Sam Darnold is Kubiak's first CHOICE!

Why the relationship between QB and OC is important and other Seahawks questions

Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak has only ever had that job for one season at a time — 2021 with the Vikings, 2024 with the Saints — and in both cases he wasn’t really doing the shopping. He inherited players (often overpaid players) that he had to make work for him, not choose players who he expected would be perfect fits for a Kubiak offense.

Until now in Seattle.

Expected to be a “long-term answer” at offensive coordinator (which in those terms, could be as short as a couple of years if he’s really successful), Kubiak did something he’s never been able to do before: He helped the Seahawks pick a starting quarterback. Sam Darnold was Kubiak’s choice to be Seattle’s starter next season and for that reason he already has an advantage over Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr.

We know that the OC specifically chose him over other options.

It’s time for another Super Joes Q&A mailbag, where I answer questions and share takes about the Seahawks from members of the Super Joes club. If you want to join Super Joes or upgrade from Regular Joes for a prorated rate, click here or here:

zezinhom400: Post-draft, which position groups (if any) concern you enough to look for a significant upgrade between now and September? Could it be solved by someone else’s “discards” or would it require a trade?

How do you project the OL to finalize, starters and immediate back-ups (so Top 10)?

Where does Noah Fant fit (or does he not fit)?

These questions ended up being answered in Thursday’s 90-man roster check-in and while the starters feel mostly set and well-covered, depth on defense is a potential area of need. To my eyes, the Seahawks are one of the most complete teams in terms of having few weaknesses, with the counterpoint to that take being that Seattle doesn’t have many proven “elite” starters.

However, what they do have is more than a half-dozen players who I could see being called “elite” a year from now.

Three of five offensive line jobs are set, if healthy: Charles Cross, Abe Lucas, and Grey Zabel. The other two should have clear leaders entering camp, which would be Olu Oluwatimi at center and Christian Haynes at right guard. Steve Hutchinson seems as involved as anybody in the construction of the OL, and he spoke highly about Haynes potential to be better now that he’s completed his rookie season:

Of course, Oluwatimi and Haynes will not be handed those jobs and there is a ton of competition behind them. Jalen Sundell could be 50/50 to win the starting center job. Anthony Bradford, Sataoa Laumea, and Michael Jerrell all have NFL experience, but Bryce Cabeldue and Mason Richman are in a great position to surprise us in the offseason and camp.

We can’t forget that Trey Smith — the guard everybody wanted this offseason — started all 17 games as a sixth round rookie in 2021.

I think Fant is still in line to be Seattle’s starting tight end in 2025. Elijah Arroyo will be in a great position to replace Fant in 2026, if the team doesn’t decide to make a trade before this year’s deadline. As disappointing as Fant is compared to the expectations of him, he did finish the season strong with 156 yards in the last three games.

La’au: Some do the standard player profile collection. What I’m looking forward to is the possible deep dives? The JSN series you did was excellent to get to know the player. As a result of your work I have come to appreciate JSN more as a player.

La’au (cont’d): Something that might be interesting is how current players fit into Kubiak offensive roles filled by players in the past versions. An example would be Darnold versus Carr. Is this an upgrade and what can Kubiak do differently with Darnold than he did with Carr? K9 and Kamara would be an interesting comparison. Perhaps we would need to combine K9 and a receiver to get Kamara’s impact. We now have a fullback, we now have someone like Taysom Hill. I see some of these picks to get Kubiak who he wants for certain roles. Just curious what you might think those roles are moving forward or if more interesting roles can be created with our current roster strengths.

Thank you, La’au! I think I could probably assume that people will want deep dives on players like Nick Emmanwori, Elijah Arroyo, and especially Jalen Milroe, but I’ll take a poll anyway:

I can probably pick apart a couple other questions within your question:

Taysom Hill comparisons…

I’ve had to remind myself a few times this offseason than Klint Kubiak didn’t develop or choose Taysom Hill. He simply inherited him and if anything was probably forced to get more value out of a player with the most mind-boggling contract in the league. I get that Hill is a one-of-a-kind, but he’s earned over $52 million despite being a bad quarterback, and at most a serviceable receiver:

Hill has 99 catches and 943 yards over eight seasons!

Most of his production has come on the ground, which is probably where a player like Jalen Milroe comes into mind. Though the Seahawks plan to focus on Milroe’s development as a QB, it would be logical to use his talents as a runner right away and Hill did score six rushing touchdowns in only eight games for Kubiak.

K9 vs. Kamara…

Kamara was another overpaid player who Kubiak didn’t choose but had to squeeze more juice out of (Kamara had a career-best 950 rushing yards for Kubiak in 2024) for the Saints, I definitely think that Kenneth Walker has the potential to be the best running back that he has ever worked with.

There’s a difference between “fast”, “quick”, and “explosive”, and maybe Kamara is more quick and explosive, but actually Walker ran a much faster 40-time at his combine. Plus, he’s a lot younger than Kamara was last season.

If we compare the receiving numbers to Dalvin Cook in 2021 instead of Kamara (34 catches, 224 yards), that’s well within Walker’s wheelhouse.

Carr vs. Darnold…

Kubiak had no say in choosing to work with Kirk Cousins or Derek Carr, but he had a lot of influence in Seattle’s decision to trade Geno Smith and sign Sam Darnold. For that reason, maybe it’s a whole new ballgame this year.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Darnold is going to revert to being a bad quarterback again. Maybe he will never be great, maybe he will never win a Super Bowl or even a playoff game (Carr and Cousins have combined for one career playoff win), but one thing I’m confident in is that the Seahawks will be able to roll with Darnold for at least 2-3 seasons.

The fact that Kubiak told John Schneider something to the effect of, “I can work with Darnold, let’s go get Darnold” says that he believes it too, which gives me a lot more confidence than say, the Broncos signing Case Keenum or the Texans signing Brock Osweiler.

Darnold might be a slightly worse version of what we saw last year, but still plenty good enough.

Rusty: So how have our NFC West competitors done via the draft?

Super Joes and I are always on the same page as far as what’s to come next: NFC West round-up posted on Wednesday.

Grant: If you could upgrade just one non-QB position on the roster, what would it be? If you could take an all-pro from another team and insert him into the roster, where would it have the greatest impact vs. who we already have? I'm not looking for actual trade scenarios, just speculating about post-draft roster building. I think I'd choose edge.

There’s definitely this nagging reality that the Seahawks never seem to find those NFL-leading sack-getters, or at least they haven’t done so in a long time. As far as elite defensive linemen, how many has Seattle had since Cortez Kennedy?

So yeah, that would be very cool.

(I had to remind myself, just right now, that Leonard Williams finished with 11 sacks last season. It almost didn’t feel like 11 because Williams added four of those sacks in the last two games.)

My answer might come as a surprise, but it would be great if the Seahawks had a dominant left tackle.

The good news is that Charles Cross is only 24 and he’s now signed for two more seasons, so maybe Cross will develop into one of those and perhaps as soon as 2025. Therefore, we wouldn’t really have to pick a player from another team as an upgrade, so much as we’re hoping Cross (and Abe Lucas) are their own upgrades.

If it was a player at a position that definitely could use help, then it would be fun to add a deep receiving threat for Darnold. Obviously Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson were in a league of their own last season, but I’m curious to see where Malik Nabers goes from here — and he’s four years younger than Jefferson.

What do you say?

zezinhom400: NFL.com did a power ranking of the 32 teams post-the draft. Here's how they have the NFC West, including the pre-post draft ranking moves: #8: LA Rams, up +2 vs pre-draft, #15: SF 49'ers, up +3 vs pre-draft, #18: Cards, up +1 vs pre-draft, #19: Seattle, down -2.

Post-the draft and FA, are we really the worst team in the West and is the West one of the weakest divisions, despite our schedule?

More evidence that the NFC West doesn’t have a bad team, which could be what makes it the toughest division, top-to-bottom.

I don’t necessarily see it as “worst”, but that there’s a perception that the non-Rams teams are closely lumped together. Given a few games next season, the Rams probably join the lump.

The NFC West has basically been putting a team in the Super Bowl or the NFC Championship game with a fighting chance consistently for the past 20 years, and I see no reason that’s going to change in 2025. The Seahawks are, in my opinion, as good as any team in the NFC West. Their advantage is that they are probably also the most unpredictable.

Seaside Joe 2251