What are some things happening before we get to Week 1 that will help Seahawks fans get through the next three months until training camp?

Hard Knocks

Although there is expected resistance to the assignment from fans and team alike, Hard Knocks is documenting Seahawks training camp anyway so we might as well enjoy it.

I don’t look forward to doing my taxes every year, but once it’s over it’s a pretty satisfying experience to have survived it again. There’s no writing to the IRS “Hey, this might screw up the rest of my year so can you please skip me this time?” and expecting a pass.

The Seahawks are getting NFL Filmsified and worst case scenario we get to hear Liev Schreiber say things like, “Jadarian Price” in only the way that he can.

Seeing the primetime schedule

I’m not a big schedule release guy in general because it’s also something out of our control and usually misunderstood anyway. Fans will feel screwed by one thing and not care about another thing, only to find out six months later that the thing that they were worried about turned out to be a win and the game they thought was a gimme ends up as a loss.

It’s the same reason that I don’t trust movie trailers.

I love movie trailers, but 99% of them these days are a cover of an old hit song playing over a collection of scenes specifically cut in such a way that you could make any film in history seem like it’s going to be a good time.

However, in the case of the Seahawks schedule this year there is the added intrigue of being the defending Super Bowl champions, drawing five or six primetime games, and knowing that the Seahawks have so many marquee matchups to choose from:

• Rams twice

• 49ers twice

• Patriots Super Bowl rematch

• Chiefs and Broncos and Chargers (Super Bowl preview?)

• Bears

• Eagles

• Cowboys

The Seahawks also face three teams with former Seattle ties at head coach (the Raiders, the Panthers, and the Moons), as well as Mike Macdonald’s former head coach in Baltimore when they play the Giants.

We know the Seahawks open on a Wednesday (rumored to be the Bears) and that they will get at least one Thursday game (hopefully only one), at least one Monday game (possibly two), and probably at least two Sunday night games.

Seeing the Seahawks primetime schedule will be more exciting this year than it’s ever been before. So good that it will require a cover song that starts, “Hello Darkness, my old friend…”

The 2026 schedule is expected to be released around May 14th, so in less than two weeks.

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Which free agent pass rusher will be added?

On one hand, Dante Fowler was drafted the same year as Jameis Winston and Todd Gurley. On the other hand, Fowler was drafted the same year as Leonard Williams.

Fowler has played in 74 of a possible 74 games since 2022. For what that’s worth, he could be all that the Seahawks need right now at edge.

Macdonald’s defense added Jadeveon Clowney in 2023 and his production increased from 2 sacks the previous season to 9.5 sacks; Kyle Van Noy was added the same year and his total increased from 5 to 9 and then up to 12.5 in 2024.

Other current free agent edge rushers include Joey Bosa, Haason Reddick, Leonard Floyd, Cam Jordan, Von Miller, Van Noy, and Clowney.

With a group like that it’s not surprising that Fowler is the rumor floating around. More names will hit the market too and eventually Seattle will sign or trade for a new veteran edge rusher.

The move probably won’t feel like a big deal when it happens, and maybe that player won’t do much to help, but DeMarcus Lawrence wasn’t that big of a deal when he signed either. And Lawrence was drafted a year before Fowler.

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Seaside Joe 2617

It wasn’t intended as a mailbag, but I also answered some of your questions to the best of my knowledge.

As I was searching for Seahawks highlights, I came across this 1978 feature on Jim Zorn that most Seahawks fans have probably never seen…or haven’t seen in almost 50 years.

Blair: one of the greatest plays of all time> Effren Herrea is set to kick a field goal Zorn is the holder the snap goes to Effren and Zorn rolls out to catch a pass from him for a Touchdown !!!

This is not the play you’re talking about, but it’s similar and it’s one I could find on YouTube.

Bob: Just curious, what kind of support do these young men, and perhaps for some, their famlies, get from the Seahawks on making that move to Seattle? What are the supply and logistics getting these new Hawks settled here so they can focus on becoming the best possible version of themselves...on and off the field?

The Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association guarantees certain travel and relocation benefits. For example:

• Pay for a moving company

• Pay for first class plane tickets for him and his spouse

• Up to 2 months rent or mortgage for where they lived in their previous city (up to $9,000 as of 2026)

• One week of a hotel in the new city

This would apply to rookies and veteran players who are traded or claimed on waivers. Of course, this is just what’s in the CBA and I imagine that the Seahawks or really any team is providing a means to live for any player until that person can reasonably get on their feet. So if you’re an undrafted free agent who isn’t getting paid a lot of money and isn’t certain you’ll make the team, the team will take care of you as long as you’re on the roster.

As soon as you get to minicamp, OTAs, or training camp, room and board and per diem will be provided. Then even if you make the practice squad you’re getting a minimum of $13,000 per week.

If I was on the practice squad, I would still try to split an apartment with as many teammates as possible and squirrel away as much of those earnings as possible for however long I’m working for an NFL team … because it probably won’t be for long.

Bill Lord: All time favorite: Largent blowing up the Denver defensive back after an interception, knocking the ball loose and recovering the fumble. Priceless.

Chuck Turtleman: If I have to play by the “10 years younger me” to advise rule; I think I’d just tell myself a couple of things that seem kind of morbid. First, that my Mom is going to die in the the next few years and to spend more time with her and ask more questions. And that my old roommate and best friend is going to come down with terminal cancer too, and to say yes when he invites me places. And if it’s allowable, to warn him to get checked so that it could be caught sooner. I’d take that any day over “buy bitcoin” or whatever.

I guess a big part of these thought exercises are to remind ourselves of what we should be aware of now. And I have an 87 year old Dad and some great friends who I don’t catch up with often enough.

Great advice for us all, Chuck.

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Grant: According to the google machine, Jadarian is pronounced "juh-DAR-ee-an" but I hear a lot of people calling him "juh-DAIR-ee-an." I'm not sure what to do!

His head coach at Notre Dame calls him “Ja-Dah-Rian”.

MTerryScnwrtr: One question that I've always wondered about: Who is in charge of Seahawks merch getting handed out to players who have been drafted? Do they just have a box of jerseys and shirts and hats sitting around - or does someone go to a team store and just start grabbing stuff off the racks?

Here’s a video about the making of jerseys during the 2015 draft. Julian Neal’s been telling the story that he was supposed to get all 32 hats but they didn’t arrive in time, so he had his aunt go buy him one hat and it happened to be the Seahawks. Here’s the Seahawks explaining how they break in cleats before the game.

Not the Seahawks, but if you’re just interested in pre-game equipment explanations, here’s one from the Chargers.

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CavMax: Tony Romo getting hammered just shy of the goal line.

Bret: Stop deferring discomfort. The immediate pain of toil leads to the simultaneous comfort and pride which attend genuine achievement.

I could use more of this!

CavMax: Just read Tyrone Broden switching to cb. Really fast 6'5" cb. All right then.

It’s perhaps his best shot to make that $13,000 per week on the practice squad next season.

CJ Watson: Would you mind reposting among the Hawks who were drafted, who came in for a predraft 30 visit? Thanks!

The Seahawks met with G Beau Stephens and CB Andre Fuller. But those are just from official lists. By all accounts they some face-to-face with Jadarian Price and probably the others, to some degree.

Whose highlights should people go back and watch?

Not a Seahawk, but a few people said Barry Sanders. Posting NFL highlights is tough, but his college highlights might have been better anyway.

IdahoFred: Who is your favorite to win the super bowl and why.

I know the Seahawks are my favorite to win the Super Bowl, but that’s going to be a really unoriginal answer around these parts. So I’ll say that my NFC Championship game prediction is Seahawks-Lions and my AFC Championship prediction is Chiefs-Texans.

What are your conference championship game predictions?

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Seaside Joe 2616

Good news for John Schneider. Good news for Seahawks fans. Bad sign for the incoming “top talent” in the NFL Draft every year.

I made a compelling case for Grey Zabel to win Offensive Rookie of the Year last season, but that wouldn’t have been possible if ANY first-year quarterback, running back, receiver, or tight end had a season like we expect of some rookies.

Winner Tetairoa McMillan is now RETROACTIVELY touted as having a remarkable rookie season, but this is a receiver who caught 57% of his targets, only reached 100 yards two times (one of which was exactly 100), and barely crossed the 1,000-yard threshold in 17 games.

Go back to 2021 and see that Ja’Marr Chase won the award with 1,455 yards and 13 touchdowns. Go back to 2023 and Puka Nacua finished second behind C.J. Stroud after he had 1,486 yards.

McMillan may have been swimming upstream with Bryce Young and the Panthers, but don’t lose track of the point being made:

This is not about whether McMillan could have done better in a better offense. This is the fact that NOBODY had a better rookie season on offense than a mid-tier number two receiver on the 27th-ranked scoring team? Not a quarterback who went 1st, a receiver who went 2nd, or a running back who went 6th?

Defensively, Nick Emmanwori finished second behind linebacker Carson Schwesinger, meaning that the 15th and 16th DEFENSIVE players off the board (Schwesinger was the first pick of the second round) did better than EVERY FIRST ROUND PICK ON THAT SIDE OF THE BALL.

Rookies struggle

They always do. But do they always struggle at this level? And are they supposed to struggle relative to their rookie peers? It’s not as though we’re saying “Yeah, the 2025 rookie class wasn’t that good but did you see Andre Carter???”

The 3rd overall pick was bad.

“Did you see Travis Hunter?”

The 2nd overall pick was bad.

This puts more pressure on the 2026 rookie class to be a lot better than last year’s rookie class because if they struggle and this becomes a pattern, the spotlight on how college football’s new rules have impacted the product coming into the league will grow brighter and then the NFL is going to have to step in and do something about it by changing their rules of who is eligible for the draft.

Until then, it could be less about how high you pick (like 32nd) and more about who is doing the picking (like the Executive of the Year).

Let’s review the 2025 first round and see if I’m overreacting or just being faithful to the truth of how bad it’s gotten.

😐=neutral

📉=stock down

📈=stock up

1. QB Cam Ward, Titans📈

Like Fernando Mendoza, Ward was not considered to be a lock for the first round until the end of his final college season. And even then, they were elevated to first overall because there hasn’t been a quarterback who went into the league with a lot of hype since Caleb Williams in 2024.

Ward gets a pass because the hardest position in the league isn’t just being a quarterback…it’s being a quarterback on the worst team in the league. But year two he has to be good and he has to at least get the Titans close to the playoffs.

2. WR/CB Travis Hunter, Jaguars📉

ESPN’s Mike Clay projected 73/884 for Hunter’s rookie season, aided by already having a quarterback and a WR1 in Jacksonville. Instead, Hunter had 28 catches for 298 yards (33% of his yards came in one game and he had to be targeted 14 times, which is also when he got injured) in seven games. Hunter missed over half of the season and the Jaguars are rumored to be switching him to corner full-time, both outcomes being entirely predictable when you try to have someone play 100 snaps a game.

Instead of being Shohei Ohtani, he’s more like “So-so Okay-ni”.

3. EDGE Abdul Carter, Giants📉

NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks gave Carter a “D” for his rookie season, which included only four sacks and multiple benchings. Former teammate Dexter Lawrence said publicly that Carter needed to “grow up” and then the Giants hired the hard-nosed John Harbaugh and drafted Arvell Reese as a potential edge rusher upgrade.

People wanted him to be like Micah Parsons, but the differences in their rookie seasons is impossible to omit from a comparison.

4. OT Will Campbell, Patriots📉(if he’s a guard)

We are so bad at judging the performance of individual offensive linemen that a lot of people have started to praise Campbell’s rookie season because the Patriots reached the Super Bowl. A Super Bowl in which Campbell set an NFL record by allowing 14 pressures.

The Patriots then moved up a few spots last week to draft left tackle Caleb Lomu in the first round. New England will not move Campbell…yet…but there were a lot of people saying even before last year’s draft that Campbell would have to move to guard in the NFL because of his arm length and very little about his rookie season would suggest otherwise. This would mean that the fourth overall pick was not only a guard, but probably a worse guard than Zabel.

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5. DT Mason Graham, Browns📈

I made a bold prediction last year by saying that Seattle could trade up for Graham, which obviously did not happen and probably wasn’t discussed very seriously. Graham’s rookie season (49 tackles and a lot of playing time) was nondescript itself, but helped Myles Garrett get 23 sacks. Now Graham needs to be descript.

6. RB Ashton Jeanty, Raiders😐

Jeanty was projected by PFF to have over 1,600 total yards and 10 touchdowns. Before the season nobody was talking about the Raiders being the worst team—with the worst rushing offense—in the league. Jeanty had 975 rushing yards and 3.7 yards per carry. Now Klint Kubiak has to develop an offense around Jeanty because Mendoza isn’t going to be help much and Las Vegas still has the worst receivers room.

7. OT Armand Membou, Jets📈

Membou might have had the best rookie season for an offensive player, widely considered to be better than Campbell’s.

8. WR Tet McMillan, Panthers📈

9. OT Kelvin Banks, Saints📈

Banks and Membou together are arguably the best picks in the top-10, perhaps suggesting that tackles were a safer bet in the class than other positions. Coincidence or could it be easier for NFL coaches to put offensive linemen in a position to succeed earlier in their careers?

10. TE Colston Loveland, Bears📈

As the season went on, head coach Ben Johnson put more of a workload on Loveland’s plate and he ended up having almost 800 yards in the last 12 games, including the playoffs. The Bears drafted another tight end (Sam Roush) at pick 69 this year, suggesting that Chicago will go heavy 13 personnel after seeing what the Rams did last season.

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—What should everybody do the first time they see a home Seahawks game?

—What’s the best play in Seahawks history during each decade before 2010?

—If you could give your younger self advice 10 years ago, what would you say?

Since Seaside Joe has already posted a newsletter about the Seahawks today, let’s do a bonus article where we just talk openly about life and footbal with no rules.

These comments will be OPEN TO ALL subscribers, free or paid, because you don’t gotta pay $5 to have good advice. Even so if you want to subscribe, either free or paid, you can do that here:

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This is going to be one of those different newsletters where we take advantage of the awesome Seaside Joe community, a pool of Seahawks fans whose birth-dates span many decades and fandom that could have started in 1976 or 2025. Is there any wisdom or advice you want to share, either related to the Seahawks or having to do with life?

And if you don’t know what to say, I’ll post some questions in the comments section (including the ones I just said) to get us started. Click here:

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The standard no politics and no religion rules still apply.

Safety

Bud Clark*, Ty Okada, Rodney Thomas II, AJ Finley, Maxen Hook, D’Anthony Bell

While Julian Love and Nick Emmanwori have roles set in stone, there’s at least a conversation to be had around Okada being pushed by Clark, a safety with superior traits and drafted by Seattle with the mindset that he will be a starter eventually.

That may not come immediately in 2026 and it might not be at the expense of Okada, one of the Seahawks’ best surprises last year, but if Clark can assume that Coby Bryant role early in his career who does pay the price?

Probably Ty Okada.

A regular contributor for the majority of the season, Okada played 19 defensive snaps in the playoffs, almost all during Seattle’s blowout over the 49ers.

At some point in camp the 6’2 Clark will stand next to the 5’11 Okada and the difference will be as apparent as Bobby Wagner next to Drake Thomas.

Some key takeaways in this Lombardi/Broaddus video:

-”hybrid safety capable of playing in the slot (313 snaps), the box (250 snaps), and deep in coverage (160 snaps)”

-”exceptional "range" and ball instincts, noting he is constantly around the football and excels at reading route combinations and quarterback eyes”

-”plays under control and demonstrating high-level play recognition”

By drafting Clark and only paying Okada as an exclusive rights free agent who might be too expensive to keep next year, or who might just regress, the steps are laid down for the Seahawks to make that change at safety at some point in 2026.

It would not be surprising if Bud Clark has the most snaps of any Seahawks rookie in 2026, if not just being a full-time starter.

After the four safeties who we know are locked into roster positions next season, Seattle should keep one or two more. Thomas II has special teams experience and used to be a starter on the Colts. The others have a head start with Macdonald by joining the Seahawks last year.

CB Depth

Andre Fuller*, Shemar Jean-Charles, Nehemiah Pritchett, Michael Dansby*, Noah Igbinoghene

If your name wasn’t Devon Witherspoon, Josh Jobe, or Tariq Woolen last season, then you practically did not play cornerback for the Seahawks. Not counting the nickel position, where you would often see Emmanwori, the vast majority of corner snaps went to those three players.

You will see snaps and snap% in the far right columns:

The competition starts between third round pick Julian Neal and the corners listed above for a coveted CB3 role alongside Witherspoon and Jobe, but there could be another veteran addition this year.

Igbinoghene is a former first round pick but his career has gone so poorly to date that he’s just in a fight for the roster at this point. Also most of his success has come at nickel, which is a different conversation.

If we break it down between Neal and Pritchett, then coaches would need to see major improvement from the latter this year:

—Pritchett allowed 3 touchdowns in 2025

—Pritchett was only targeted 9 times in 2025

We know that Witherspoon is going to make the roster (although I’m still comfortable having that conversation) and that Jobe and Neal will make the roster. After that though, Seattle has five players competing for maybe two jobs and the Seahawks will add more corners before it’s all said and done.

Fuller has a similar physical profile to Neal and played every secondary position in college. In this pre-draft interview, he talks about the experience of playing at Toledo, a college with a good recent track record for secondary players:

But players don’t fall to the seventh round by accident. His six-year college career had few highlights and Lance Zierlein is already talking about a move to safety to mask his lack of top-end speed.

Then you look at Dansby and he’s one of the true mysteries of the draft; a prospect without an NFL.com draft profile page.

If the Seahawks keep five cornerbacks, I hate to even hazard a guess at who they’re going to choose after the top-three because, as we’ve all seen many times before, the late round/undrafted rookies tend to reveal themselves over the entire offseason and training camp. And there’s often a surprise.

Five is probably the magic number and only three corners on the roster can feel secure that they’ll be one of them.

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Really deep edge rusher depth

Jared Ivey, Connor O’Toole, Jalan Gaines, Jamie Sheriff, Aidan Hubbard*, Devean Deal*

I say “really deep” and yet Ivey and O’Toole are realistically just a snap away from having one of the most important roles on the Seahawks in 2026. They are basically fourth in line at edge rusher behind DeMarcus Lawrence, Uchenna Nwosu, and Derick Hall.

For now.

Once the Seahawks add Dante Fowler or a different veteran edge rusher, it gives Macdonald a thicker cushion between the starters and the depth…but without much comfort. It’s not a high-density foam core wrapped in a down-feather blend.

Even the most casual fan can see that Lawrence is old and Nwosu has an injury history and is unreliable, while Hall is inconsistent and yet to prove anything in the NFL. And Dante Fowler is supposed to make us feel better?

For the third year in a row, John Schneider drafted zero outside linebackers or edge rushers, instead waiting to sign Hubbard and Deal after the draft. They enter a competition with Ivey, O’Toole, Sheriff, and Gaines to be the fifth and/or sixth edge rushers on the roster.

It’s hard to believe that two undrafted edge rushers would make the Seahawks roster … until you see that it happened just last year.

O’Toole was a little more active on special teams, but not so much that he would be missed. Ivey stood out more in the preseason, but those games do not count for much.

Hubbard and Deal had to be very strategic in choosing Seattle as the team to sign with because despite having little shot of making an impact, they have seen that it might be possible to make the roster or the practice squad.

Compare that to defensive tackles Deven Eastern (7th round) and Uso Seumalo (UDFA) and the barrier to entry is much more difficult.

They probably need to climb over Brandon Pili to make the 53-man roster. Which certainly is not impossible, but compared to edge rusher where every name could be different next season, Seattle’s defensive line has the ability to be the best in the NFL with the same players for years to come.

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Seaside Joe 2613

But some changes are to be decided via position battles.

Backup Guard

Beau Stephens*, Bryce Cabeldue, Christian Haynes, Mason Richman

Fans can’t wait for Anthony Bradford to be replaced with an upgrade, but there’s no indication yet that Seahawks coaches agree that his presence is detrimental. Case in point, Seattle won the Super Bowl and Bradford barely missed a snap, not including the snaps where he missed a block.

Regardless, whoever impresses the most in training camp could win a coveted position as the right guard apparent because Bradford is a 2027 free agent. Potentially one player is so good that the Seahawks put Bradford on the trade block.

Stephens has the advantage for being the newest option and not disappointing anyone yet, whereas Haynes would be so unexpected. John Schneider said Stephens in the fifth round was too good to pass up when Seattle traded a 2027 fourth round pick to the Browns for the rights to draft him:

“It was too big of a gap and too much talent there” Schneider said. “Beau came on a 30 visit. Really cool, right? Just the process of [him] coming in.

“We were pretty surprised [he was available at 148],” Schneider added. “But when the guy lasts that long, you’re like, ‘Okay, how do we figure this out?’ We did have a plan to play the compensatory game, if you
will. We were, like, ‘We have the 12 picks next year. What does it look like?’ The coaches, we got a lot of buy-in from the coaches. They’re really excited about it.”

Cabeldue and Richman have the advantage of spending the last 12 months with offensive line coach John Benton and Seattle’s strength and conditioning staff. Getting stronger was a big point of emphasis for Cabeldue when he was drafted, with an expectation that if he has a future in the NFL it will come after a year of development.

Did he get there?

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Backup Center

Olu Oluwatimi, Federico Maranges

Mike Macdonald is high on Jalen Sundell, saying “He’s a great center. You need a great center to run our system.” There is no change coming at center.

This could be why ESPN’s Brady Henderson mentioned Olu as a potential trade candidate, which didn’t transpire during the draft. Given the spotlight on Baltimore’s lack of a center right now, maybe something could still happen with Macdonald’s former team.

This would only make sense though if Maranges, an undrafted free agent out of Florida Atlantic in 2025, has improved enough to be Sundell’s backup.

The 24-year-old started two seasons as FAU’s center and has a lot of size/length for the position at 6’3, 302, with 33 1/4” arms. The Puerto Rico native has a roster exemption as a part of the International Pathway Program if he’s on the practice squad, but maybe he’ll make the 53.

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Running Back 2 (until ZC returns)

Emanuel Wilson, George Holani, Kenny McIntosh

Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet might have had equal snaps last season, but make no mistake that Walker was RB1 and Charbonnet was RB2. Jadarian Price is RB1. He will be the starter and he will get the majority of first and second down snaps.

If Price proves to be a better pass protector and receiver than expected, he will also steal third down snaps.

The Seahawks released Cam Akers this week and it would not be surprising if any of the three mentioned above also failed to make the team. Each of them will have to earn a role on the 53-man roster, especially with Velus Jones and Jacardia Wright coming to camp too (for now).

And who doesn’t want to see a roster with running backs named Jadarian and Jacardia?

This competition has a unique caveat because Charbonnet is clearly a great player and if he’s able to return to his normal self this year then he and Price will be Seattle’s backfield duo.

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Wide Receiver 6

Emmanuel Henderson*, Cody White, Ricky White, Tyrone Broden, Montorie Foster, Michael Briscoe*, Levi Wentz*

The Seahawks could not draft a wide receiver this year unless his sole purpose was to replace Dareke Young, which is what Seattle got in the sixth round with Henderson. Shrine Bowl exec Eric Galko said many teams called him “the best special team WR in class” and a gunner with upside in other areas is perhaps the only type of receiver who could fit on the Seahawks right now with the top-5 spots on lock.

This is concerning news for Cody White, a player who appeared in 10 games last year. If undrafted free agents Briscoe or Wentz hope to make the roster, or last year’s rookies, it probably can’t be as a receiver. What can they do to contribute on special teams?

That’s where Henderson appears to start with a lead and if the Seahawks want to protect Rashid Shaheed and Price from kickoffs, then he could be a returner too.

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Seaside Joe 2612

If Witherspoon is the next star to be traded out of Seattle over a contract stalemate, it would at least seem that the Seahawks affirmed their commitment to him FOR NOW by retaining his rights through the draft: If Dexter Lawrence could be traded for pick 10, then certainly Seattle wanted more than that for a player who is younger and coming off of a dominant Super Bowl performance.

The Seahawks knew this day was coming

The 2026 offseason has been an inflection point in Witherspoon’s career arc since the Seahawks made him the 5th overall pick—not only did they have to pick up his fifth-year option, he also became extension eligible—this is when the player and the team have to decide if they’re in it for the long haul together.

Here’s why Seahawks fans CAN’T IGNORE the probability that something major is going to happen with Witherspoon in 2026:

Devon Witherspoon takes home $5 million cash in 2026

That is less money than Broncos cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian.

“Who is that, Seaside Joe? Is he some sort of superstar shutdown top-5 pick cornerback like Witherspoon?”

Nothing against McMillian (I love that he has “million” right there in his name). I have no idea who that is, but from what I can gather he’s a 2022 undrafted free agent who respectably nudged his way into Denver’s defense as a nickelback who plays 66% of the snaps. Because he’s a former UDFA, the Broncos only had to pay him on a restricted free agent tender going into 2026, which at $5.7 mcmillion is more than Witherspoon:

• Witherspoon has a $1.145 base salary

• $3.95 million bonus

That’s a total of $5.1 million take home pay for Witherspoon in 2026. That’s what matters to players, not their “cap hit” and not what they made last year or next year. Although the Seahawks did pick up Witherspoon’s fifth-year option and that guarantees him $21.1 million in 2027, the matter at hand is “What do I make this year?”

It’s like if I ate a big dinner last night but then you tell me that I’m not allowed to eat anything today, I’m not going to care if you say that we’re going to an all-you-can-eat buffet tomorrow. The future isn’t going to satiate my hunger right now.

Witherspoon’s $5.1 million cash due in 2026 is ranked 42nd among all cornerbacks in the NFL this year, behind such players as:

• Sauce Gardner is first at $25.5m

• Trent McDuffie just signed a deal and got $22m this year

• Old Jalen Ramsey gets $19.5m

• Free agent Cordale Flott gets $17.5m from the Titans

• Former Seahawks D.J. Reed gets $15m

• Former teammate Tariq Woolen makes $12m

• Teammate Josh Jobe gets $9.5m

Maybe you shouldn’t be looking on what’s someone else’s plate, but is that reality? Can we honestly expect a player of Witherspoon’s caliber to not be comparing himself to cornerbacks who are less valuable than he is but making a lot more money in 2026?

If something unfortunate happens to Witherspoon in 2026, then next year’s $21.1 million could be his last pay day. Is it worth it to him to play for $5 million when a new contract could guarantee him $100 million (what McDuffie just signed for with the Rams)?

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That’s why fans have to expect that something will happen with Witherspoon in 2026, although that doesn’t mean that what’s best for the player is also what’s best for the Seahawks.

Cornerbacks who were traded recently:

• Sauce Gardner, traded to Colts after signing extension

• Trent McDuffie, traded to Rams before signing extension

• Tyson Campbell, traded Browns after signing extension

• Jalen Ramsey, traded to Dolphins before signing extension

• Jalen Ramsey, traded to Steelers after signing extension

We have now seen two corners of similar value and age to Witherspoon traded within the last year and both signed extensions, but in Gardner’s case the Jets paid him too soon. The “good news” for New York is that they were able to restructure his contract in such a way that they “only” had $20 million of dead cap spread over two years and they were able to recoup two first round picks.

—The first of which the Jets used to draft tight end Kenyon Sadiq last week.

—The Chiefs, hesitant of extending an undersized cornerback who had injury issues last season, traded McDuffie to the Rams for a first round pick which Kansas City used on defensive tackle Peter Woods; the Chiefs had already reacted to trading McDuffie by trading up for CB Mansoor Delane at 6.

In fact, Delane will make $27 million as a signing bonus when he signs his contract, so actually he will make more cash than any other corner in the league in 2026. That’s over 5x as much as Witherspoon.

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The crossroads for Seattle and Witherspoon is that he’s significantly underpaid in 2026 (which the player realizes) but the amount he wants as fair compensation would make him significantly overpaid (which team realizes) unless he gets even better/never injured in the next three years.

The Seahawks must also weigh the opportunity lost by keeping Witherspoon instead of trading him: Can Seattle also get two first round picks for a cornerback like the Jets did for Gardner?

Seahawks options with Devon Witherspoon

#1-Do nothing

Even though option one sounds like the one that’s best for the Seahawks, it’s also the one that’s the worst for Witherspoon.

If he’s extended, he’s paid.

If he’s traded, he’s also probably paid.

If the Seahawks do nothing, he’s making $5 million and that’s only IF he shows up to work.

The good news is that Witherspoon is already showing up to work. He was at Seattle’s voluntary offseason program last week:

“Guys that just wanted to be around the guys again,” Macdonald said. “I thought that was really cool.

“We tiered our offseason program from having a later finish this season. But I was blown away by some of the guys that showed up (Monday) and that we weren’t asking to be here at this point in time,” Macdonald, the team’s culture-setter, said.

“The energy is really great. There’s still a sense of urgency and spirit to the guys, which is exciting. It’s mostly just strength and conditioning at this point, and some individual meetings. “This is one of the best times of year to see the guys again after the break.”

But getting a guy to show up in April and getting him to put on pads and go through training camp and then potentially play regular season games without a new contract are totally different scenarios.

The Seahawks have gone through this with players before like Earl Thomas and Marshawn Lynch, sometimes resulting in missed practices and games that severely harmed their regular seasons.

Unless Witherspoon is fully committed to playing next season without a new contract and betting on himself as a cornerback who might be able to ask for $35 million+ in 2027, the Seahawks can’t do option one. They have to do something.

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#2-Extend Witherspoon

The Seahawks have been acting like they’re in lockstep with their two 2023 first round picks, first by picking up their fifth-year options, then by extending Jaxon Smith-Njigba to a record-setting extension. John Schneider has acted like a general manager who sees both JSN and Witherspoon as cornerstone pieces for multiple Super Bowl wins yet to come and it’s hard to argue against a team that has already won the Super Bowl.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter, although someone who often speaks on hunches when it comes to things that could happen in the future, believes that Witherspoon will be extended before or during training camp:

"They're going to want to get a deal done with Devon Witherspoon done, I would imagine they get done sometime before or during training camp, and he'll be in Seattle for a long period of time."

And there would be nothing unusual about that. The Seahawks had to spend a lot of money in March, they had to get through the draft, and now they have to set themselves up for the future when it comes to getting as many veteran players under the 2027 and 2028 and 2029 salary cap as possible.

Players like Sam Darnold, Byron Murphy, A.J. Barner, and Leonard Williams could also be receiving huge contracts from the Seahawks in 2027.

Extending a 25-year-old star makes total sense and everything about Witherspoon screams “football player” from the dedication he gives to the craft to the leading-by-example energy that is evident on the field. Macdonald pointed to him as the “sparkplug” last December:

"He's playing great football right now," Macdonald said. "Great football. He's playing three positions, and he is really the energy behind our defense on a daily basis. He's playing high-level cornerback play, and you can put the lack of production on me. We have to more ways to get him involved in the gameplan, but we've got a lot of great players too, so it's a great problem to have. But it's nothing that he's doing. He's playing really, really high-level football right now for us that's really helping us."

And yet…

As a football player, Witherspoon missed three games in 2023 and five games in 2025. Knee, hip, hamstring…Why is it that we focus so much on nagging or severe injuries for running backs and say that makes it okay to part with Kenneth Walker III but then forgive other positions for having the same problems?

Sauce has injury problems. McDuffie has injury problems. Ramsey has injury problems. Patrick Surtain missed games last year. Jaycee Horn is injury prone.

It seems like every cornerback misses time with injury every season.

Is there a price point where smart teams must say to themselves: “Yeah, Witherspoon is an elite cornerback. But now we’re paying him for his age 27-30 seasons and he’s already having knee issues at 24?”

Witherspoon turns 26 in December, which means that his fifth-year option season is when he turns 27. A four-year extension will pay him for his age-28, 29, 30, and 31 seasons. It would also mean that Seattle is potentially paying him $30-$33 million for seasons that are actually worse than what they were getting for $5 million.

It would be like if you bought a car and the payments for the first three years were $15 per month and then suddenly—long after the new car smell is gone—the payments jumped up to $31,000 per month. You’d rather overpay for the good years than the depreciated ones.

Not to say that Witherspoon is like a used car but what years are more likely to be his best years: 2023-2027 or 2028-2032? It’s like the Seahawks are paying his signing bonus+salary ($50-70m) just so that he won’t leave in 2026-2028.

Is that worth it? That’s something that the Seahawks have to decide for themselves and it feels like they’re leaning towards “Yes”.

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#3-Trade Witherspoon (When?)

As stated in the beginning, the Seahawks had to trade Witherspoon before the 2026 draft and they had to get great value. There’s no way they could have accepted the same low first round pick that the Chiefs got for McDuffie; not only his Witherspoon’s stock higher, but because he comes with a fifth-year option that means his contract extension is not as urgent.

If Lawrence is worth pick 10 and Maxx Crosby was nearly traded for pick 14, then the Seahawks had to hold out for a premium draft pick in 2026.

Without that happening, Seattle continues to hammer out contract details with Witherspoon’s agent and that might lead to an extension by camp as Schefter expects. It could also not work out.

A deal that’s “going to happen” is worth as much as a deal that never happened.

As opposed to Micah Parsons last year, there’s absolutely no drama between Witherspoon and the Seahawks. Reaching a standoff to the point where Witherspoon doesn’t want to be around the team until he’s paid feels so far away from where we currently stand that I can hardly imagine it.

And yet, Kam Chancellor did it. Thomas did it. Marshawn did it. Players revered in Seattle came to the point where they looked at their contracts, their paychecks, compared themselves to their peers, and said “Nah, I’m not going to be there.”

As I keep saying, $5 million for DEVON WITHERSPOON? It sounds too good to be true.

But $32 million per season for Devon Witherspoon? That sounds too rich for my blood.

To some degree, every day that passed without an extension is another day where the Seahawks confirm that they’re open to change. Schneider couldn’t write up the contract for JSN fast enough (I’m not sure if Seattle set a franchise record there for earliest-extension ever for a player when he became eligible but it feels like it) and yet months pass for Witherspoon.

Again, I don’t see it as a problem necessarily. Witherspoon’s extension seems likelier than a trade. It’s just that they’re living in the opportunity to trade him far longer than they are existing in the one where they’ve paid him.

When would a trade occur?

A trade before the season: Too much variance for potential outcomes of future draft picks. Do the Seahawks trade him to the Jaguars or Bills and risk that team winning a Super Bowl and only getting pick 32?

A trade midseason: Too much risk for injury/does Witherspoon even play as hard as usual? Amid contract standoffs, cornerbacks like Jalen Ramsey have been distant or “injured” until they were traded. Earl Thomas wanted a new contract, didn’t get it, and then broke his leg. There’s risk involved with waiting.

A trade in 2027: Best value, least variance, but is it even possible? Seattle’s ideal situation would be to wait until next year and be 100% certain what they’re trading Witherspoon for. But is he going to play for $5 million just to be traded?

Perhaps one possibility is that the Seahawks would approach Witherspoon’s situation like Sauce Gardner’s by extending him now and leaving open the door to trading him in 2027.

It’s weird to suggest that a team would intentionally extend a player just to trade him, but we are living in a weird time aren’t we? After all, the Jets kind of got a win-win there even if by accident:

They paid Sauce to see if that would work, then it didn’t, then they got 2 first round picks for him, and now they barely owe any dead cap space.

It’s a great outcome for the Jets. It could make sense for other teams to try and follow suit with the Seahawks being in the perfect situation for a test case. Therefore I could see Seattle extending Witherspoon in a few months, playing out the 2026 season knowing that he’s happy, and restructuring his contract next year in such a way that a trade is possible.

It wouldn’t be the first time that a Seattle athlete was traded when you least expect it.

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Seaside Joe 2612

Their three NFC West counterparts, especially the two who are actually trying to beat them next season, aren’t being treated as kindly.

San Francisco 49ers: Reach

When even Mel Kiper, a loyal apologist for most prospects, says that a team reached then it means that the GM either has a unique strategy or more likely no strategy at all.

“I like De'Zhaun Stribling, Kaelon Black and some others, but it seemed like general manager John Lynch went off the board to get the guys he wanted, often way ahead of where they were valued.”

Kiper added that by not securing insurance for players like Trent Williams and George Kittle, the Niners were not “thinking ahead” with their draft class.

Beat reporter Grant Cohn asked Niners GM John Lynch was he was so confident deviating from the consensus ranking of prospects given his “track record” and that it “seems like it leads to you making reaches”.

The Niners were the least-aligned drafting team by consensus big board rankings by a mile.

Another 49ers account noted that receiver De’Zhaun Stribling, the first pick of round two, was the fourth biggest “reach” of the Lynch-Shanahan regime. Stribling was projected to go around 91st but he went 33rd.

The Ringer’s Danny Kelly gave the class a C- and called Stribling a “head-scratcher” with what other players were left on the board:

“The Niners kept what seems like a now yearly tradition of making head-scratching skill player picks on day two, grabbing Ole Miss receiver De'Zhaun Stribling (my 83rd overall player) and Indiana running back Kaelon Black (who was outside my top 100 and not invited to the combine) in the second and third rounds, respectively.”

On Black, arguably the biggest reach for any player picked by the league on day two, Shanahan told reporters that they view him as a good third down back who was fast at his pro day. Black was Dane Brugler’s 15th-ranked running back but the third one off of the board.

For the Win gave the class a D- and PFF went with a D.

Sometimes redditors sound smarter than GMs and this comment from a 49ers fan makes a lot of sense to me:

“I think the most frustrating thing about our front office is that the draft strategies on days 1 and 2 seem to be wildly different than day 3.

On days 1 and 2 they hyper fixate on their favorite targets, oftentimes drafting them way ahead of where they were projected. These players are usually big and speak well in interviews, but they usually have a major flaw in their profile that the 49ers are willing to overlook (Mykel Williams’ lack of pass rush refinement, Javon Kinlaw’s degenerative knee, TDP’s lack of burst, Trey Lance’s lack of experience).

On day 3 they target either freak athletes who are raw or guys that have at least 1 pro ready trait that the coaching staff can build on (Kittle’s blocking, DJ Jones’ anchor in run defense, Jauan Jennings’ YAC ability, Purdy’s processing).

I think the differing strategies is primarily why we’ve seen different results. We are a below average drafting team in rounds 1-3 and maybe the best drafting team in rounds 4-7.

The infuriating thing is that the front office hasn’t picked up on this and adjusted. If we drafted in rounds 1-3 the same way we draft in rounds 4-7, we likely would’ve won a super bowl by now. Maybe 2.”

As Seahawks fans can attest to sometimes bad draft grades end up as cherished memories…

But Lynch and Shanahan have done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt. Fans already kind of hate last year’s first round pick (Mykel Williams) and the four previous to him were Ricky Pearsall, Trey Lance, Javon Kinlaw, and Brandon Aiyuk. Day 2 picks are almost exclusively composed of busts.

The 49ers have made the playoffs in five of the last seven years despite their mistakes in the top-100 picks so maybe it won’t stop them from competing for the one-seed again next season. Maybe Stribling will prove to be an immediate help—Mike Evans, Christian Kirk, and Pearsall still appear to be the starters though—if not someone else being a late round surprise.

For right now, Lynch continues to avoid “atta boy”’s for his draft picks.

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Los Angeles Rams: Ty goes to the reacher

Starting with Mel again, imagine a draft analyst who loves Shedeur Sanders but doesn’t understand why the Rams would pick quarterback Ty Simpson and you have … the opinion that Simpson is worse than Sheduer:

“I had wide receiver and right tackle as my top two needs for the Rams, and I saw addressing either position in a meaningful way in Round 1 as the potential topper on building a real no-joke contender. When Los Angeles got on the clock at No. 13, Monroe Freeling and Blake Miller were there. Makai Lemon, whom I projected to the Rams in my final mock draft, was still there. It was all lining up for coach Sean McVay and the Rams.

But then Los Angeles shocked everyone and took Ty Simpson.”

The cliffnotes version of Simpson is that he spent three years as a backup at Alabama (two behind Jalen Milroe) and then made his first and only 15 college starts in 2025 with former Seahawks offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb calling plays. Cam Newton is often cited as the only successful NFL quarterback with fewer than 20 college starts (but this could be wrong or interpreted different ways).

Simpson fell off hard in the second half of the season and is considered to be undersized with only adequate traits. All of which led to an expectation at the end of the college season that Simpson would be a day two pick, which by draft day became “he might go at the end of round one”, and then the Rams picked him 13th.

Kelly gave the pick a C-:

“In a vacuum, I really don’t get this pick. This feels like a massive reach for an undersized, lightly experienced quarterback who was injured (and played poorly) for half of his only season as a starter. And maybe more importantly, the Rams are in a position to compete for the Super Bowl right now, and this pick doesn’t give them a better chance to do that. But all that being said: Of all the potential landing spots for Simpson, this is, by light-years, the best he could’ve hoped for.”

PFF noted the reach:

“There was growing momentum that Simpson would be selected toward the end of the first round — he ranked 38th on the Consensus Big Board — but few expected him to come off the board this early.”

And The Athletic called it “the most enigmatic” pick of the entire draft:

“This is the draft’s most enigmatic selection, and it’s not close. If a team drafted Simpson to start right away, the grade, at best, would have been a C-minus — he’s not ready for the NFL in that capacity.”

Even mainstream has called the pick “terrible” by the Rams, emphasizing that general manager Les Snead got a mediocre quarterback prospect over a player who might be able to help them be better than the Seahawks…which of course they weren’t last season.

Of course, the upside to drafting a quarterback is that if Matthew Stafford retires in 2027 then the Rams are already a year into the succession process.

(This was the plan to drafting Trey Lance in 2021 and we saw how that worked out for the 49ers.)

After Simpson, L.A.’s other picks were overshadowed by that decision but in ways just as confusing. The Rams drafted TE Max Klare in the second round, just one year after they drafted a tight end in the second round; L.A. now has five tight ends on the roster who are NFL players. I’m not talking depth, I’m not talking about just being ready to run 13 personnel (3 tight ends on the field), I’m talking about they have five tight ends worthy of being top-3 on a roster.

My question is…why?

Klare has been called a “slight reach” too and third round pick Keagen Trost was ranked lower for some than Seattle’s fourth round pick Beau Stephens.

When I look at the Rams roster, I see major problems ahead at receiver (which sixth rounder C.J. Daniels won’t help) and the offensive line (four of their starters are free agents next year) but Snead and McVay went with luxury over logic.

The Rams are Seattle’s biggest competition in the NFC West (I’ll keep repeating as a reminder that I’m picking the Detroit Lions* to be their biggest competition to get to the Super Bowl) but their first round pick is literally not intended to help L.A. beat the Seahawks next season.

*the lions drafted offensive tackle blake miller in the first round, someone who might have helped the rams right away

Arizona Cardinals: Ok sure I guess we’ll talk about them too

Beck once covered John Lennon’s “Love” for a Starbucks compilation album and the Cardinals hope that Beck and Love will combine for star power too. Unfortunately for them, few people believe Carson Beck has a future in the NFL as starter or that a running back—even one compared to the player who Reggie Bush was supposed to become—will help the Cardinals compete next season for anything other than the number one pick.

Arizona’s offseason is heavily designed to draft a quarterback early in the 2027 draft.

In reshaping their coaching staff, the Cardinals hired former Rams “offensive coordinator” Mike LaFleur as head coach, a person who might be underrated but was otherwise not on anyone’s radar to get that promotion prior to being hired in Arizona. LaFleur did not call plays for the Rams and so he’s basically just as experienced as Seattle’s Brian Fleury.

His offensive coordinator is Nathaniel Hackett, the coach famously blamed for the Broncos historic collapse with Russell Wilson in 2022.

At quarterback, Jacoby Brissett is staying away from the team until he gets a new contract but Arizona GM Monti Ossenfort has told the media that the Cardinals don’t have an official starter yet. It could be free agent Gardner Minshew. Or even Beck, a quarterback who spent six years in college and could have fallen to day three without anyone blinking an eye.

Arizona’s moves feel very Raiders-y to me.

The Raiders hired Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly, drafted Ashton Jeanty, traded for Geno Smith, and even if it wasn’t intentional they tanked to the number one pick which led them to Fernando Mendoza.

Now the Cardinals hire coaches who nobody would surprise if they got fired, drafted a running back, have been noncommittal to a quarterback, and might just want to get the best pick next year.

Given their status in the NFC West, it could be Arizona’s best move.

That helps explains the Cardinals draft to a degree—second rounder Chase Bisontis was the player I wanted for the Seahawks—but what’s the excuse for the Rams and 49ers?

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Seaside Joe 2611

Seahawks don’t trust running back depth

A month before the draft, John Schneider downplayed the need at running back by saying that “it’s a position that you can find guys”, which first led to the signing of former Packers running back Emanuel Wilson and included a meeting with free agent Najee Harris.

But Schneider was implying that the Seahawks would not use a premium pick a on a running back, which is exactly what they did by drafting Jadarian Price at the end of the first round.

If that was a smokescreen, it makes sense to say that because he was afraid that teams would see Seattle as the first checkpoint for Price and try to trade ahead of the Seahawks.

Nevertheless, drafting Price at 32 proves beyond a doubt that Schneider sees Seattle’s other running backs as backups and nothing more.

On Wilson, Schneider said that he gives Seattle something different “at 230 lbs with great feet” and that he is on a “prove-it” contract. On George Holani, Schneider reiterated that he did a “great job” last season.

"George is one of those guys that just does everything really well," Schneider said on Thursday. "He catches the ball, pass protection, doesn't put the ball on the ground, really good instincts and he's a true pro. Like, he's just got a great personality."

On Kenny McIntosh, Schneider highlighted his 2024 season when McIntosh averaged 5.5 yards per carry on 31 attempts. And on Zach Charbonnet, he said that he was “doing great” in his rehab. Even Cam Akers is a player Schneider said he had been trying to get for the last couple of years.

But if the Seahawks felt that one or two of these running backs could start for a year or two, would Seattle have drafted a first rounder right now?

As Schneider just said, “you can find guys”. He found at least seven guys before the draft and he still took Price in the first round.

So what is Price here to do? He’s on the Seahawks to start in Week 1 because Schneider doesn’t actually have faith that any of the backs he was shouting out a month ago give Seattle the vision, burst, and feet to be the team’s first/second down runner next season.

This was not a long-term move. It’s a right now move and Price is the Seahawks starting running back RIGHT NOW.

My first inclination is Price starts, McIntosh and Holani compete for third downs, Wilson is short yardage, Akers is on the practice squad, and Charbonnet returns late in the season.

Secondary players are expendable

This sounds more harsh than it is actually meant to be but for Mike Macdonald’s secondary it’s almost like asking the question, “Who is more valuable: Jim Henson or The Muppets?”

The creator or his creation?

Although the Seahawks extended Josh Jobe for three more years, he might just have extremely lucky timing. Seattle would have needed to add a cornerback with Tariq Woolen also hitting free agency, so why not bring back Jobe when he already understands the assignment? His contract is also team-friendly.

Aside from Jobe, the Seahawks parted with Coby Bryant and Woolen, going much cheaper in the secondary with Noah Igbinoghene and Rodney Thomas II; both players make under $2 million.

Then on day two of the draft, Schneider picked safety Bud Clark and cornerback Julian Neal. On day three, two more defensive backs in corners Andre Fuller and Michael Dansby.

It’s not that starters could be easily replaced, but the schematic/coaching advantage that Macdonald has brought to the Ravens and Seahawks means that in the secondary VALUE is better than STAR POWER.

—Julian Love’s cap hit doubles in 2026 from $6.1m to $12.8m, then goes to $15.2m in 2027

—Ty Okada’s cheap years run out after 2026 if he’s good again

—Devon Witherspoon is up for a mega-extension

With those being said, Love is in the most precarious position because he’ll be 29 and carry a top-10 cap hit at safety. Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor both played their final Seahawks seasons at age 29. Quandre Diggs was 30. Jamal Adams was 28. Bradley McDougald was 29.

It’s not that Bud Clark will just walk in and replace someone like Julian Love next year. It’s that the MESSAGE of the offseason is that the Seahawks see Mike Macdonald as their own personal muppetpaster.

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Seahawks don’t feel on EDGE

If Schneider was really going to force a need on Thursday, the Seahawks would have drafted their highest-rated edge rusher over Price.

No matter how bad you might think Seattle’s situation is at running back, the chance to find an edge rusher is too important and the Seahawks haven’t drafted once since Derick Hall in 2023. This marks three straight drafts without picking an edge rusher.

The Seahawks were clearly not as high on these edge rushers who they passed on as some analysts were:

• T.J. Parker went 35th

• R Mason Thomas went 40th

• Cashius Howell went 41st

• Derrick Moore went 44th

• Zion Young went 45th

• Gabe Jacas went 55th

Seattle scouted these players and decided that none of them would make Schneider regret his decision to take a running back with under 300 carries in college.

In drafting Bud Clark at 64, the Seahawks passed over Keyron Crawford, Romello Height, and Jaishawn Barham.

Then on day three, the Seahawks kept adding more picks but only drafted one front-seven player, defensive tackle Deven Eastern.

The edge and linebacker positions look great for Seattle going into 2026—this is all but the same defense that won the Super Bowl minus Boye Mafe—but looking one year ahead the Seahawks don’t have a clear succession plan for DeMarcus Lawrence, Uchenna Nwosu, or Hall (a pending free agent).

One obvious reason is that Macdonald/Schneider see Derick Hall as being a better “prospect” than any of the edges they didn’t draft. Which is also probably true.

In fact, Hall is the same age as first round pick Akheem Mesidor. Seattle’s coaches have also been working with Jared Ivey and Connor O’Toole since last year, hoping for an undrafted miracle.

But even if all those plans fail, veteran edge rushers have a harder time with commitment than some NFL head coaches.

Just this weekend, Jonathan Greenard was traded for third round picks. By 2027, edge rushers like Maxx Crosby, Myles Garrett, T.J. Watt, or Brian Burns could definitely be filling out a change of address.

There are definitely options out there. Schneider just didn’t feel like the 2026 draft had any enticing ones.

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Seaside Joe 2610

In what’s already being called one of the weakest draft classes of all-time, the third running back off of the board was Kaelon Black to the 49ers at pick 3.90.

ESPN’s 15th-ranked running back (not overall, 15th-ranked RUNNING BACK), Black was not even invited to the NFL Scouting Combine.

It took 58 picks to go from Price to Black.

The next running back would not be drafted until day three, when Washington’s Jonah Coleman went 108th overall to the Broncos. A player Seahawks fans discussed a lot as a worthy comparison to Price, Coleman ended up being drafted 76 picks after him.

Mike Washington Jr., another player in that mix with Coleman, was the only other back to go in the fourth round. He’ll play for Klint Kubiak in Las Vegas.

That means that after the Seahawks drafted Price, this is how the RB class went:

• 2nd round: 0 RB

• 3rd round: 1 RB

• 4th round: 2 RB

• 5th round: 3 RB

• 6th round: 2 RB

There were 36 receivers drafted before the seventh round compared to 10 running backs. More receivers were drafted in the third round (9) alone than there were running backs between Price at 32 and Demond Claiborne at pick 198 (8).

Had the Seahawks not drafted Price—and again, it could still be argued that Seattle didn’t have to be so intent on filling this need when there are still other options at running back between now and the season—it would have been a reach to take one in rounds 2 or 3 and they didn’t have a pick in round 4 until they traded for Beau Stephens on Saturday.

All of the backs after Price are not viewed by the league as above-average starters.

When’s the last time we said something like that about running backs?

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Here’s how the Seahawks handled day 3 of the draft, trading picks to go from having one selection in the sixth to ending up with five:

5.148 - G Beau Stephens, Iowa

The Seahawks traded a 2027 fourth round pick to the Browns in order to draft Stephens in the fifth round. It’s almost a no-win trade for Cleveland because they give up pick 148 this year so that they can get a pick that could be roughly 135-140 next year.

I keep saying it: This draft class is getting no respect from the NFL. Teams want out of it so bad that they’ll just give up their picks this year for equal picks next year.

Stephens is reunited with former Iowa teammate Mason Richman, a seventh round offensive line pick by Seattle in 2025.

There probably is not going to be a competition at right guard this year but if Anthony Bradford gets hurt or plays his way out of a job then Stephens could have the chops to step in this season. He was not blamed for any sacks in the past three seasons, but Stephens has a long injury history and is considered to be a below-average athlete who also has short arms.

Dane Brugler’s summary:

Stephens embraces the physicality of the position and delivers pop at contact in all phases. In the run game, he can generate movement blocking down and has a feel for how lanes develop. His stubborn hands help him sustain, but his edges leak and marginal body control makes it tough for him to get out of compromised positions. Overall, Stephens might struggle compensating for his lack of ideal length and athleticism, but blocking awareness and the power in his hands give him a fighting chance. Given his coachability and mental maturation, he can earn a backup role as a rookie and eventually push for on-field reps.

For what it’s worth, Dane ranked Stephens higher on his big board than Keagen Trost, an offensive line prospect who the Rams drafted in the third round.

6.199 - WR Emmanuel Henderson, Jr., Kansas

He’s 6’1, 185 lbs, and he ran a 4.44, which is pretty fast. But he has 8.5” hands, smallest in the class. A big-time running back recruit in 2022, Henderson chose Alabama but couldn’t get playing time either in the back field or as a receiver so he transferred to Kansas in 2025.

He had 766 yards and 5 touchdowns with the Jayhawks last year and was named the best kick returner in the conference. When I saw that Seattle drafted a receiver in the sixth round my first thought was “I guarantee he’s a special teamer” and sure enough Henderson could a) be a gunner for Jay Harbuagh and/or b) compete to return kicks.

Henderson was Dane’s 40th ranked receiver in the class, which is another way of saying that there’s a big group of players at the position (call it, the guys ranked 25th-50th or so) who aren’t necessarily better than one another but just different flavors of tea. It just depends on what you’re in the mood for.

This is a move to replace Dareke Young more than it is anything else.

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7.236 - CB Andre Fuller, Toledo

A day after drafting Julian Neal with the 99th pick, the Seahawks took another cornerback with almost the same size (6’1, 203 lbs) and speed (they both ran a 4.49 40-yard dash) in the seventh round. The biggest difference of the tape would be that Fuller has 30 1/4” arms, about 2.5” shorter than Neal’s.

A no-star recruit, Fuller turned a breakout season with Arkansas-Pine Bluff in 2021 into a transfer up to Toledo in 2022, where he spent two seasons as a backup safety. Moving to corner in 2024, Fuller expected to find his groove but a sports hernia cost him most of the season. That means 2025 was his sixth year of college football (are these elongated careers going to end any time soon???) and by far his best, which isn’t that surprising really because he was in college by the time some of his opponents were going into 7th grade.

Dane had this to say:

Just a one-year starter in the FBS, Fuller put himself in draftable territory with his 2025 performance (42.3 percent completion rate when targeted). He has a natural feel as a man-cover defender to get physical at the line, quickly find his balance (regardless of his footwork) and stay with route runners through the stem. His recovery speed is lacking, but when in phase, he can find the ball downfield and turn potential deep catches into incompletions. His eye level from off coverage and open-field tackling are solid but need additional work.

Overall, Fuller has only adequate speed and plays with grabby tendencies, but he is a good-sized athlete who has smooth transitions and confidence in coverage to make plays on the football.

If pointing out Fuller’s advanced age comes off as harsh, I don’t mean it to be. In this class, however, Fuller is more like a rookie minicamp invitee who got drafted in the seventh round because the class has no day three depth. He played six years of college football and then finally had one good season and it came at Toledo. It’s a win for Fuller if he makes the practice squad.

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7.242 - DT Deven Eastern, Minnesota

The year that Seattle parts ways with a defensive lineman who played for Minnesota, they also draft one. He started 39 games for the Gophers over the last three seasons.

Eastern is 6’5, 315 lbs, with long 34” arms.

Dane:

With his size and sturdy lower half, Eastern sports an NFL-ready body and uses his extension to lock out and hold his ground in the run game. However, his taller stature can work against him when defending both the run and the pass. He tends to rely too heavily on his body and raw strength to maneuver his way to the football and needs to continue developing his instincts. Overall, Eastern lacks efficiency and balance in his block reactions, but his frame and presence will be good starting points for a patient coaching staff. He can provide depth as the shade in even fronts or head-up in odd schemes.

He’s probably someone who Seattle hopes could stick around long enough to contribute in a couple of years.

7.255 - CB Michael Dansby, Arizona

Seattle’s final pick is also the fourth defensive back added in 2026. Dansby was Dane’s 100th-ranked cornerback! 100!

This is reaching really, really deep for a player and there’s not a lot written about Dansby because he probably wasn’t expecting to be drafted at all. Here he is at the “American Bowl” showcase:

Dansby played at San Jose State prior to transferring to Arizona in 2025. He had two interceptions and 10 pass breakups last season.

The 2026 Seahawks draft class!

1.32 - RB Jadarian Price, Notre Dame

2.64 - S Bud Clark, TCU

3.99 - CB Julian Neal, Arkansas

5.148 - G Beau Stephens, Iowa

6.199 - WR/ST Emmanuel Henderson, Kansas

7.236 - CB Andre Fuller, Toledo

7.242 - DT Deven Eastern, Minnesota

7.255 - CB Michael Dansby, Arizona

The Seahawks entered with four picks and left with eight.

What did you think?

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Seaside Joe 2609

This one is for Seaside Joe’s representative from the state of Arkansas, that’s you Charley Filipek!

Neal played four years at Fresno State (under former UW head coach Kalen DeBoer) prior to transferring to Arkansas in 2025. He is Dane Brugler’s 15th-ranked cornerback and he gives Mike Macdonald his second secondary addition of the day next to safety Bud Clark.

Neal has 33 1/4” arms on a 6’1, 203 lbs frame, a body that ran the 40-yard dash in 4.49 seconds. His 40” vertical and 11’02 broad jump is also impressive.

“Neal matches up well physically and plays to his size in different ways. He crowds receivers at the line, pins opponents against the sideline and contests catch points (when he finds the football) — you can see his receiver background in his ball skills and catch-point timing. He also shows his physicality when getting off blocks and working downhill as a tackler. He lacks suddenness in his mirroring footwork, however, and his technique tends to fall apart versus twitchy receivers.

Overall, Neal lacks top-shelf speed for easy recoveries, but he stands out with his length, ascending cover talent and ability to play the football from different angles. He has the potential to be an NFL starter for both man and zone teams.”

Seattle’s offseason at defensive back includes:

• Re-signing Josh Jobe for three years

• Parting with Riq Woolen

• Parting with Coby Bryant

• Drafting S Bud Clark

• Drafting CB Julian Neal

• Signing CB Noah Igbinoghene

• Signing S Rodney Thomas II

• Re-signing S D’Anthony Bell

The Seahawks look ahead to the next 12 months where more shifting in the secondary is expected, including contract extension negotiations with Devon Witherspoon, a decision to be made on the long-term future of Ty Okada, and possibly a second look at Julian Love’s contract as he gets near 30.

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These two picks may or may not help Seattle significantly during the 2026 season but that’s what most of us said about Nick Emmanwori, who was expected to need more time to acclimate to the NFL to reach a Pro Bowl level, which was clearly not the case.

However, just two years ago the Seahawks drafted Nehemiah Pritchett (backup player competing for a role) and D.J. James (never made the team) without much results. Those were fifth and sixth round picks, but in this particular class there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference.

Clark and Neal will definitely make the roster. Given Mike Macdonald’s encouragement for heated competitions at every spot, they will have the chance to earn bigger roles than simply making the team.

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The Seahawks drafted TCU safety Bud Clark with the 64th pick of the 2026 draft. If he’s like the rest of Seattle’s DBs, he’s got that dog in him too.

Clark is Dane Brugler’s 84th-ranked player in the class. By that measure it might seem like a reach, but the Seahawks draft players for their team and not based on where the league thinks that prospect might rank in the class overall.

Seattle’s safety position has talented players from Julian Love to Nick Emmanwori and Ty Okada. However, a transition period is in motion with the departure of Coby Bryant to the Bears in free agency and Clark is John Schneider and Mike Macdonald’s choice to take them into the future.

Of all the safeties in Brugler’s draft guide, Clark’s 188 lbs is the lightest. (By comparison, my Clark weighed 21 lbs at the vet and they were concerned about it.)

He’s 6’ and ran a 4.41. Clark played six years of college.

Dane’s final summary:

A four-year starter at TCU, Clark was a versatile safety in defensive coordinator Andy Avalos’ 4-2-5 base scheme, rotating mostly between one-high and slot looks. He proved to be a ballhawk for the Horned Frogs over the past four seasons, with 35 passes defended and 15 interceptions (four most in school history).

In both coverage and run support, Clark moves with athletic twitch to get where he is going in a hurry. He understands route concepts and flows fast to wherever his instincts lead him. When the ball is in the air, he locates it and flashes the body control to make plays. His energy shows as a run defender, as well, although lackluster finishing strength will be more noticeable versus NFL ball carriers.

Overall, Clark is overly responsive in coverage, but he brings range and ball skills to the back end of the defense and makes more plays than he misses. He has field-safety starting potential and can hold up in nickel.

Obviously I’m all for it, but what do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments. I’ll open up today’s comments to everyone, including FREE subscribers:

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Woof!

“the basic logic of enshittification — in which businesses start out being very good to their customers, then switch to ruthless exploitation”

Did the football talent pipeline finally “enshittify” the NFL Draft by exploiting the college football market with the transfer portal and NIL opportunities?

Both systems are reasonable and fair (one gives players the freedom to go where they want whenever they want and the other gives players a piece of the pie to a billion dollar industry that they provide the content for) but just because something is right doesn’t mean that it has positive consequences.

Since Thursday night, a lot of people have said that the Seattle Seahawks got a really good running back prospect when they drafted Jadarian Price with the 32nd overall pick. None of them —even the most excited — have said that Price is as good as the typical running back who is drafted around the 32nd pick.

So if Price is a “third round talent” with a “first round outcome” that tells us one of two things could be true:

1. The Seahawks reached

2. The draft lost an entire round’s worth of talented prospects

I’ve heard people say that Seattle “reached” but not with the typical vigor and disgust that has come with past top-50 running back picks. The general sentiment has been that “Yeah the Seahawks reached on Price, but what else can you do? The third running back is so much worse.”

Price at 32nd — and to a degree Fernando Mendoza at 1 — tells me that the 2026 NFL Draft was indeed ENSHITTIFIED. The Rams took “Christian Ponder” at 13. The Cardinals took a running back at 3. Teams were trading up with fourth and fifth round picks. Another year’s “pick 25” became this year’s “pick 6*”.

*a term ty simpson might want to get familiar with

It’s understandable to feel underwhelmed by the Seahawks drafting a running back who most people think is a worse prospect than Kenneth Walker III was as the 41st pick in 2022, but also justifiable to say that it’s not just Seattle’s problem:

Hoping for a better prospect is the battle, but hoping to get a better draft class next year is the war.

Here’s what people are saying about Jadarian Price, his fit with the Seahawks, and some very positive film breakdowns of tape at Notre Dame that I managed to find last night. But I’m also going to cover the concerns that people have with the pick, why some analysts had a third to fifth (yes, fifth) round grade on him, and how the 2026 draft class is not a SEA problem it’s a WE problem.

A Regular Joes subscription for $5 not only gets you this article, but supports a Seahawks newsletter that is GUARANTEED to publish 365 days a year.

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Aside from trading down, Price was by far the most popular mock draft pick for the Seahawks in the first round and with no other teams apparently overwhelmed with his resume—which as I wrote recently is shockingly light for a first round pick—he was there at 32 without anyone being surprised.

It became so expected that it felt too easy. Sometimes easy is all that matters.

As a running back, Price has a chance to step in as Seattle’s Week 1 starter against a yet-to-be-named team on a Wednesday.

He’ll face little competition from the Seahawks current crop of running backs including Emanuel Wilson, George Holani, Cam Akers, and Kenny McIntosh. Given the timing and severity of Zach Charbonnet’s knee injury, he’s not expected back earlier than October and this pick sends up a glaring signal that Seattle won’t be in a hurry to re-sign or extend the 2027 free agent.

If all goes to plan, Jadarian Price will be the Seahawks featured running back for the next four seasons, 2026 to 2029, and there’s a fifth-year option on the end of the deal to boot. However because he is a running back, fifth-year options are rarely picked up, especially in the last third of the first round.

I won’t shy away from the fact that I did not believe the Seahawks were going to draft Price here.

A running back who never started a game in college, had one career game with 15 carries, once tore his Achilles, hasn’t done much work in the passing game, and is considered a fumbling liability, Price going in the first round still surprises me and I’ll give two reasons why I think it happened that have nothing to do with whether or not he’s a good pick:

1) This draft class is really bad.

We can point to the Rams drafting quarterback Ty Simpson at 13th overall as evidence of that. A quarterback roundly projected to go in the late 20s at the earliest, it seems that L.A. was so underwhelmed by the other options—as were teams that didn’t trade up—that they decided to pick Matthew Stafford’s potential successor instead.

Not at pick 30. At pick 13.

2) This running back class is really bad.

Whereas Price’s teammate Jeremiyah Love is being hailed as a worthy comparison to players like Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley (we’ll see about that one too), there’s relatively little support for this idea that “you can find starters in the fourth round” when it comes to the 2026 class.

Everything we’ve read over the last three months falls under this idea that if you don’t get Love or Price, you might just be getting a running back who could be a part of a committee. Names like Jonah Coleman, Emmett Johnson, and Mike Washington did little more than generate a little bit of interest around their athletic profiles and testing times.

But I never saw anyone go to bat for any other running backs as potential first round—or even second round—picks.

If the Seahawks did not draft Price with their first pick, they weren’t going to get Price with their second pick.

So this appears to be John Schneider’s admission to the world that of every running back on Seattle’s roster and every other running back in the 2026 class that he had a chance to draft, Jadarian Price is the only one who he believes could replace Kenneth Walker.

Is it a good pick?

It is hypocritical when people say “draft grades are so stupid!” on one side of their mouth and “I hate this pick!!!” out of the other.

There are certainly times we can question the value of certain picks, especially when it pertains to positions in the draft (if we all agree that drafting a punter in the first round is idiotic, then we agree that there ARE positional value debates in the draft to some degree), but we also have to remember that Jadarian Price is a Seahawk now.

I was never rooting against Price to be drafted at 32, I just did not expect it.

And over the next five months leading into the 2026 season, Price will be one of the most featured and talked about players on the team—especially when it comes to Hard Knocks—and when he gets his first touch of his career we will not care where he was drafted.

When Walker won Super Bowl MVP, did a single Seahawks fan who gave the pick a “D” or an “F” in 2022 cross their arms and say, “ugh, i still think that was a horrible pick!!!”

I mean, sure, yes, there are people who will always argue against taking a running back that early in the draft. But it didn’t stop the Seahawks from winning the Super Bowl with Walker as the starting back and as long as Seattle continues to have team success there won’t be any reason to go back in time and complain about picks.

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I’m excited to find out more about Jadarian Price in the weeks and months ahead. I have little doubt that if Schneider liked him at 32, even in a weak class, that it means the Seahawks believe that as long as he’s healthy he has the potential to be one of the best running backs in the NFC and soon. Possibly as soon as now.

What are your thoughts on the Seahawks drafting Jadarian Price over edge, corner, and any other available options?

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Seahawks have picks 64 and 96 on Friday!

This is going to be a chat open to everybody, including free subscribers, so come out of the lurk and enjoy the perk. Obviously still be respectful or pay the ultimate price:

You can also decide to subscribe tonight anyway:

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If you think that you’re going to know ahead of time who the Seahawks are going to draft because Rob Staton or Daniel Jeremiah or Hawkblogger or Peter Schrager or Seaside Joe said it’s what would happen, you might as well hire a Magic 8 ball as your new financial adviser.

Predicting Devon Witherspoon at the 5th pick was a thousand times easier than forecasting pick 32…and most people still got that wrong.

Predicting the 32nd pick before the draft has started is sort of like going to a wedding expecting “chicken or fish?” but instead someone hands you the entire Cheesecake Factory menu.

If the Seahawks end up drafting someone who anyone predicted they would draft, by all means let those people have a day to celebrate a deserved victory (I overthought the Grey Zabel pick last year and give credit to those who didn’t), but it’ll still be a lucky guess.

John Schneider couldn’t tell you who the Seahawks are going to draft with their first pick yet. From the sounds of it, there are at least 50 prospects who could go within the first 31 picks.

No matter how many times people try to sell it as one at this time of year, Draft Day is not a good movie. But it got this right:

So who is my final 2026 mock pick for the Seahawks?

Based on everything I just said, it doesn’t make sense for me to change what I wrote last weekend: I want Seattle to draft Texas A&M guard Chase Bisontis.

You should predict what you want to happen because it doesn’t actually matter what you believe will happen.

(In past years I’ve messed with adding in predictions of the Seahawks trading down, but I’m just not even going to toy around with that boring answer this time even though Seattle is desperately trying to trade down. Bisontis fits as a second round pick too.)

Who do you WANT the Seahawks to draft?

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By the way, does it matter that the Seahawks met with some edge rushers and cornerbacks projected to go around pick 32? Of course it matters. Every piece of intel matters in some way. But before every draft from 2022 to 2024 the Seahawks met with the top quarterback prospects, and yet Seattle didn’t add a single notable rookie quarterback during those years. Not even as an undrafted signing.

Last year, the Seahawks met with three of the top edge rushers and two of the top cornerbacks. Seattle didn’t draft one edge rusher or cornerback.

The Seahawks could use their first two picks on a cornerback and an edge rusher, so maybe they take Chris Johnson in the first and Cashius Howell in the second. They’ve done the homework. But I didn’t do any homework in school and look how I turned out.

I’m going with Bisontis because this is a pick for me, not because there’s much of a reason to believe it will happen.

If I was trying to reason it out though, these are all the players expected to be in contention for the first round who have been linked to Seattle before the draft and where things currently stand:

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I was sold by research into his background that Witherspoon was being undervalued a couple of weeks before the draft, but what pushed me into the prediction on draft eve was hearing how highly he spoke about his visit to the VMAC on Steve Smith’s podcast: “Their facility is one of the best I’ve ever been to…It was just one of the best cities I’ve ever been to, for real.”

Witherspoon also talked about admiring the pictures of the Legion of Boom and wanting to be a part of the Seahawks legacy. So whereas most 30 visits are the team interviewing the prospect, the way that Witherspoon talked about Seattle felt like the reverse.

It’s also the way that Cashius Howell, edge rusher out of Texas A&M and a potential top-30 pick, talked about his pre-draft meeting with the Seahawks on Kay Adams show this week when she asked him what it was like to go to Seattle:

"Oh, yeah. It was great. The facilities, everything was so beautiful up there in Seattle. The coaching staff, they did a great job at welcoming me with with open arms and really just kind of giving me the lay of the land, you know, telling me what they expect me to do within the defense if they were to draft me.

Kind of watched a little film, kind of did a a little install, just kind of had, you know, a great insight for for what to expect if they were to draft me. And it was a great visit. Got to meet a lot of great staff members, great players, all of that. So, you know, like I said, I definitely feel like it would be a great fit to to to go play for the Seahawks.”

Yeesh, is it even a prediction anymore that Howell and the Seahawks are gravitating towards another before the draft? I haven’t seen this much chemistry since Romeo & Juliet were admiring the same fish tank.

Adams then asked Howell what it felt like when he was leaving the VMAC and Seattle:

“Oh, it was just like wow. Like honestly I I was blown away and just you know based on some of the things that the coaches were saying and kind of the culture that they were trying to — or not trying to but have already established — in the locker room and just throughout the facilities. It makes sense as to why they they win Super Bowls and that they’re always consistently just having great season after great season.

So, like I said, it was just honestly, I was just blown away by the whole visit and just thinking about all the scenarios that would happen and just honestly wishing I could be a Seattle Seahawk.”

Excuse me …

Howell’s name has come up a couple of times at Seaside Joe this month, but mostly in the comments and never by me. In fact, the only time I wrote about Howell was during my interview with Alexandre Castro when he specifically called him out as the best edge rusher to watch at 32:

“One name to watch at 32—who I didn’t think would be available before, but now might be—is Cashius Howell. He was once projected near the top of the first round, but his shorter arm length has pushed him down boards. It’s still unclear where he’ll land, but I think he stays in the first round, likely toward the back end.”

Only then did Howell get the respect here that I didn’t know he deserved, but a day before the draft he’s lining up his shot to be Seaside Joe’s 2026 prediction for the Seahawks and I’d say he’s aiming at center mass.

It’s like asking a love struck teenager why they like someone and the true answer is, “Because they like me.”

I mean, if I’m John Schneider looking for a blinking green light with my first pick, the edge rusher saying “I really, really, really want to be a Seahawk” ain’t a bad sign.

Cashius Howell—Harold Landry

The most common comparison for Howell is Harold Landry, the 41st pick of the 2018 draft and a player that the Seahawks faced in the Super Bowl last year as a member of the New England Patriots. The comparison is made in this two-minute breakdown of Howell’s film, in addition to other places:

Landry spent seven years with the Titans (missed one season with a torn ACL), averaged about 10 sacks per year, and signed a second contract with the team. That’s far more than teams get out of most second round picks.

The two sides wanted to part ways in 2025 and after being released, Landry signed a three-year, $43.5 million deal with the Patriots, which is roughly the same value that Seattle put on DeMarcus Lawrence. Landry had 8.5 sacks last season as a designated pass rusher over 15 games.

If the Seahawks were to draft a player like that at 32, or in the second round after trading down, even if he’s solely designated as a pass rusher that would be an excellent get for a defense that doesn’t already have one of those (as I wrote on Tuesday).

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But Landry is just a comparison, not a forecast of a player’s entire future.

A draft prospects “pro comp” is sort of like saying that the movie Black Hole had a comp of Star Wars when it was being developed. But as we soon found, it ain’t no Star Wars.

Howell could be a better pass rusher than Landry, or a more complete edge defender, or he could be worse. He could be a bust.

Or maybe better phrased, “A Black Hole on the Dark Side.”

However, if Howell is available at pick 32—and better yet if Schneider senses that he’s going to be still be on the board if Seattle can trade down—the reward of getting a productive designated pass rusher outweighs the risk of drafting a mediocre one-trick pony.

If that prospect is openly campaigning to go to Seattle before the draft, and another prospect just wants to go as high as possible for aesthetics (even if it’s the Browns or the Dolphins or the Cardinals), fans of that team couldn’t hate that the Seahawks picked a player who already picked them.

Who also fills a need and is cited by some, including Voch Lombardi and Bryan Broaddus in this video, as a top-3 edge rusher in the class who might be a better football player than Rueben Bain and Arvell Reese and would go top-10 if not for his arm length and wingspan:

The hosts are worried about Howell’s inconsistency between dominating teams like LSU but disappearing against Notre Dame and in Texas A&M’s bowl game against Miami. Maybe he could be handled by an above-average NFL offensive tackle or maybe he’s just too disruptive/too high of a football IQ/too many pass rushing tools for that to be a concern.

All of which are consistent mentions for what makes Howell a top-40 pick.

Francis Mauigoa, the consensus #1 offensive lineman in the 2026 class, called Howell the best pass rusher he faced in 2025. That’s an NFL offensive tackle (or guard) right there.

Howell is Dane Brugler’s #39 ranked prospect on the big board, putting him right in Seattle’s range between 32-40 if he falls that far:

“Overall, Howell needs to expand the consistency of his impact beyond winning as a high-side rusher, but his athletic twitch, play speed and violent demeanor make for the type of package you bet on at the position. At worst, he should be a designated pass rusher, with the ceiling of a versatile NFL starter (like Haason Reddick) who can be moved around the front.”

Howell also brings the necessary “chip on his shoulder” that the Seahawks like in a prospect. Just like Devon Witherspoon coming out of high school, Howell had virtually no attention from FBS programs and he ended up choosing Bowling Green as a three-star edge rusher; Brugler says that Howell was only ranked as the 12th-best recruit in Bowling Green’s 2021 class.

Said Howell of those years:

"As a 16 or 17-year-old kid, just trying to make a way for himself, it hurt me back then," he said. "Just seeing that these programs, none of them thought that you were good enough. So, it just put a chip on my shoulder going into Bowling Green, because I just had a feeling that I can play, and I will play at the highest level."

"I like to just think about all the hard times and stuff that I've been through to get to this point," he said. "And I just like to channel that into something positive, and with playing football, I feel like that's a good outlet for me to be able to channel it and it helps not only myself, but it also helps the team as well."

Finally, he led his conference in sacks in 2023 and transferred to A&M after the season. When he became a starter in 2025, Howell had 11 sacks and 14 tackles for a loss, making the All-American team. He’s also batted down an incredible 13 passes in the last two seasons, not bad for dinosaur arms.

Howell is ranked 36th on Sam Teets’ big board.

He’s not a first round pick for Todd McShay, Peter Schrager, Lance Zierlein, or Bucky Brooks, suggesting that analysts expect him to be available on day two. This is important because Schneider went to the media and said in no uncertain terms that the Seahawks would love to get out of the first round.

Of course, very few—if any—analysts were saying that Devon Witherspoon would be a top-5 pick in 2023 so we can’t trust these opinions as far as Fernando Mendoza can throw them.

Some fans will not want the Seahawks to use their first pick on a pass rusher with short arms (longer arms than Bain, but a shorter wingspan) who isn’t considered a “steal” at 32 and that’s fair too.

However, many of them will change their minds if Howell is drafted by the Seahawks as the stories roll in about Howell being one of the most intense players in college football—again, there’s a comparison there to the attitude brought by Witherspoon out of Illinois. (My favorite quote by a coach before the 2023 draft was Witherspoon’s DC, who said that Spoon was only going to get better because he could finally stop doing school and fully focus on football.)

Howell compared his own intensity to Ray Lewis, a player who’s career in Baltimore didn’t quite cross over with Macdonald’s (missed him by two years), but could be relevant: As a Ravens fan, Howell is surely familiar with Macdonald’s defense and what is asked of the edge rushers.

As a player who was recruited by Ivy League schools out of high school and nearly ended up with Cornell, I do not doubt that Howell has the IQ to understand any role on Macdonald’s defense.

As a pass rusher who will be in the NFL in less than 72 hours who is coming out of the same program as Myles Garrett and Von Miller (a veteran known for giving out all his secrets to other edge rushers who want to listen to him and has a vested interest in Howell already), I do not doubt that he has the capacity to be a draft steal.

And as a prospect not being mocked to the Seattle Seahawks at all, I do not doubt that once again—as it was three years ago—most experts are wrong.

Said it once, I’ll say it again: If you liked the draft coverage here (and want it to continue for the entire summer) please join Regular Joes or Super Joes:

Would you approve of Cashius Howell at 32? Or would it only be OK on day two? Let me know:

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Seaside Joe 2607

Gary Souja: For the 2026 Seahawks, assuming no help from the 2026 draft, what is the one weakest spot you see on offense; and on defense? Where does the fix come on either or both in your opinion?

First we must address the limitations that come with any draft class and present teams needs, which is that most rookies aren’t that instrumental in success.

When we talk about Seattle’s “awesome” 2025 draft, we’re mostly talking about Grey Zabel, Nick Emmanwori, half of a season (and 13 catches) by Tory Horton, Robbie Ouzts kinda-sorta having a role on offense, and a Super Bowl sack by Rylie Mills. Apparently Elijah Arroyo had 15 catches and I don’t remember any of them.

This isn’t meant to be a damning remark about the 2025 rookie class because it’s the opposite: That IS an awesome amount of rookie value. It’s inordinate.

And that came with picks 18, 35, 50, and 92 in the first 100.

Now not only do the Seahawks have picks 32, 64, and 96 until they get to pick 188, John Schneider is sending up a major green light through the media that Seattle wants to trade down. If the Seahawks trade down far enough, they could end up with their first pick in 2026 being later than their third pick in 2025.

That wouldn’t surprise us at all, would it?

If you cut of Seattle’s picks before 50 last year, there’s no Zabel or Emmanwori and then it’s not much of a rookie class. It’s solely moves for 2026 and beyond.

Therefore, Seahawks fans should resist the temptation to expect rookies to fix the weaknesses similar to plugging Zabel and Emmanwori into left guard and nickel respectively. If a rookie helps patch up one weakness, just ONE, that would be enough to call it a success.

Can they find that player at 32? Or 35? Or 50? Or 188?

Sure, anything is possible. The odds still favor Seattle having weaknesses next season and that the draft won’t be able to quell them entirely.

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A New Offensive Coordinator

In a way, Brian Fleury is already my favorite Seahawks offensive coordinator of all-time (because I want him to be), but is still an unknown.

Fleury could end up being a better offensive coordinator than Klint Kubiak. In fact, Kubiak’s star has never been higher than it is right now.

Kubiak had never held the same coordinator job two years in a row and the Saints were more than happy to throw him out with Dennis Allen in 2024. Prior to Seattle’s run in the second half of the season, Kubiak was not atop most lists for head coaching vacancies.

Although Kubiak had won the Raiders job before the Super Bowl, I’d argue that the Super Bowl is still the peak of his career reputation and it isn’t particularly close. So can Fleury, a first-time playcaller, be better than Kubiak was last season?

I think the bar for that is lower than it seems if we’re basing it solely off of how Kubiak left Seattle, which was as good as any coach could dream of, but the Seahawks can only bet on Fleury. And as any degenerate could tell you, winning the jackpot doesn’t make someone a better gambler.

The Eagles had to replace Kellen Moore after winning the Super Bowl and his replacement only lasted one season. The Rams had to replace Kevin O’Connell after winning the Super Bowl in 2021 and the replacement only lasted one season.

Calling plays is only a fraction of what makes someone a good offensive coordinator.

How Fleury delegates responsibilities to the assistant coaches, how much the players like his coaching style, and how good he is at understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Sam Darnold will be just as important as Xs and Os, not to mention the most important relationship of all:

Does Fluery work well with Mike Macdonald and will he know how to marry Seattle’s entrenched defensive philosophies with his offensive philosophies?

So because he’s not returning from last season, there’s always the chance that the hiring will go down more on the Ryan Grubb side than the Kubiak side.

The good news—or at least the part of changing offensive coordinators that should not cause panic—is that these days the job is fleeting for every team in the NFL:

• 21 teams hired their current offensive coordinator in 2026 (some of these OCs are not play callers though)

• 6 more were hired in 2025

• The longest-tenured OCs who calls plays and aren’t the head coach are Josh McDaniels and Nick Caley, both of whom were hired in 2025

The difference between the Seahawks and other teams is that some of them have a long-tenured head coach who is the OC (Rams, 49ers) but every franchise goes through constant turnover at some coordinator roles and what they don’t have is a defensive coordinator as good as Mike Macdonald.

But the draft can’t help Fleury gain experience or prove himself. We don’t even know if Seattle will draft a single offensive player after having already taken nine of them in 2025’s class. Maybe Fleury won’t be a weakness at all.

He will, however, come with a learning curve.

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Receiver Depth: I have concerns

Starting running back(s) could be found at any time of year, but the Seahawks have made their bed at receiver with questionable reliability.

The Seahawks can’t draft a receiver this year without the move implying that Cooper Kupp got a $9 million retirement gift from John Schneider. Where does he fit?

• WR1: Jaxon Smith-Njigba

• WR2: Rashid Shaheed

• WR3: Cooper Kupp

• WR4: Tory Horton

• WR5: Jake Bobo

These five are locked in and the only possible exceptions are Kupp (if Seattle opts to release him despite a $9 million guarantee) and Horton (if he can’t return to form after another injury).

If we hypothesize using pick 64 on a receiver, that player is also going to be locked into the 2026 roster. It’s a move that would be both logical and confusing based on the moves that the Seahawks have made this year.

The 5 receivers* that the Seahawks are going into 2026 with are good, if not great, but … Kupp is 33 and he’s on a trajectory towards career extinction; Horton’s injuries have cost him to miss over half of his games in the last two years; Shaheed in an expanded role is a gamble and he turns 28 before the season.

*plus Cody White, Ricky White

Past comparisons for receivers that Seattle gambled on, either as free agents or trade acquisitions, include Deion Branch, Nate Burleson, and Sidney Rice.

Every Seahawks fan is looking forward to Shaheed’s Week 1 debut after getting an entire offseason with Sam Darnold and the coaching staff, not being thrown into the mix in November with no rehearsal. I wrote about expectations for Shaheed last week.

But Seattle’s depth behind Smith-Njigba is nevertheless fraught with question marks and probably can’t be addressed in the draft this week.

This is why I’m looking towards A.J. Barner as a potential second option for Darnold, who is not a receiver and therefore that position could be called a “weakness” in 2026.

“That guy” pass rusher probably isn’t there yet

Drafting an edge rusher at 32-96 who would have a year 1 impact would be as lucky as drafting Russell Wilson in 2012.

Teams could not run against the Seahawks last year, a fact that I’m betting will get lost in history when fans debate the best defenses of the 21st century. Seattle’s “expected points added” by the run defense alone was almost double the total of the second-best team and more than double the total of the third-place team:

The two other defenses cited in contention as the best defense of 2025, the Broncos and the Texans, were only 10th and 11th.

If pass defense is arm candy, then run defense is the one you marry.

The Seahawks allowed 150 rushing yards once all year, which was against Washington and included 51 yards by Jayden Daniels.

To this point we could argue that run defense is in danger of falling under “Regression” simply because Seattle was so good at it. But it probably won’t be a “Weakness”.

However, getting to the quarterback could fall from “Good” to “Average”, if not “Below-Average” because a) The Seahawks didn’t make any notable additions and b) Rookie pass rushers rarely contribute, but they especially don’t when those players aren’t blue-chip prospects.

• The Seahawks had 47 sacks (tied 7th with two other teams)

• No Seahawk had more than 7 sacks

• DeMarcus Lawrence and Uchenna Nwosu were the only edge rushers with more than 2 sacks

The Broncos had a league-leading 68 sacks, led by Nik Bonitto with 14, who I wrote about last month as the only standout day two edge rusher of the past five drafts. Denver’s number two edge rusher Jonathan Cooper had eight sacks last year—more than any Seattle player—and has averaged nine sacks over the past three seasons.

The Texans had the same number of sacks as the Seahawks (47) but with 15 by Danielle Hunter and 12 by Will Anderson, Houston’s ability to generate as many or more sacks by the defense next season is likelier than Seattle’s odds.

It’s not that having two superstar edge rushers is better than having a defense that spreads the love around like Macdonald’s. But that doesn’t mean the Seahawks don’t want a superstar edge rusher.

Some people would rather eat two Oreo per night and call that their cheat meal, other people would rather be good for six days and eat banana split every Sunday. It’s just a preference.

We’ve heard Seattle tried to trade for Maxx Crosby last year and we assume Schneider is considering using Seattle’s first pick on an edge rusher. It’s not that the desire isn’t there…the absence of a sure thing is what’s apparent.

—Lawrence has the Kupp problem, he’s 34.

—Nwosu isn’t a “pass rusher” as much as he is an edge setter.

—Derick Hall doubled his season sack total (2) in the Super Bowl.

An acceptable season by Hall would be six sacks. The bar wasn’t set high. He had eight sacks a couple of years ago but half of those came off of a technicality.

If the Seahawks end Thursday by drafting Keldric Faulk or Akheem Mesidor or any other edge rusher who is expected to help the pass rusher, that’s a sensible decision by the front office.

But unlike the chance that Seattle could go another four months without adding a running back and then trade for a starter at the last minute, it’s improbable that help at edge rusher is on the way. The Seahawks are going with who they have now and a rookie will probably need one, if not two or three years to become a consistent presence on the defense.

It took Bonitto three years.

So while we should expect the run defense and the pass defense to be two of Seattle’s strengths again (number one defense in yards per pass attempt allowed), there’s room to grow in terms of pass rushers and it’s not apparent that help is on the way in 2026.

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Seaside Joe 2606

Sea Hawk Run!: Odds that JS will want to trade down from 1.32? 98%. Odds that another team will make an attractive offer to trade up to 1.32? 5%. (Those are my guesstimates for the odds. What are yours?)

The idea that teams will want to trade up to pick 32 for the fifth-year option is a MYTH. In the last seven years, only one team has traded up for 32 and the return was nothing: In 2024, the Bills went down from 32 to 33 and for that they swapped pick 200 for 141.

The problem with the “teams want to trade up to 32 to get a player at the end of the first round for the fifth-year option” is simply:

There’s also pick 31. Or pick 30. Or pick 29. Or pick 28…

In fact, Seattle is the team most handcuffed by their first round draft position. John Schneider is helpless until he’s on the clock and he’s the last one on the clock. It’s like being in the Cinderella position of the family where the three older sisters are supposed to have the first pick of the prince.

Any team that wants Ty Simpson or any other prospect, why are they risking the wait to 32? Last year, the Giants traded up to 25 for Jaxson Dart, they weren’t gonna wait until 32. I also thought this was an interesting quote from an AFC executive shared by Tom Pelissero: “If I was sitting there in the seat and didn’t have a quarterback, I’d much rather get Carson Beck at 34 than Ty Simpson at 28.”

We hear so much pre-draft chatter and mock drafts that we start to believe that X, Y, Z is going to happen for sure. In reality, we don’t know if Simpson is going to go 2 or 25 or 50 or 75.

Do the Seahawks want to trade down? Sure, but they are among the many teams that feel this way. I always try to look at the draft from the perspective of all 32 teams, not just Seattle, and it’s apparent that “trade down” is the wish of most fans of most teams. Probably most GMs.

32 is not a very valuable pick and should the Seahawks manage to find a trade down partner at all, I’d expect the return to be insignificant relative to how much it increases Seattle’s chances of being a better team in 2026. Unless it is a Cinderella Story.

Barbara Peterson: Are we staffing through the draft ANYWHERE around the loss of Walker and Charbs, or do we think Charbs will come back soon; or that we have enough runners-in-waiting already on the squad to give us a running game; or that Darnold can throw until our running game is back on point to get us back to parity running/throwing?

The Seahawks are keeping tabs on running back prospects at every level of the draft, so it would not be surprising to draft one. Day 2 is much more likely than Day 1, and Day 3 might be more likely than Day 2, if the Seahawks are able to secure another pick or two on Day 3.

Seattle seems to be prepared for anything at running back, including going into and coming out of camp with the same players they have right now.

Sandman: Is there any prospects in this draft with the potential to slide that JS would be compelled to move up to get? Any round.

When I look at the mock draft of players I want to take, I see Domonique Orange as a nose tackle prospect worthy of moving up for in the third round.

I think our brains are going to be blended by the end of Thursday night from how many prospects go earlier or later than everyone is telling us to expect. So who knows if a cornerback like Tennessee CB Jermod McCoy or a Oregon S Dillon Thieneman is sitting there at 23-25 and the price to move up is relatively small. Is that worth it? If the Seahawks need to trade up for San Diego State CB Chris Johnson, then do they need to do that?

Going to be difficult to trade up, even when prices are low. It’s like the Seahawks showed up to a Black Friday sale without any money in the bank.

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Sandman: Brady Henderson thought the Seahawks might obtain more draft picks by trading a player. What player besides Olu Oluwatimi might have trade value that the Seahawk would be willing to give up?

If the Seahawks did what I wanted and drafted a guard with their first pick, then why not shop Anthony Bradford and see who bites? Guard being such a common need for teams, I wouldn’t be surprised if a team overpaid just a little bit because at this point Bradford is experienced and some teams would definitely see him as an upgrade.

The Raiders have three fourth round picks. Could you reunite him with Klint Kubiak for one of those?

Maxx: What’re the chances that the Seahawks scouting department is checking every prospect’s shoe size?

12.5 US/9.5 EUR.

rpmschevy: Darnolds season splits. Games 1-9 on fire passing. 10-17 plus, lower YPG, TD %, lower INT % (thankfully). Not necessarily worse play, one could say improved, but we clearly need ball in JSN, Rashid, AJ (maybe Arroyo) hands.

Question, as Prez of Spoon Fed fan club, if Spoon costs too much, will you survive ????

The Seahawks don’t beat the Rams in either of Seattle’s season-defining games against L.A. without Sam Darnold. As long as he’s blending into most games without being “the problem”, and then showing up for the big dog shootouts, I believe in Darnold’s unparalleled value to the Seahawks.

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Jeffrey James: Just read your “skipping the draft” post and wanted to follow up. My sense is JS and crew end up with 4-5 picks after swapping with at least one, maybe two teams. How much does the draft strategy of the rest of the NFC West impact the ‘Hawks if at all?

It’s difficult for me to imagine a direct relationship between Seattle’s draft strategy and the strategy of the Cardinals, 49ers, and Rams.

If the Cardinals trade up for Simpson, as some believe they will, it would be ahead of the Seahawks. Seattle will be the last team picking in the first round and I don’t imagine them caring to trade up to get ahead of the 49ers at 27.

I also wouldn’t expect them to go tit for tat. As Schneider says, “We draft for our team, we don’t draft for the league.”

Maybe some of you see an answer to the question that I didn’t see though:

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MarkE: Lots of chat about trading down in order to accumulate more picks, but to what extent might the 2027 picks become chips?

I believe that Seattle currently have their full seven rounds due up next year, plus an extra R7 (Jerrell), and a R4 (Mafe) and 3x R5s (Walker, Bryant, Woolen) through comps. That’s good for a total of 12 at the moment.

To what degree should the Seahawks care about using their “draft credit card” to borrow money from their future to buy something today? From the fan’s perspective, the draft seems to largely serve the purpose of:

Staving off boredom and avoiding the inevitable gap between this week and the start of training camp for as long as possible with more “breaking news” about the team as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, from my perspective at least, there’s not enough going on in the 2026 draft—especially for the team picking 32nd—to believe that Seattle’s best objective is to have more capital this year.

I would actually say that I’m more interested in finding out who the Seahawks sign as undrafted free agents than hoping that the Seahawks obtain more day three picks. If the Seahawks keep all their picks for 2027, I’d love to be able to look forward to that in 2027 and I don’t feel the need to get ahead of that. Especially because a 2027 fourth round pick is not very valuable and trading a 2027 second or third round pick doesn’t feel worth it.

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zezinhom400: Seems we (and most teams) seem to keep pretty much everyone we pick, for at least one season, and we generally keep a UDFA or two as well. This means at least 5 of our current roster are going to get bumped. Who do you think are the 5 Seahawks that won’t be Seahawks any more at final cutdown?

The articles I’ve written about Seattle’s depth chart going into the draft is probably a good place to start for this question. To “bump” 5 players from the current roster is difficult to answer because the roster already has more than 53 players on it and there are already position battles going with unknown winners.

For example, if I said that free agent cornerback Noah Igbinoghene would not make the roster, is that the same as being “bumped”? Igbinoghene could be competing against Shemar Jean-Charles and Nehemiah Pritchett, totally absent the outcome of the draft and adding a cornerback.

Or if the Seahawks draft a running back, he would make the roster but is that at the expense of Cam Akers? Or Kenny McIntosh? Or George Holani?

I know the objective here is to take a shot in the dark to name 5 players who won’t make the roster. I guess I’m running into the issue of seeing a lot more than 5 names because we are practically at the doorstep of seeing Seattle’s 90-man roster and the Seahawks don’t have many needs.

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Luke: I like Seth McGowan’s combine numbers and Kentucky tape.

I wrote about character concerns the other day and it just so happens McGowan was one of the only two mentions in Dane Brugler’s draft guide for having character concerns. His arrest for robbery was six years ago, people mature and change, so perhaps teams are comfortable with that now.

Maybe the bigger issue is spending six years in college, transferring four times, a little bit of an injury bug last season, and so-so numbers. Could be a good pickup at the end of the draft or as an undrafted free agent.

Chris H: Do you think we’re under valuing the in-house options at RB and Edge? Second question, why is picking up a true nose tackle a bad idea? I’m surprised more people aren’t pointing at it as a true need. Murphy can play nose, but that’s underutilizing him IMHO. Give me a man-monster of a nose tackle.

The Seahawks could play right now and I don’t have any concerns about running back or edge rusher or being the favorites for the Super Bowl.

I highlighted Orange as a nose tackle the other day, so I’ll stick with that.

Seaside Joe 2605

As you know, being a Super Joe ($120 per year) gets you the weekly Super Joes Q&A. With this being such a unique time of year right before the draft, I decided to do one round of questions for Regular Joes. Got questions you want to pose to me or the entire community?

It’s time to get into the last round of questions before the 2026 draft, so please help me out by sending in your final thoughts and queries prior to Thursday:

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