atop Sam Darnold and Brian Fleury’s priorities on the Seahawks. But the question of “Who comes next?” was never firmly answered in 2025.

Cooper Kupp was second on the team in targets (70), which was still 93 fewer than JSN. Barner was next at 68, but over 16% of those opportunities came in one game; Barner had zero targets in Seattle’s wild card win over the 49ers and although the game was a blowout, could you imagine a world in which a priority WR/TE was left out of the game plan?

Then Rashid Shaheed entered the picture, but his targets over the last six games went: 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1.

It’s not surprising that once pressed to choose one player who would end up as the Seahawks’ number two receiver that fans couldn’t come to a consensus.

Who is most-likely to have 2nd-most receiving yards?

• WR Rashid Shaheed (41.6%)

• TE A.J. Barner (37.2%)

• WR Tory Horton (17.7%)

• WR Cooper Kupp (3.1%)

• TE Elijah Arroyo got 1 vote

With a belief that Shaheed will become a featured component of Fleury’s offense after a full offseason of workouts and practices with Darnold (not to mention $18 million per year on a new contract), fans gave him the slight edge over Barner. Not a big enough edge to think that there aren’t plenty of Barnheads in the Barnyard.

Barner finished with 519 yards last season, but Fleury does come to Seattle with a reputation as a tight ends-forward coach. After all, San Francisco’s best receiver (besides the running back) is the tight end.

Shaheed barely made a dent in the Seahawks passing offense last season, but Albert Breer noted that Fleury sees him as a bit of a “Deebo Samuel” type. I’m reminded of the Jimmy Graham situation, when the once-a-star tight end became noticeably more comfortable in Seattle’s offense in years 2 and 3, compared to year 1, even if he was never the same as the Saints’ Jimmy Graham.

Per John Boyle:

Then there’s the player who was actually second on the Seahawks in receiving yards last season.

Cooper Kupp only got 3% of the vote, which if this were Kalshi or one of those prediction market betting apps, I would put money on in a hurry. (This is not a sponsorship, I’ve never used one of those apps and I never will.) It’s not that I think Kupp will be second on the team, but only 3%? I mean, not only could he do it, but if the Seahawks lost JSN for any period of time then I would bet on Kupp to become Seattle’s WR1 while he’s out.

He’s the most qualified for it.

With Horton, you’re definitely gambling on his upside, the “what if?” equations, but as the depth chart currently stands he’s going to struggle to get a starter’s worth of snaps. Kupp hasn’t looked any worse for his age in training camp and the Seahawks are still paying him $13 million to stick around this season. That wasn’t just out of respect.

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So Barner didn’t quite win this vote. Could he win the next?

Unfortunately for him, he had almost the exact same roadblock but with a different Seahawks skill player.

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One genuinely good practice could be followed by two undeniably bad days. One session that a player wishes he could have back could be followed by three days of perfection.

The Seattle Seahawks have just complete four days of training camp. What have we learned so far?

What We Learned From the First Four Days of Seahawks Training Camp

It’s not a remake, it’s a reimagining

The Seahawks don’t expect to just repeat what they did last year and win the Super Bowl again. Instead, Mike Macdonald’s messaging to the team and through his first couple of press conference appearances is a fresh twist on existing IP, so to speak.

It’s not so different than the current state of the film industry and Hollywood’s lack of original ideas, but fear of the word “remake”.

“One of the messages of the team right now is, you know, this is a new team,” said Macdonald to the press this week.

“I’m different than I was this time last year, I’m different than I was at the end of last season. 30 percent of our roster is probably different. We’ve got changes on our coaching staff. We’re all kind of new people here in this situation, which by definition makes us a new team too.”

Between offensive coordinator Brian Fleury, several new assistants, and some notable departures, Macdonald’s not wrong that Seattle won’t look exactly the same as last year. However, he may also be exaggerating how different the Seahawks will look, at least superficially.

Seattle has virtually the exact same starting lineup from 2025, minus a change at running back, in all three phases of the game, making the Seahawks remarkably similar to last season. Aside from a few competitions that could inspire lineup changes at some point, Macdonald won’t be able to avoid the comparisons to Seattle’s Super Bowl team.

But he’s implying that he’s tweaking the formula, updating the system based on how players have changed from last year (some are going to be better, others are going to be slightly less able to do the things they used to do), and treating 2026 like a brand new team.

That idea has gotten through to the players, according to some other press conferences this week:

Julian Love: “It could be real easy to be like, ‘Let’s keep on going what we did last year—the same theme, same whatever.’ But we are dialed into just building it up how we want to build it up for this year….The ideas, those pillars we had last year, it’s like, okay, do we want to create new ones? Do we want to have that same kind of umbrella, but really think differently about what makes it up—who we are in this current day?”

“We want to shape this thing and learn it, start from ground level, and incorporate everybody along.”

Jaxon Smith-Njigba: “There’s been a new energy, just kind of a fresh start….We want to create a new story with this upcoming season because we have different guys in the building. Unique story, unique challenge. The Super Bowl was great. Love to have it, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to brush that off to the side. No one really cares once we line it up, first snap this season.”

Cooper Kupp: “You don’t want to fall into this idea that just because something worked that it was the best way of doing things. At the same time there’s the balance of knowing that if something did work that it’s best not to fix something that was working. So treat this like every other year.”

You can’t deny how much this version of the Seahawks is like the last one: Kenneth Walker is the only player who had more than 55 snaps on offense who isn’t on the roster anymore, Coby Bryant and Riq Woolen are the only notable departures on defense, and everyone except for Dareke Young is back on special teams.

However, repeating can feel impossible because champions don’t reinvent themselves. They don’t know how to be great in a way that is unpredictable.

The mission statement to returning players is to act like you’ve been there before, but continue to develop your skills as if you could still be better.

Training Camp Standouts

Jadarian Price can do even more than expected

First-round rookies almost never fly under the radar, but Price had kind of been an exception for a few reasons. One being that not a lot of analysts projected him to be a first-round pick unless it was Seattle at 32, which is what happened. He’s not going unnoticed anymore.

Price is one of the early standouts in camp, especially as it pertains to his previously questioned skillset as a receiver.

Ernest Jones on Seahawks rookie RB Jadarian Price: “He’s good man. He had a helluva route on me today. I think he’s gonna help us.”

According to all the reports I’ve read this week, Price has repeatedly earned praise for areas that often determine whether a rookie running back can play immediately: receiving, pass protection, preparation and maturity. He has shown that he can contribute to the passing game rather than functioning only as an early-down runner. Jalen Milroe found him for a sizable gain Tuesday when Price got behind safety Maxen Hook, another example of his ability to become involved beyond conventional handoffs.

Macdonald has said Price can do almost everything: “He’s doing a lot of great things in pass protection, which I appreciate.”

Ernest Jones praised his maturity. Practice reports have highlighted his receiving and protection work. These are the responsibilities of a starting running back that could earn Price more snaps in September than was previously expected in May, based on the start of camp.

This does not mean that Price has won a three-down competition, by any means. Bob Condotta reported this week:

“Third-year player George Holani is typically still the first back in the lineup when the No. 1 offense takes the field, followed by Price and free-agent signee Emanuel Wilson.”

There is also the Zach Charbonnet question that will linger into the middle of the season and how he eventually fits into the committee. Macdonald said the staff is studying what each back can do so that players can be placed into the proper roles. Price’s versatility gives the coaches more options, and because of his potential to be a better receiving weapon than Walker, the Seahawks may end up giving him more touches than most expected.

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Rashid Shaheed ready for larger, more sophisticated role

Breer reported that the staff loves Shaheed’s elusiveness in addition to his straight-line speed and could use him on gadget concepts similar to some of the ways San Francisco used Deebo Samuel.

“And having Brian Fleury come over from San Francisco—which is where 2025 OC Klint Kubiak migrated from as well—has helped, in that he’s getting some continuity after working in a bunch of different schemes early in his career.

What’ll be interesting is how Shaheed helps the team to preserve Cooper Kupp a bit, with Kupp also likely to be battling tight end Elijah Arroyo and fullback Robbie Ouzts for snaps as the team works through different personnel groupings.”

I assume Breer probably means more of the 2023 Deebo (900 receiving yards, 225 rushing yards) than the 2021 version (1,400 receiving, 365 rushing) but that would still be an amazing return for the Seahawks given how little Seattle ended up using Shaheed on offense last year.

But as a trade deadline acqusiition, that limited the team’s ability to build specialized concepts around him. With a full offseason, his confidence has reportedly grown, his timing with Sam Darnold has improved, and the coaching staff has gained a better understanding of how to use him.

Shaheed can stretch the field vertically, but the more revealing information from camp is that Seattle does not view him solely as a deep threat; Seattle may attempt to manufacture touches for him through motion, screens, misdirection, handoffs and other concepts that force defenders to locate him before the snap.

There haven’t been a lot of direct quotes about Shaheed in camp, but Macdonald sung his praises last month:

“Rashid, he deserves a lot of credit. He’s been here the whole time. He’s had a great attitude. He’s had a lot of personal records in our offseason training program. The timing of our plays look like it should, given the amount of reps that are invested into it. I know I’m as excited as heck to see where it goes.”

Shaheed is really a 1-of-1 “gadget” in Seattle’s offense and I don’t use that term in a derogatory way. He’s arguably the most “Kyle Sahanahan” weapon on the offense because of his speed and versatility, and he will take pressure off of JSN and Kupp while opening up underneath options for Darnold by taking the top off the defense.

One of the big questions before camp was how much better Shaheed could be if he worked on his timing with Darnold, and the early returns on camp indicate that chemistry won’t be an issue anymore.

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Jalen Milroe’s stock steadily rising

I don’t think there’s a single Seahawks fan who dislikes Jalen Milroe, but many have questioned if he’s an NFL quarterback or another mid-round pick drafted for “upside” who will wash out in a few years. Well, if you’re looking for an answer to which way he’s leaning, you won’t get it today, or next week, or probably next month.

But at least most people who were there agreed that Tuesday was Milroe’s best practice in the NFL so far.

Bob Condotta described it as one of Milroe’s best passing practices of his young NFL career. Milroe rolled out and threw a touchdown to Cody White during seven-on-seven work. He later moved left and fired a strong pass to Eric Saubert. He connected with Price for a sizable gain and threw another red-zone touchdown to Ricky White III.

It was perhaps enough to balance out his interception to end practice on Modnay, if not put him back in the conversation as one of the most exciting prospects on the roster. He also has a fan named Cooper Kupp.

“He’s doing a great job. I think that first year there’s a lot happening, the amount of thinking that’s going on, he’s settled in and letting it rip, which is. awesome. Letting balls go with anticipation that he wasn’t last year and that’s been pretty cool to see.”

I’ve heard “throwing with Anticipation” cited as the most important trait in a quarterback by more than a few former NFL starters, so that’s perhaps the most encouraging report of Milroe’s camp thus far.

But it’s still so early in camp—pads have not come on yet and the first week is notoriously good for receivers because of how little the defensive backs are allowed to do—that the context of Tuesday’s practice still matters.

That being said, Milroe’s goal isn’t to dethrone Sam Darnold (sorry, Mike Salk). It’s to get a little bit better everyday. He’s done that in camp so far.

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Ricky White III’s quiet ascension

Speaking of Milroe, several of his best plays came on passes to White, the second-year receiver who I’ve often cited as my dark horse to make the roster and have an impact on special teams. Condotta specifically said on Tuesday that White is having a “strong camp” and he was also shouted out by John Boyle.

He caught a red-zone touchdown from Milroe on Tuesday, another feather in the cap for Seaside Joe subscribers who are debating this week whether Seattle will keep a WR6 and if it could be White.

White needs to prove that he can create separation, execute assignments, contribute on special teams and remain reliable when opportunities come from quarterbacks lower on the depth chart. Milroe should play the majority of snaps in the preseason, and White could end up being his WR1.

Will that be enough to make him WR6?

D’Anthony Bell taking advantage of opportunity

With Nick Emmanwori’s surprise inclusion on the PUP list to start training camp, Bell has taken over as the big nickel with the starters, and so far he seems to have done better than anticipated based on all the reports I’ve read.

Julian Love described Bell as “real, authentic to who he is, a true pro” and noted that despite being asked to do a lot, he’s smart enough “to do everything”. Love also called him a natural playmaker with a knack for getting around the football, whether through interceptions or forced fumbles.

The Seahawks took the risk to waive Bell late last season, which led to him joining the Carolina Panthers prior to returning in the offseason. Love said teammates were genuinely hurt that Bell was no longer with them and described his absence as one of the disappointing parts of the playoff run.

Breer added that Emmanwori’s absence is allowing Seattle to explore roles for Bell and Tyrice Knight because Emmanwori effectively performs duties associated with both safety and linebacker. I am still really intrigued by Knight, but Bell’s worst case scenario if he makes the roster is that he’s one of the best players on special teams.

And in Emmanwori’s worst case scenario, D’Anthony Bell could be starting against the Patriots in Week 1.

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We aren’t even close to done with what’s happened in the first four days: More Rookie Reports beyond Jadarian Price; new injuries and updates on old injuries; the latest position battle news; and so much more.

The surprising 7th round pick …

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• 81 votes for Ricky White III

• 78 votes for Emmanuel Henderson

• 74 votes for Irv Charles

With Charles being in third place and only trailing first place by seven votes, we could flip these results by merely reaching another few dozen Seahawks fans. Or by polling the 53 people—not too shabby either—who voted for Cody White and asking them to pick one of the top three instead.

All this competition and yet when over 200 of Seaside Joe’s readers combined to make a 53-man roster last week, Seattle only kept five receivers.

We know the Seahawks are going to keep at least five receivers and we know which five receivers they are going to keep: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Rashid Shaheed, Cooper Kupp, Tory Horton, and Jake Bobo. JSN, Shaheed, and Kupp (who turned heads early in camp with a one-handed catch) perfectly fit the mold of a trio you’d want starting in an 11 personnel (3 WR, 1 TE, 1 RB) offense.

Behind those three, Horton has already proven effective as a fourth receiver when healthy and Bobo serves the role of an emergency option and a good teammate who also plays a significant part on special teams. Seattle’s wide receiver room could stop right there and be one of the best in the NFL.

However, the Seahawks kept six receivers out of camp last year and had a fondness for Dareke Young, who followed Klint Kubiak to the Las Vegas Raiders. By trading for Charles and drafting Henderson in the sixth round, Seattle hasn’t been shy about sharing their cards with an intention to find a Young replacement.

It still doesn’t mean that they’ll feel forced to pick one at final cuts.

It’s sort of like when a show loses its main actor, like when Steve Carrell left “The Office”, you know that the network has to find a replacement of equal measure, even if filling those shoes is actually impossible.

But when a show loses one of its many side characters, or they just become unimportant (Jan, Ryan, Roy, or whatever Rashida Jones’s character was named), finding a replacement may not be necessary. Or you could luck into a minor character later down the line who is way more awesome.

That’s sort of where the Seahawks are at with their battle for a sixth wide receiver heading into camp:

Do they have their “Nate” in camp right now, a receiver who could not only replace but out-do Dareke Young? Or will nobody stand out enough to earn a spot while Seattle looks content to keep two fullbacks on the roster?

To paraphrase Michael Scott: “If I had a catch phrase it wouldn’t be ‘You’re fired’. It would be ‘You’re hired. And you can work here as long as you want.’”

As a whole fans have not decided between the three receivers most likely vying for that spot, all three earning this opportunity because of their work on special teams: The rookie (Henderson), the veteran (Charles), and the wild card (White III).

Can we break this tie today?

For what it’s worth, the voting didn’t work out like this when we did our 53-man rosters. In those results, Henderson was on 33% of rosters, Charles was on 22%, and White III was on 13%. For some reason it has flipped and now White III has a slight lead.

Even funnier, when we ranked 90 Seahawks, Henderson was 57th, Cody White was 62nd, Charles was 67th, and White III was 76th, Are we now overcompensating for Ricky White because he didn’t win before?

Share your theories in the comments:

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Bryce-capades

Again the results are inconsistent with previous polls.

Cabeldue failed to make the 53-man roster, whereas Kight and Richman were both voted to be among Seattle’s 10 offensive linemen on the roster. Are we now voting for Cabeldue because we assumed that this was how he could get onto the 53-man roster too?

Because even when I ran a follow-up poll asking for your favorite bubble player, Cabeldue was only in the mix for second place:

And Cabeldue ranked 72nd in the 90-player ranking. That’s lower than Kenny McIntosh, a player who got waived on Monday. (Yes, he got waived because he can’t stay healthy.)

Maybe fans are feeling a little wary of potentially losing Cabeldue at final cuts, but you can see as well as I can that the Seahawks will be forced to release players who they don’t want to lose. This year they have more than 53 players worthy of being kept.

I’m still not sure where Seahawks fans stand now: Is Cabeldue now ahead of Richman and Kight, or is it overcompensation?

Of course, it’s still way too early in camp for anyone to have a good opinion here. We’re going to circle back on everything—the 53-man roster, the 90-man rankings, and these questions—a month from now and see how these results look towards the end of camp.

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Will Crimson Tide ebb or flow?

Milroe, who threw an interception at the end of practice on Monday (coincidentally I stumbled onto a tweet almost one year ago to the day of Milroe throwing a practice pick-six to Nick Emmanwori), was on 78% of your 53-man rosters last week. That’s already not very encouraging for a third-round pick, but it’s not horrible either.

Keeping a third quarterback in this day and age suggests a strong belief by the organization that the player will develop into a starter or a really good backup.

However, that support took a significant hit when I framed Milroe’s safety with the context of a bad preseason: Only 56% of Seahawks fans were still confident that Milroe should be on the roster if he struggles next month.

I’ll also take some blame here. The wording of the question and the somewhat arbitrary four other options I gave could have skewed the results a little.

However, it’s still clear that many Seahawks fans, perhaps as many as half, expect to see obvious progress from Milroe in the preseason compared to last year. It’s always impressive to be the best athlete on the field in a preseason game, but that doesn’t make that player an NFL caliber quarterback.

The other half may look to a player like Malik Willis, a quarterback who the Titans traded to the Packers after two underwhelming seasons but has since shown glimpses of brilliance, and think now is way too soon to give up on Milroe.

While a bad preseason may not sink Milroe, a great preseason could force the Seahawks to trade Drew Lock instead.

Patty’s Dub

If forced to choose only one defensive player from this pack of four players on the bubble, 34.6% of Seahawks sided with Patrick O’Connell as a fourth linebacker over Nehemiah Pritchett or Connor O’Toole, players who tied with 78 votes apiece.

Andre Fuller wasn’t that close, but nevertheless a solid showing from a seventh-round rookie who is a longshot to make the roster.

Could anybody really stand out after one or two days of practice without pads? Michael Dansby—not an option here—did intercept Milroe on Monday. But the answer is basically still no. It’s not that noteworthy to stand out at the very beginning of training camp; some players will stand out for the entirety of camp and preseason and still not make the roster.

That being said, standing out is not necessarily just an opportunity to make Seattle’s roster.

This is especially true when Hard Knocks is filming your practices and for a lucky few, your off-field activities. We’ve seen bubble players throughout the years who will be featured on Hard Knocks, get cut, and build careers elsewhere in the league. Perhaps most famously, Danny Woodhead stood out in 2010 when the Jets were on Hard Knocks, he got cut, and then later did his part in torturing the Jets as a member of the Patriots.

It could make it harder for the Seahawks to get certain players through waivers this year. Standing out may not prove as difficult as staying on.

Who are some of your favorite Seahawks who stood out in training camp/preseason but didn’t make the final roster?

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Seaside Joe 2703

My lying brain remembered the Seahawks getting their asses kicked by the Rams in Week 11 and that Seattle was lucky just to get a last second field goal off that may have won it anyway. Watching the game again this week, I remembered that the Seahawks won all of these categories except for one:

4 interceptions. That’s it. The Seahawks won time of possession 37:49 to 22:11 and lost. That only happened four times last year and two of those teams did it against the Rams.

Coincidentally or maybe not, the Seahawks, Rams, and Ravens were all involved in two of these four games last season when a team lost despite dominating time of possession. Seattle and Baltimore both had dominant defensive performances against L.A., but lost because of turnovers.

Even with four interceptions by Sam Darnold, the Seahawks still could have beaten the Rams in Week 11 if they had not squandered so much time off the clock in the fourth quarter. Seattle’s defense pitched a perfect game after the first quarter and yet this was probably the team’s low point in clock management.

It wasn’t just that Darnold threw too many picks and Jason Myers doesn’t quite have the leg from 61 yards in that situation, it was a team effort from coaching decisions to players not getting out of bounds that cooked the Seahawks by the end. And yet the defense is so good that Seattle still almost beat the Rams in their first meeting of the year.

As I wrote on Sunday, the Rams aren’t just a good team. They’re allegedly the “best team in the NFL”, both then and now, according to many.

That’s not quite how I see the Rams and that was even apparent when they beat the Seahawks last season. I’ll cover a few reasons why today.

First, a couple of obligatory mentions of games that were exciting but not necessarily that interesting or relevant beyond the obvious.

2025 season recaps so far:

Week 1 - 49ers

Week 2 - Steelers

Weeks 3/4 - Saints, Cardinals

Week 5 - Bucs

Weeks 6/7 - Jaguars, Texans

Week 16 - Rams

NFC Championship - Rams

Seahawks 38, Moons 14 (condensed game)

Seahawks 44, Cardinals 22 (condensed game)

I re-watched both of these games as well, as I am a completist with no skips. However, what’s there really to say other than I hope the Seahawks continue to play like this more consistently next season.

Seattle came back from their bye week to beat these teams by a combined score of 82-36. Take the two games before the bye week (20-12 Jaguars, 27-19 Texans) and the Seahawks have essentially suffocated four teams in a row and only allowed them breathing room because of turnovers by the offense.

The Seahawks got out to a 28-0 first half lead against the Moons (all four touchdowns were passes by Darnold), which was 38-7 by the end of the third quarter, and it’s still unfortunate that Dan Quinn didn’t pull Jayden Daniels from the game at the time.

Although I still don’t think Quinn did anything wrong, aside from not having his team ready to be competitive even when they were at home.

And unappreciated in the grand scheme of highlights, Ty Okada made one of the best catches of the year by any player, offense or defense.

Darnold went 21-of-24 for 330 yards, and he had this really awesome pitch to Zach Charbonnet as he was getting sacked that speaks to his underrated improvisation skills, which makes me wonder what the best case scenario for him would be if the Seahawks actually tailored their entire offense around padding his stats. But by the next week, it was DeMarcus Lawrence doing all the scoring.

A week after taking a 28-0 lead, the Seahawks topped themselves by getting out to a 35-0 lead against the Cardinals, in a game that saw Michael Dickson punt zero times. Seattle also became the first team since 1978 to score at least 44 points while only throwing 12 or fewer passes.

The bounces were so fortunate that the Seahawks could run the ball 46 times despite not running the ball that well, and turn it over three times, and still pull their starters in the fourth quarter. Darnold threw an interception five minutes into the third quarter so Seattle said “to hell with that” and 22 of their last 23 plays were runs.

The Seahawks had more kneeldowns in the second half of this game than they had passing plays.

I’d love to say that games like this are repeatable but this truth is closer to “sometimes it’s just your day”. A week later, it wasn’t.

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Rams 21, Seahawks 19 (condensed game)

At one point in this game, commentator Kevin Burkhardt says that special teams is “the one advantage that Seattle has in this matchup”. I can’t recall what people thought of L.A.’s defense at the time, but that statement just seems ludicrous right now.

The number one defense isn’t an advantage?

Again, maybe I’m misremembering how people looked at these two defenses, but the Rams were starting players like Darious Williams, Emmanuel Forbes, Omar Speights (who is still starting by the way), and Cobie Durant at the time. L.A.’s entire offseason was built around replacing many of those players. The Seahawks will also be replacing defensive starters, but not for the same reasons.

The Rams have even looked at some of their good starters, like Jared Verse, and decided that they could and should do better, trading him for Myles Garrett. They will also have to bench a starter on the defensive line if they sign Aaron Donald.

Then the Seahawks force a turnover on downs on L.A.’s first possession, only surrendering points a few minutes later because Darnold threw an interception in Seattle territory.

While this goes down as a loss, it could also be Seattle’s most impressive defensive performance of the entire season. Going against the number one offense—on the road—the Seahawks completely locked the Rams down after their third possession:

Following a 74-yard touchdown drive (that needed a fourth down conversion), the Rams punted six times, lost a fumble, and scored a touchdown on a 25-yard drive that again followed an interception by Kam Kinchens. Were it not for those two picks in particular, Seattle would have held the Rams to seven points. They also held a 128-1 yards advantage in the second quarter; 128-1.

The Rams had four first downs after the first quarter. Four. They had 105 yards in the last three quarters and averaged 3.6 yards per play. After the game, Chris Simms called the Seahawks “the better team on the football field” in spite of Darnold’s interceptions.

We can’t say “if Darnold didn’t throw those picks” because those plays count too. But the Seahawks defense was so incredibly dominant that day that were it not for Darnold’s picks overshadowing everything else, people would have better understood just how big of a threat Seattle was—and continues to be—to win the Super Bowl.

This is also the game where Jaxon Smith-Njigba did this:

Foreshadowing the one-handed sideline catch that he’d later make against the Rams in the NFC Championship.

I will also point out that Tyrice Knight was impactful in all three of the games I mentioned today. Knight is a dark horse to be Seattle’s biggest redemption story of 2026.

And as we saw in Seahawks-Rams, it’s never too late for redemption.

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Seaside Joe 2702

Then why are the Rams “unprecedented” Super Bowl favorites at +550 odds to win the next Lombardi Trophy?

It doesn’t matter to me if the Rams are favored and the Seahawks are not. When the quality of the Seahawks is undervalued and their presence in the media’s predictions of success is underrepresented—which is most of the time—I don’t get emotional and I don’t care if L.A. happens to be Seattle’s biggest rivals right now.

It’s the reasons for favoritism that pique my curiosity. Reasons that could apply to any team, it just happens to be that this year’s ‘flavor of the offseason’ is the L.A. Rams.

Earlier this year, I wrote about a writer at NFL.com giving the Seahawks a D+ for their offseason moves. I just disagree with the premise, as I did when ESPN’s Bill Barnwell ranked Seattle 32nd for their offseason in 2022, and I find the reasons to be lazy.

Reading the articles is like taking an “NFL 101” class. “Who spend most money? Me like them most.” When will the media’s top NFL professors start teaching advanced courses?

It’s frustrating, but personally I don’t get frustrated because it’s the Seahawks constantly at the losing end of basic analysis. Keeping in mind that Seattle’s general manager has experienced one losing season in the last 14 years, and that was the year that Russell Wilson got injured, we rarely see analysts attempt the inverse equation of grading:

If John Schneider does it, and the Seahawks are always in the playoff hunt, does that mean that the moves that Seattle makes could be the better way to do it?

That statement sounds far more glazified than I want it to, but it still holds true that nobody seems to be looking back at how the Seahawks won the Super Bowl—value signings, special teams domination, trade deadline additions for middle-round picks—to find Super Bowl-winning answers.

The majority instead crowns the next team to win the Super Bowl…which is apparently the Rams, according to many…and praises them for a job well done before a single game has been played. The Rams made headlines in the offseason, but so many things could go wrong and they barely addressed any of their true weaknesses from last season.

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That doesn’t mean that L.A. couldn’t win the Super Bowl, and we’ve seen Sean McVay coach lesser Rams teams to the playoffs. From the very start of Saturday’s 12-question survey for Seahawks fans, the one true blowout race is “Who is Seattle’s biggest threat to earn the number one seed in the NFC?”

The Rams have over 90-percent of the vote so far and only one other team is above one percent:

Rams: 204 votes (90.7%)

Lions: 16 (7.1%)

49ers, Bears: 2 (0.9%)

Eagles: 1 (0.4%)

“Other” has gotten zero votes. So that means the Rams got 204 of 223 votes thus far, and you can continue to vote in the survey today if you missed out.

So you also feel that the Rams are probably Super Bowl favorites, if it’s not Seattle, and that’s fair because nobody else came close to upending the Seahawks during their championship run last year. I just happen to think that although their moves were flashy and could work, there are more weaknesses than you see at first glance. Issues that got overshadowed by headlines.

And if the Rams follow in the footsteps of some other “overwhelming offseason favorites” like the 2003 Bucs, 2009 Patriots, and 2010 Colts, they could fail to even reach the second round of the playoffs.

This is not a Rivals thing

This has nothing to do with Seaside Joe being a Seahawks newsletter and the L.A. Rams being Seattle’s main rivals.

I’d still feel this way if it was the Patriots or the Bills or the Eagles or the Lions being favored, if they were the teams that had traded for Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie and expecting to get Aaron Donald at some point. I don’t care that it’s the Rams, although it does feel like so many people picked the Rams to beat the Seahawks in key games last year—which they lost—that they’re not quite over it yet and so they’re doubling down now.

I do care that the praise—as it would be for any team—is so basic, predictable, and short-sighted. For many, they don’t see any holes on the Los Angeles Rams going into 2026.

For me, I see more than one.

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I’ve created a 12-question pre-training camp survey for Seaside Joe’s Seattle Seahawks fans, plus a bonus write-in question at the end. The last bonus 13th question will require a write-in answer but just write “N/A” or whatever you want if you don’t have an answer.

It should only take two minutes to complete, you’ll get to see all your answers after you hit submit, and I’ll post the average results at Seaside Joe next week. Find out where your opinions fall among the crowd:

Take Seaside Joe’s 12 Questions Survey

As always, I ask fans to NOT BE AFRAID to take a survey just because you might not know the right answers: The point of the survey is that you DON’T know the right answers. Nobody expects any of us to have the right answers about things that may or may not happen.

Just listen to your gut and take a leap of faith—we’re all going to be wrong about a lot of things. The reason for the survey isn’t to be right, it’s to look back in a month or six months and see what we got wrong.

This is one of those times where it’s better to be wrong than right.

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Seaside Joe’s 2,700th straight day of Seahawks

That’s right, today is the 2,700th day in a row that I’ve posted at least one newsletter about the Seahawks. That’s over 3,500 newsletters about your favorite team since 2019 without missing a day. If you want a newsletter about your favorite team—with breaking news and analysis that goes directly to your e-mail—join the plentiful free section by entering your e-mail address.

Or sign up for $5 per month or $55 per year to get 100-percent of the Seahawks newsletters. If you get the yearly plan today, you’ll be guaranteed over 365 newsletters between now and the start of 2027 training camp.

I’ve reviewed the top-15 NFL newsletters at Substack, including this one, and not only is $5/month the lowest price by at least $2-$3, but nobody else comes close to posting 30 full articles about their team every month. Seaside Joe is the most unique value in the space.

Plus you get to join in the community’s comment section if you’re a paid member. Super Joes “founding member” subscribers will get to ask questions or share their Seahawks takes in the weekly Q&A.

If you think you know a Seahawks fan who would like Seaside Joe, share the newsletter with them or get them a yearly plan as a gift.

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Seaside Joe 2700

Sorry to all the writers who have been making 53-man rosters on their own and thinking that’s good enough because we’ve just set off a nuclear bomb in the middle of every Seahawks 53-man roster prediction that’s ever been made by doing it just like Mike Macdonald does things:

As a team.

First, we ranked all 91 players on the Seahawks and saw what those results implied about Seattle’s roster.

Next, we made our own 53-man Seahawks rosters and the turnout was even greater.

The time for talk is over. Let’s see what Seattle’s 53-man roster looks like when hundreds of us work together on it, so either find a bunker to avoid the fallout…or enjoy the fireworks.

The percentages next to their names is how many rosters they appeared on.

Seahawks 2026 53-man Roster Projection

QB (3)

Sam Darnold (100.0%), Drew Lock (89.2%), Jalen Milroe (78.0%)

RB (3)

Jadarian Price (100.0%), George Holani (100.0%), Emanuel Wilson (91.4%)

FB (2)

Robbie Ouzts (95.7%), Brady Russell (89.8%)

WR (5)

Jaxon Smith-Njigba (100.0%), Rashid Shaheed (100.0%), Tory Horton (99.5%), Cooper Kupp (98.9%), Jake Bobo (98.9%)

TE (3)

AJ Barner (100.0%), Elijah Arroyo (100.0%), Eric Saubert (92.5%)

OL (10)

Charles Cross (100.0%), Jalen Sundell (100.0%), Abraham Lucas (99.5%), Grey Zabel (99.5%), Anthony Bradford (95.7%), Beau Stephens (94.1%), Josh Jones (83.9%), Olu Oluwatimi (67.7%), Amari Kight (51.1%), Mason Richman (48.9%)

DL (6)

Leonard Williams (100.0%), Byron Murphy II (100.0%), Rylie Mills (100.0%), Jarran Reed (99.5%), Brandon Pili (64.5%), Mike Morris (64.0%)

OLB (5)

DeMarcus Lawrence (100.0%), Derick Hall (100.0%), Uchenna Nwosu (97.3%), Dante Fowler Jr. (94.6%), Connor O’Toole (49.5%)

LB (4)

Ernest Jones IV (100.0%), Drake Thomas (100.0%), Tyrice Knight (97.3%), LB Patrick O’Connell (48.4%)

CB (5)

Devon Witherspoon (100.0%), Josh Jobe (100.0%), Julian Neal (99.5%), Noah Igbinoghene (83.9%), Nehemiah Pritchett (51.1%)

S (4)

Nick Emmanwori (100.0%), Julian Love (99.5%), Bud Clark (99.5%), Ty Okada (97.8%)

Special Teams (3)

Jason Myers (100.0%), Michael Dickson (100.0%), Chris Stoll (99.5%)

PUP: RB Zach Charbonnet

There you have it. That’s what a 53-man Seahawks roster looks like when you aggregate that many fan submissions, and I have to say…it looks awesome to me. Everybody’s going to have a different opinion about what the biggest “flaw” is with this 53-man roster (and we’ll get into it) but that’s also why we did this exercise.

What did you notice right away? Tell me in the comments:

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How the Bubble Worked

If there had been any egregious numbers at a position, I would have been compelled to ignore someone’s percentage and replace him with someone who is currently on the outside looking in to fix it. I didn’t see that however, so I felt it safe to simply keep the players with the most votes.

One Missing Piece: Gunner

The one glaring missing piece for me would be “Who is the gunner on special teams?” which probably points to Irv Charles and Emmanuel Henderson, neither of whom was at the top of the “just missed” list.

Special teams is the area that everybody else ignores, but as I wrote last month when I tried to project the coverage units, we won’t do that at Seaside Joe. That being said, special teams still looks great on this 53-man roster and we don’t know yet who might stand out as a gunner in training camp.

Last Man In: Patrick O’Connell

It works out perfectly that not only is O’Connell the player who barely made the cut, but he also fills a role as a fourth linebacker and a key special teamer. The difference between O’Connell, Amari Kight, Mason Richman, Nehemiah Pritchett, and Connor O’Toole was miniscule, but they all made it in. The next four players right below them were off by only a few rosters.

That’s how close this consensus ended up being for the top-60ish players on the roster.

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Other Changes, Top Bubble Players

This 91-man roster is highly competitive and the players who just miss the cut could be sought after by Seattle’s rivals in the NFC West. O’Connell beat these top bubble players out by a few votes, and then we’ll talk about the players who were on over 20% of rosters, then on 1-19% of rosters, and then the six who didn’t make it on any rosters.

How cool would it be if one of those six made the team?

Top Seahawks Bubble Players:

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The highly-intelligent and stunningly attractive community at Seaside Joe came together this week to join me in ranking all 91 players on the Seahawks. (Because the team has since released tight end Harrison Bryant with an injury designation, we’re down to 90 players left from this list, not including recent addition Brandon Johnson.)

The results may surprise you. I know that the placement of Sam Darnold certainly shocked me. Number one? Not so fast.

When I ranked Darnold first overall this week, I assumed I was doing right by the community. After all, Darnold had easily won the Tournament of THE Champions, so even though I personally would have picked Jaxon Smith-Njigba, I figured I was doing this for us. Boy was I wrong because Darnold wasn’t first in the consensus ranking of the 91-man roster.

Darnold wasn’t even second.

Even though Darnold was ranked first the most times (44.4% of ballots), it turned out that voting for a QB can sort of have those Ricky Bobby “If you’re not first, you’re last” vibes: Everybody who didn’t vote for Darnold first ended up spreading their rankings of him out around the remaining top 10.

And because JSN ended up getting so many votes for first (35%) and second (40.7%), the end results were not even close:

Smith-Njigba easily outpaced Darnold with an average ranking of 1.96 to 2.98.

And he wasn’t the only one ahead of Seattle’s quarterback in average score. Because Leonard Williams got 16.6% of first place votes, 33.3% of second place votes, and 40.7% of third place votes, he was also comfortably ahead of Darnold.

Essentially, because JSN and Williams were mainstays in the top-three, Darnold getting the most first-place votes didn’t help him that much as he was also regularly getting placed outside of the top-three, with one fan ranking him as low as 12th.

To that person I say, “Cool your J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets.”

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Some other important findings before we look at the full list:

• Big drop-off between 4 and 5

• Bryant ranked 80th, so not much of a loss there

• Players 26-31 were in a dead heat

• Witherspoon and Emmanwori practically tied!

I’ll post more notes about the list after we take a look at it. You should look at it. Study it. After all, YOU MADE IT!

Every Seahawk Ranked, By Seahawks Fans

1. Jaxon Smith-Njigba (1.96)

2. Leonard Williams (2.54)

3. Sam Darnold (2.98)

4. Byron Murphy II (3.91)

5. Charles Cross (6.11)

6. Devon Witherspoon (6.69)

7. Nick Emmanwori (6.70)

8. Ernest Jones IV (7.43)

9. Abraham Lucas (7.93)

10. DeMarcus Lawrence (10.44)

11. AJ Barner (11.81)

12. Julian Love (12.17)

13. Grey Zabel (12.48)

14. Rashid Shaheed (14.30)

15. Josh Jobe (15.56)

16. Derick Hall (15.83)

17. Jalen Sundell (18.44)

18. Uchenna Nwosu (19.48)

19. Jason Myers (19.59)

20. Michael Dickson (20.46)

21. Cooper Kupp (21.26)

22. Drake Thomas (22.41)

23. Jadarian Price (23.06)

24. Jarran Reed (24.56)

25. Zach Charbonnet (25.35)

26. Anthony Bradford (28.54)

27. Elijah Arroyo (28.56)

28. Ty Okada (29.00)

29. Bud Clark (29.09)

30. Tory Horton (29.15)

31. Rylie Mills (30.15)

32. Dante Fowler Jr. (31.80)

33. Robbie Ouzts (33.56)

34. Julian Neal (34.22)

35. George Holani (34.78)

36. Brady Russell (36.76)

37. Jake Bobo (37.31)

38. Tyrice Knight (38.13)

39. Drew Lock (39.20)

40. Eric Saubert (39.85)

41. Beau Stephens (41.52)

42. Connor O’Toole (42.54)

43. Josh Jones (42.70)

44. Mike Morris (44.70)

45. Nick Kallerup (45.39)

46. Noah Igbinoghene (46.26)

47. Amari Kight (47.13)

48. Emanuel Wilson (48.65)

49. Mason Richman (49.07)

50. Rodney Thomas II (49.76)

51. Jalen Milroe (51.20)

52. Patrick O’Connell (51.39)

53. Jared Ivey (52.48)

54. Olu Oluwatimi (52.93)

55. Brandon Pili (53.70)

56. Emmanuel Henderson Jr. (55.22)

57. Nehemiah Pritchett (57.56)

58. Christian Haynes (58.52)

59. D’Anthony Bell (59.22)

60. Bubba Thomas (60.22)

61. Chris Paul Jr. (61.00)

62. Cody White (62.22)

63. Chazz Surratt (63.56)

64. Aidan Hubbard (64.57)

65. Kenny McIntosh (65.61)

66. Logan Brown (66.39)

67. Irv Charles (67.30)

68. AJ Finley (68.35)

69. Jalan Gaines (69.39)

70. Andre Fuller (70.52)

71. Chris Stoll (71.39)

72. Bryce Cabeldue (72.41)

73. J.R. Singleton (73.41)

74. Jamie Sheriff (74.50)

75. Bobby Hart (75.48)

76. Ricky White III (76.50)

77. Jacardia Wright (77.54)

78. Michael Dansby (78.61)

79. Deven Eastern (79.91)

80. Harrison Bryant (80.15)

81. Federico Maranges (81.46)

82. Marvin Jones Jr. (82.26)

83. Maxen Hook (83.56)

84. Shemar Jean-Charles (83.56)

85. Montorie Foster Jr. (85.46)

86. Tyrone Broden (86.52)

87. Uso Seumalo (87.46)

88. Velus Jones Jr. (88.46)

89. Lance Mason (89.39)

90. Ja’Markis Weston (90.00)

91. Rashad Rochelle (91.00)

NEW: CB Brandon Johnson

What do you see? What stands out to you? What do you want to say about your personal rankings and why?

Add your comments:

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If you like interactive Seahawks fan exercises like this one, or just want to support a daily newsletter about your favorite team, join the Regular Joes club. It’s only $5 per month and if you sign up for a full year you’ll get a discount at $55, plus you’ll be paid up through the 2027 offseason:

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More About The List!

Someone tanked Uchenna Nwosu

One person, I won’t say who, ranked Nwosu dead last. Everything else about the list was normal but Nwosu was 91st. Overall, this didn’t really impact his ranking, but I wonder if that was an accident or was it…murder?

Someone had Kenny McIntosh at 35

Not only is McIntosh well outside of the running back competition, he’s also on PUP and won’t be participating at the start of training camp. It’s hard to even project him for the practice squad until he returns. But he’s got a fan here somewhere: Someone ranked him 35th, which is 30 spots higher than his final average.

Jalen Milroe is divisive

Milroe was ranked as high as 40th and as low as 72nd. I’m a little surprised that Milroe’s highest ranking is only 40th—and I would bet that if we did this last year, before he ever had a training camp or a preseason game, that he would have been in some top 30s.

I think that the consensus 53-man roster we are making will reveal how many fans believe Milroe is already a failed third-round pick.

Make your own 53-man roster here!

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Jake Bobo is all over the second half of roster

Bobo was ranked as high as 27th and as low as 57th. Nobody sees Bobo as a starter necessarily, and his average of 37th shows he’s probably not seen as more than a special teams contributor. Yet Bobo signed an offer sheet from the Jags and had interest from the Patriots, so where he goes this season will be interesting to monitor. However, speaking of receivers…

Someone had Tory Horton at 7

It wasn’t who I expected it to be either. Look, the Nwosu thing is just not fair. But if someone wants to place all their bets on Horton, I’m not going to stop them. Darnold’s chemistry with Horton last season was far better than most quarterbacks with most rookie receivers.

I know I heavily influenced the back half

The best way I could think to order the players and make it easier on you was to start with my own rankings. That way you’re not dragging Williams and Witherspoon up from the bottom to the top. But I can only imagine that at a certain point many of you were like “Well, I don’t know how to rank these guys at the bottom, so I’ll stop here.”

I know that if we re-visit something like this in a month, we will all have formed much better opinions of these players.

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Other standout rankings:

• Someone had Grey Zabel 6th

• Someone had Jason Myers 5th

• Someone had Rylie Mills 15th

• Someone had Robbie Ouzts 17th

• Byron Murphy was 4th on 50% of ballots

• DeMarcus Lawrence was 10th on 55.5% of ballots (most consensus pick)

• Devon Witherspoon had the 2nd-most votes for 4th and 5th, but also had the most votes for 9th

I apologize that I didn’t create a page that allowed you to read and save your list, that’s something I regret that I changed for the 53-man roster. If you submitted your name and want to have your list, let me know. If you didn’t submit your name, then I may not know which submission was yours.

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Seaside Joe 2698

Simply CLICK HERE and enter the Seaside Joe 53-man Roster Creator and select the 53 players you want to make the final roster. When you’ve chosen 53 (don’t cheat: you must include the longsnapper, etc) players you click “submit” and you will see your own 53-man roster projection!

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Big Question: “Where is Zach Charbonnet?”

I removed Charbonnet from the tool because as a player on PUP, he will almost certainly bypass final cuts and go directly to PUP/IR to start the season. So Charbonnet will be on the roster, but he won’t be on the initial 53-man roster.

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With this first-of-its-kind tool, we can:

• Find out who is on 100% of rosters

• Who is the most divisive player on the roster?

• Which players are on the bubble?

• Which players will barely miss the cut?

• Where are the biggest surprises?

And let me tell you, there is no roster in the NFL like Seattle’s. Choosing which players just barely miss the cut may shock you, but you will gain better perspective of why certain fan favorites just don’t fit onto the roster at all.

Did you submit your 91-player rankings?

This is a follow-up to this week’s tool that allows you to rank all 91 players on the roster, although there has been one development: CB Brandon Johnson is in, TE Harrison Bryant is out.

Click here to rank all 91 Seahawks.

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Wednesday’s Latest:

In case you missed it, Wednesday’s article was an update on Devon Witherspoon negotiations.

Now submit your final 53-man roster and we’ll find out who all Seahawks fans want to make the Seahawks.

CLICK HERE and enter the Seaside Joe 53-man Roster Creator

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If that’s true then why are we still talking about Witherspoon as a player who Seattle is trying to extend instead of one who has already been extended?

“My understanding is that the Seahawks and Witherspoon have been in intense negotiations over the last several months on a deal that will almost certainly make him the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL. Currently it’s $31 million per year in new money. $32 million per year would be the new benchmark for Devon Witherspoon. Would be very surprised if a deal doesn’t end up around there for the Seahawks star. Really just a matter of the two sides agreeing on a number and getting this deal done. The Seahawks have made an extraordinary effort to try to make this happen, we’ll see if Witherspoon ends up accepting and if the two sides end up coming together and solidifying this deal.”

There’s a lot to break down in that statement from Rapoport and my initial reaction is that if the rumors are coming from anyone, it’s coming from the Seahawks’ side, because they want to tell the fans:

“Hey fans, just so you know, we’ve tried really hard and it’s not our fault.”

Here’s what stands out to me from the reports and what I would expect to happen this week.

What’s wrong with $32 million?

If the Seahawks are offering Witherspoon the most money ever given to a cornerback before, and have been trying to do that for months, then why is Rapoport still reporting rumors instead of breaking news?

Is Rapoport reporting the wrong numbers?

The media only knows how to talk about AAV (average annual value or more accurately it should be called average annual cap hit) and that makes it sound like Witherspoon is “obviously” rejecting “the best offer ever made to a cornerback”. However, the truth is not that simple. Here’s what Rapoport isn’t reporting when he reports that Seattle has offered $32 million AAV:

• What’s the 2-year cash flow?

• How much guaranteed?

• How much fully-guaranteed?

• How much is tied up in injury guarantees?

• Is the AAV inflated by a final year number that Witherspoon will never reach?

Because although Trent McDuffie did set the market at $31 million AAV, he doesn’t make the most money in the first two years. Witherspoon’s agent could be more fixated on adjusting those numbers than simply trying to get a headline about his clients (he also represents Christian Gonzalez) setting a new benchmark at cornerback.

Let’s break down the numbers even further to explore Witherspoon’s potential demands and what’s holding things up.

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Who is the best bargain of them all? The answer wasn’t easy, the competition was aplenty, and the reasons had a lot more to do than with simply looking at next year’s cap hits.

First, we have to agree on which players are not a bargain.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba is not a bargain

Although Smith-Njigba’s $10 million cap hit in 2026 is extremely beneficial to Seattle’s cap, he’s not the same as being a bargain. That’s because JSN’s $36 million in cash paid this year ($35 million signing bonus + salary) is the most by an receiver in the NFL in 2026.

Additionally, look at JSN’s "cash flow” from 2026-2028: A team-leading $93.5 million.

Nobody else is even close, although Sam Darnold will most likely surpass this number by signing an extension in 2027.

On that note, Darnold is certainly a bargain by “veteran free agent QB signings who won a Super Bowl” standards, but I can’t call him the best bargain either. While there are still rookie quarterbacks like Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels making $10 million or less, Darnold’s $37 and $44 million cap hits in the next two years don’t qualify as steals.

Other Seahawks who aren’t quite a bargain:

• Charles Cross, $60 million cash through 2028

• Leonard Williams, $29.6 million cap hit in 2026

• Rashid Shaheed, $35.5 million cash through 2027

• Uchenna Nwosu, $20 million cap hit in 2026

• Cooper Kupp, $17.5 million cap hit in 2026

• Julian Love, over $20 million cash through 2027

In Love’s case, while his cash seems somewhat tenable when he’s playing at a high level, he is also being paid as a top-10 safety. That’s not a bargain. It’s not bad, it’s just not a bargain.

Of course, this puts veterans at a huge disadvantage compared to players on rookie contracts, but some veterans could still be a bargain over the next couple of years.

Did you rank every Seahawks player yet? You can do it!

Click Here: Rank every Seahawk!

Veteran Bargains

RT Abe Lucas

Even though Lucas just signed a three-year contract extension in September, raising the bar for how good he has to be to a bargain, the Seahawks locked down their right tackle at the right time. By extending Lucas after two injury-plagued season, John Schneider took a risk and it paid off last season, as he didn’t miss a single snap except when starters were being rested.

The season culminated in Lucas being the highest-graded player in the Super Bowl by PFF.

Betting on a player when his stock is down is sort of like being a pool hustler. You let your opponent win a few by intentionally looking weak, then when he’s ready to bet it all on one game, you lose the limp and take him down.

Lucas has a $10.4 million cap hit in 2026 and $16.8 million in 2027. Those rank eighth and 12th among all right tackles at the moment. But Lucas has the upside of being a top-five right tackle and not only that, he has the upside to insure the worst case scenario at left tackle if Cross got injured. Lucas has the ability to play either side.

As vets go, Lucas is a bargain and he’s a bargain through 2027.

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OLB DeMarcus Lawrence

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The moves could have no long-term consequences, players are eligible to return from PUP at any time during training camp. However, if any of them do not get activated prior to final cuts, they will be required to miss at least the first four games of the season.

Emmanwori’s injury, which remains a mystery, must have happened during or after OTAs. McIntosh and Broden were already known to be recovering from previous injuries.

Already one of Seattle’s biggest stars, Emmanwori could not be happy about starting camp on PUP. Less than a year ago, Emmanwori was all set for his first season when he got hurt on almost the first play of Week 1 and ended up missing an entire month of experience and development. It was a setback that Mike Macdonald mentioned at the time, and now Emmanwori is dealing with something again.

It’s difficult to say how important this is because nobody outside of the organization knows what happened.

McIntosh’s place on PUP is far less surprising. The running back seems to get hurt every year and is in an uphill battle for a spot on the 53-man roster this year, a climb that just got even steeper.

Eastern and Broden also had previously known injuries. Neither is widely expected to make the final roster, but would be highly likely additions to the practice squad.

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Did you take a crack at ranking all 91 players?

In case you missed it, Seahawks fans are submitting their player rankings right now! And I can tell you that Emmanwori has landed at #3 for at least one of you, while being a regular in the top-five.

Click Here: Rank all 91 Seahawks!

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That makes you qualified to use Seaside Joe’s easy-to-use Seahawks roster ranker, featuring all 91 players on the team.

Over the past month, I’ve been ranking every Seahawk, starting at 91 and ending with the top-five today. But for me it’s not about the order. It’s about getting these 91 names seared into our brains before real training camp updates start to hit in the coming week, and then Hard Knocks, and then final cuts and practice squad signings.

I want people who read this newsletter to feel like they got as invested in Rashad Rochelle as well as they already are in Jake Bobo.

So can you do it? Can you rank all 91 Seahawks?

Well, what if I set you up with all 91 names on a website that allows you to click ‘em, drag ‘em, drop ‘em, and send ‘em? I did:

Click Here: Rank all 91 Seahawks!

If you want to take a crack at ranking every player in Seahawks training camp, you can use the linked website above to easily sort them. When you’re finished, click “Submit my 1-91 ranking” and it will send your results to me; enter a display name so I know who did it, unless you don’t want to. I’ll average out all the results and share them with everyone next week.

The starting order should be my rankings, only because that’s going to make it far easier for you to drag and drop players where you want them compared to if it was alphabetical.

The page should look like this and you can reset to alphabetical if you want:

For me, I prefer to do it on a desktop, but for others, mobile will be easier. I imagine this is not going to be a quick project for most people, so take as much time as you need to fill it out and submit.

Frankly, if I get 10 submissions ranking all 91 players, that’s a win.

“But do I even know who the bottom 50 players are?”

If you’ve been subscribed to Seaside Joe for even the last month, surely you know more about the back end of the roster than most fans. However, I’ll link to those write-ups of all 91 players at the bottom of this newsletter.

Become a subscriber and don’t miss the results. Join Regular Joes ($5/mo) and share your thoughts in the comments with other Seahawks fans:

Here is how I ended my final 91 player rankings.

Seaside Joe’s 91-player Seahawks Rankings:

1. QB Sam Darnold

2. WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba

3. DT Leonard Williams

4. DT Byron Murphy II

5. T Charles Cross

6. S Nick Emmanwori

7. T Abraham Lucas

8. LB Ernest Jones IV

9. CB Devon Witherspoon

10. LB DeMarcus Lawrence

11. TE AJ Barner

12. S Julian Love

13. WR Rashid Shaheed

14. G Grey Zabel

15. CB Josh Jobe

16. LB Derick Hall

17. LB Uchenna Nwosu

18. C Jalen Sundell

19. WR Cooper Kupp

20. K Jason Myers

21. LB Drake Thomas

22. P Michael Dickson

23. RB Jadarian Price

24. NT Jarran Reed

25. RB Zach Charbonnet

26. G Anthony Bradford

27. TE Elijah Arroyo

28. S Bud Clark

29. S Ty Okada

30. DE Rylie Mills

31. WR Tory Horton

32. LB Dante Fowler Jr.

33. CB Julian Neal

34. FB Robbie Ouzts

35. RB George Holani

36. FB Brady Russell

37. WR Jake Bobo

38. QB Drew Lock

39. LB Tyrice Knight

40. TE Eric Saubert

41. G Beau Stephens

42. LB Connor O’Toole

43. DE Mike Morris

44. G/T Josh Jones

45. TE Nick Kallerup

46. CB Noah Igbinoghene

47. T Amari Kight

48. QB Jalen Milroe

49. T/G Mason Richman

50. S Rodney Thomas II

51. RB Emanuel Wilson

52. LB Patrick O’Connell

53. LB Jared Ivey

54. C Olu Oluwatimi

55. NT Brandon Pili

56. WR Emmanuel Henderson Jr.

57. CB Nehemiah Pritchett

58. S D’Anthony Bell

59. G Christian Haynes

60. NT Bubba Thomas

61. LB Chris Paul Jr.

62. WR Cody White

63. LB Chazz Surratt

64. LB Aidan Hubbard

65. RB Kenny McIntosh

66. T Logan Brown

67. WR Irv Charles

68. S AJ Finley

69. LB Jalan Gaines

70. CB Andre Fuller

71. LS Chris Stoll

72. G Bryce Cabeldue

73. NT J.R. Singleton

74. LB Jamie Sheriff

75. T Bobby Hart

76. WR Ricky White III

77. RB Jacardia Wright

78. CB Michael Dansby

79. NT Deven Eastern

80. TE Harrison Bryant

81. C Federico Maranges

82. LB Marvin Jones Jr.

83. CB Shemar Jean-Charles

84. S Maxen Hook

85. WR Montorie Foster Jr.

86. CB Tyrone Broden

87. NT Uso Seumalo

88. WR Velus Jones Jr.

89. TE Lance Mason

90. LB Ja’Markis Weston

91. WR Rashad Rochelle

There it is, the complete 91. I started to slide players around at the back end based on your votes (notice Seumalo went up, Mason went down) but then that got too complicated and I was worried about counting errors.

Who are these Seahawks?

Player Rankings: Nos. 81-91

Player Rankings: Nos. 71-80

Player Rankings: Nos. 61-70

Player Rankings: Nos. 51-60

Player Rankings: Nos. 41-50

Player Rankings: Nos. 31-40

Player Rankings: Nos. 26-30

Player Rankings: Nos. 21-25

Player Rankings: Nos. 16-20

Player Rankings: Nos. 11-15

Player Rankings: Nos. 6-10

Did that jog your memory? Then don’t forget to rank:

Click Here: Rank all 91 Seahawks!

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Seahawks Top 5

1. QB Sam Darnold

Even if Darnold got a warm reception from Seattle when he was signed, how many fans would have expected him to not only be the top-ranked player on the Seahawks — but do so on the same team with the Offensive Player of the Year and the number one defense?

Maybe Darnold wouldn’t win a “most talented” contest on the Seahawks, but he won most valuable without a single close matchup along the way. It’s sort of like Michael Jordan never facing a game 7 in the NBA Finals. Even Jaxon Smith-Njigba was knocked out in five games.

Darnold set career-highs in completion percentage, yards per attempt, success rate, and sack rate. Even slight improvements across the board — but a major improvement in interceptions thrown — would make Darnold an MVP candidate next season. I believe that would make him the first quarterback in franchise history to even receive one MVP vote. He’s talented enough, now he needs to be good enough.

2. WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba

Against the AFC last season, JSN averaged 133 receiving yards per game and scored four times in five contests. Maybe he didn’t forget that the Titans, Steelers, and Colts passed him over in the 2023 draft, and the Texans passed him over twice.

Not that Houston regrets taking Will Anderson and C.J. Stroud, but now Smith-Njigba is a Super Bowl winner and an Offensive Player of the Year. He was projected as if he’d be a high-volume slot receiver catching screens and he became the best deep threat in the league.

Winning OPOY again would be historic, but going into year two with Darnold and potentially a better receivers room if they get full seasons from Rashid Shaheed and Tory Horton, JSN could be even more efficient in 2026. This year opponents may want to do a better job of coming up with a JSN plan, especially if you’re in the AFC West or the Patriots in Week 1.

3. DT Leonard Williams

Even though Murphy beat him head-to-head in the tournament, I’m going to continue to give Williams the veteran bump as the overall leader of the defense and one of the most singularly valuable defensive players in the NFL.

For some reason, it seemed like when Mike Macdonald got career-years out of Nnamdi Madubuike and Roquan Smith in Baltimore, the media took notice in a way that outshines how much credit they’re giving Williams and Ernest Jones. To be fair, I couldn’t quite make that comparison for Kyle Hamilton and Nick Emmanwori, given the attention on last year’s second pick.

But Williams has 18 sacks over the last two seasons, the most among all DTs, and his name is relatively unheard. He hasn’t received first or second team all-pro nod. His next contract could do more to reflect his value.

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4. DT Byron Murphy II

Next Gen Stats highlights the power of Seattle’s duo last season, generating the second-most pressures from any interior pair in 2025:

What’s more amazing is that we don’t think of Murphy as a guy who is only ever trying to get to the quarterback. Oftentimes, he’s planting his knee in the ground to hold the line or attracting a double-team to free up a teammate for a sack. If Murphy’s concentration in 2026 becomes to get more sacks (and hopefully only because it’s what the team is asking him to do), he could be a 13-15 sack type player. He’s that disruptive when he wants to be.

5. LT Charles Cross

If a team drafts a receiver top-10, he’s considered a bust if he doesn’t at least get regular Pro Bowl consideration and is among the best fantasy football players. Same for a running back, or most positions. Tackle is different.

If a team drafts a tackle that early, as Seattle did with the ninth pick in 2022, sometimes that player can be a star even when he’s not a star. Yeah, the “Walter Jones” outcome is ideal, but improbable and rare. As long as Cross isn’t standing out in a bad way, he’s standing out in the right way.

It’s sort of like the director who puts his signature on every shot, like Wes Anderson, versus the one who is just trying to make a great movie and nobody even asks, “Who directed that?” Most of the time, Cross disappears behind the camera, and that’s a good thing.

Keeping in mind that Andrew Whitworth was sort of like that too. Most fans consider Whitworth one of the great tackles of his generation, but he didn’t even make his first Pro Bowl until he was 31.

Charles Cross is only 25. Here, he’s 5th.

Where does Charles Cross rank for you?

Click Here: Rank all 91 Seahawks! Aggregated results coming next week! So remember to become a subscriber:

Seaside Joe 2696

A game that the Seahawks will hopefully have also won again.

Roster Bonuses

QB Sam Darnold - $10 million

Darnold’s $13.4 million cap number in 2025 is one of the most underrated aspects to Seattle’s Super Bowl victory. Just as Darnold’s rising cap price will slightly complicate their efforts to repeat:

• $37.9 million cap hit in 2026

• $44.9 million cap hit in 2027

• $12.8 million cap hit in 2028 (void year)

Not that Darnold will necessarily play at those numbers. In fact, he almost certainly won’t have that cap hit in 2027.

Unless John Schneider ignores his own rule to not extend players with multiple seasons left on their contract, Darnold will not be extended until 2027, which makes sense because his base salary of $35.5 million in addition to a $10 million roster bonus (due March 17) seems untenable.

An extension would bring his base salary down to single digits and all the Seahawks to bring down his $44.9 million cap number.

There is no indication that the Seahawks need cap space right now, but Seattle would save up to $22.65 million if they restructure Darnold’s contract.

WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba - $30 million (guaranteed option)

JSN’s four-year, $168.6 million extension contains $69.13 million guaranteed at signing, which consists of a $35 million signing bonus, this $30 million option bonus in 2027 (due March 20), and his 2026-2027 salary.

Smith-Njigba is set to have a $15.63 million cap hit in 2027, but he becomes a very expensive receiver by 2028.

By 2030, Seattle really has to love JSN, at which point his cap hit is at least $48.8 million, if they haven’t restructured his contract at all before then.

WR Cooper Kupp - $1 million

Kupp’s three-year, $45 million contract will turn out to be no less than a two-year, $31 million contract. Kupp’s cap hit is almost the exact same over the next two seasons, something you rarely see:

• 2026: $17.47 million

• 2027: $18 million

Next year’s number includes a $1 million bonus if Kupp is on the roster on March 17.

If Kupp has a similar season in 2026 as the had in 2025, the team has proven that they’re open to paying him that much, regardless of age.

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Guarantees

These are all guarantees on recent contracts that are almost certain to go through on the 5th day of the 2027 league year:

LT Charles Cross: $15m full salary, bonuses

WR Rashid Shaheed: $11.735m full salary

CB Josh Jobe: $4.75m of salary

OLB Derick Hall: $4.22m full salary, bonuses

RT Abe Lucas: $594k injury guarantee*

*fifth day of league waiver period (Feb 18)

We can almost guarantee that these will all be triggered.

Cross will have his entire $13.63m 2027 salary guaranteed, plus $1.4 million in certain bonuses. The Seahawks have no legitimate “out” on Cross’s contract until at least 2029, and even that would be surprising with $16m of dead cap.

Shaheed’s entire $11.7 million salary is guaranteed as well. His cap hit goes up from $7 million this year to $16.5 million next year. His third year cap hit is $19.5 million, and then he had a $8 million void year in 2029.

Jobe’s contract is an underrated bargain. He has a $4.8 million cap hit in 2026 and $8.8 million in 2027, including a $5.9 million base salary; almost all of it becomes guaranteed on February 10, 2027.

Hall was an important extension to get done for Schneider. The first year of that contract doesn’t start until 2027, and he’ll get all $4.22 million of his compensation next year guaranteed too.

Contract Void

DT Leonard Williams

One other note, but not that meaningful because it’s not like anyone can stop it or start it: Williams’ contract becomes void on February 20.

Well, that’s not entirely true: Seattle can (and should) extend Williams before then.

But for what it’s worth, his contract becomes void next February.

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Seaside Joe 2695

Will the Patriots be a better team than the one that looked inept and unqualified when they reached the Super Bowl and ran into Seat…

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A player can break out from the bottom to the middle, the middle to the top, or the bottom to the top. To quote the star of Malibu’s Most Wanted in a different movie:

From the Super Joes Q&A this week, Rusty asked who my “breakout player” pick would be right now, and I said Derick Hall. It’s still a good pick.

The only hard thing about coming up with an answer was only being able to choose one. What if instead, I use my Every Seahawk Ranked list of all 91 players on Seattle’s roster to name three breakout players:

• One from the players in my bottom 31

• One from the players in the middle 30

• One from the players in the top 30

I also chose a backup “secondary” option for each.

Back 30: WR Ricky White III (Ranked 76th)

I’ve mentioned White a few times now, starting with 5 surprising training camp moves that would make sense. Although White only ended up getting called up for two games as a rookie, he could be the offensive version of Okada for the upcoming season; Okada had only played 33 snaps in his first two seasons combined prior to 2025.

And a spot on the roster for special teams is worth just as much as a spot on the roster for any reason. Or ask Jake Bobo and Cooper Kupp about earning snaps on offense for blocking, as White (#86) does here:

The 6’1, 181 lbs White improved his 40 time from 4.61 at the combine to 4.44 at his pro day. Maybe we split the difference there and come away thinking that White is about a 4.5 guy; Kupp was a 4.62 guy coming out of college.

As a high school senior, White scored 16 touchdowns and led his team to the Georgia 7A state championship with 1,319 yards.

In 2023, White broke the UNLV record with 1,483 yards in a single season, including five straight 100-yard games. Playing without great passers in college, White added another 1,041 yards and Special Teams Player of the Year as a senior in 2024.

Perhaps nothing says “Ricky White III” more than four blocked punts in one season.

If Jay Harbaugh demands a spot for White on special teams, which isn’t hard to imagine given the loss of Dareke Young, now he’s just one more opportunity away from getting snaps on offense and developing chemistry with Sam Darnold. Kupp’s career could wind down slowly, or end abruptly, and White is well positioned on this roster to be in the running as his replacement.

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Secondary: ST Irv Charles (Ranked 67th)

On that same line of thinking, Charles is perhaps the favorite to take Young’s roster spot, if there’s only one. The second favorite could be Emmanuel Henderson.

With one of the best underdog stories of all-time as a narrative, the 29 year old Charles could end up winning a spot on the defending Super Bowl champions a decade—10 years!!!-after he started his career at Penn State.

From rules violation to a four-year hiatus to a return at IUP to a stint on the Jets to missing all of 2025, Charles hasn’t quit. If he makes the Seahawks, it won’t take much more than his first impressive tackle as a gunner to become an instant fan favorite among the masses.

But other breakout candidates would have much bigger roles next season.

Middle 30: OLB Connor O’Toole (Ranked 42nd)

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The Seattle Seahawks didn’t make the top 10 list’s top 10 list.

If the league is going to underestimate the Seahawks again, I say…let ‘em.

While Leonard Williams, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Devon Witherspoon, and Nick Emmanwori made a top 10 list, consider what that means for the players who were snubbed. We’ll talk about some of them today, we’ll talk about some of them when we get to the top five, but A.J. Barner (#11 on this list) didn’t even get a single vote.

Grey Zabel (#14) was an honorable mention. Julian Love (#12) appeared to get maybe one vote. And like virtually all others, Fowler’s exercise ignores special teams and treats those ~30 snaps per game per team as if they’re not that important.

What’s more valuable?

• If Myles Garrett gets 2 sacks in a game

• If Rashid Shaheed returns a punt for a touchdown?

Cam Jordan himself called pass rushers overrated and just this week former Mike Macdonald player Marlon Humphrey tweeted that it was the easiest position to play.

So, by ignoring special teams, Fowler’s exercise omits Shaheed, Michael Dickson, and Jason Myers, to say the least.

What Fowler is doing is fine. Flawed, but useful, and certainly helped us pass time between OTAs and training camp. Bulletin board material, if nothing else.

Now, if you want a real top 10 list…

Previous: Seahawks players ranked 11-15 (and links to the rest)

10. OLB DeMarcus Lawrence

Not to harp on this, but Lawrence didn’t get a single vote in Fowler’s list, which I’m not pointing out because anyone should take offense. It’s to point out that apparently not even people in the NFL are aware that defensive ends and outside linebackers are also supposed to play RUN defense.

It’s an issue with Fowler’s list that Cam Jordan has been vocal about for years, starting in 2023 and highlighting Lawrence as one of the best DEFENSIVE ENDS in the league:

Notice he did not say Myles Garrett.

Lawrence has consistently been a 5-6 sack type player throughout his career, with only a couple of exceptions a long time ago, but even last season at age 33 he was PFF’s top-graded run stopper at his position. #1.

Jordan also went on Julian Edelman’s podcast last year and called sacks an “overrated stat”, adding that what actually matters is “winning the game”, and mocked people for praising pass rush productivity while ignoring if “he’s a liability in outside zone” and that “the linebackers hate him but you’ll never know”.

(Again, he’s talking about Myles Garrett.)

DeMarcus Lawrence will never do well on a survey like Fowler’s because Lawrence doesn’t chase sacks. If he chased more sacks, he would get more sacks…but he would also allow more big plays. He’d be abandoning his true assignment and potentially leaving a gap for a big play to happen behind him.

And yet, Lawrence wasn’t lacking in big plays in 2025:

Lawrence did have eight sacks, if you include the playoffs, 25 QB hits, 14 tackles for a loss, 2 fumbles recovered for touchdowns, three forced fumbles, and number one ranked run defense.

And consider how many sacks Lawrence still got despite playing 626 snaps and many of those being obvious running situations.

Con(verse)ly, Jared Verse was a top-ranked honorable mention, with no regard for being ranked 63rd against the run. Why does Verse take Lawrence’s spot? Because according to “smart football people” it matters more than Verse is a recent first-round pick who had 1.5 more sacks than Lawrence on 230 more snaps.

Half of the job is not taken into account at all.

Nik Bonitto (ranked 10th) has proven to be great at getting sacks. He had 14 of them last year and 27 over the last two. But why then does he only play 60 percent of the snaps? Bonitto is a liability against the run. Lawrence has a somewhat better excuse, in that he’s 33.

Am I pointing all of this out just because Lawrence is a Seahawk and he was snubbed? No. I could say the same thing about Gregory Rousseau. Where is Gregory Rousseau?

Rousseau had seven sacks and he was one of the NFL’s top-ranked run defenders at the position last season. Rousseau doesn’t miss tackles and he’s probably very good at sticking to his assignment, but he was also without mention. Should he be there instead of Trey Hendrickson and Josh Hines-Allen?

There will never be a perfect top 10 list. But this one with Lawrence at #10 is pretty good.

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9. CB Devon Witherspoon

Witherspoon actually didn’t do as well in the Tournament of THE Champions as I expected, essentially not ranking in the top 10 as he kept running into the wall that is Nick Emmanwori. However, I believe that was more of a bracket issue and that most Seahawks fans would put Witherspoon in their top 10.

And this is one Seahawk where the league did agree, ranking Witherspoon fourth among all corners. What are his strengths, his weaknesses, and his chances of being extended within the next week?

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