Seahawks won't have any comp picks in 2026

Would Seahawks trade a player (like Tariq Woolen) to acquire more capital? Answering your questions!

The Seahawks have bigger issues to address than whether or not they’ll have an additional fifth or sixth round pick in next year’s draft, but just in case you were wondering…the Seahawks won’t have any additional compensatory picks in next year’s draft. OTC’s Nick Korte highlighted the current situation for 2026 comp picks and Seattle definitely won’t be getting any of them.

The 49ers once again are among the NFL’s comp pick leaders, setting up to receive four of them in 2026, including three in the fourth round.

Inconsequentially, the Seahawks signed the free agent who will net a team the highest 2026 comp pick, Sam Darnold:

As you can see, the Steelers are in line for two fourth round picks for the “losses” of Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. The Seahawks would have gotten a sixth round pick for Laken Tomlinson, at best, but signing Darnold offset that compensation.

The Seahawks currently have all of their original 2026 draft picks, except for a seventh (sent to Browns for C Nick Harris in 2024), and no extras:

• 1st

• 2nd

• 3rd

• 4th

• 5th

• 6th

Seattle actually swapped their 7th for a 6th in the Harris deal, but then traded Cleveland’s sixth round pick to the Jaguars for Roy Robertson-Harris last year. For right now, the Seahawks 2026 draft capital looks like it’s going to be rather unexciting, whereas the Rams have two first round picks (including Falcons) and the 49ers could have a boatload in the top-150.

Leonard Williams ‘dominant’ in Week 1

Here’s what Brian Baldinger had to say about Williams:

“Williams was absolutely dominant on Sunday. Taking Trent Williams and going to make the tackle on George Kittle. Didn’t matter where he lined up, wherever he lined up he had these quick, instant escapes. Brian Robinson had no shot. He ragdolls Dominick Puni. The strength and power he’s playing with, it’s never been better. He’s just throwing people and taking ball carriers down. In the passing game, he’s getting home. Doesn’t matter if they double-team him. This power here, and then the escape…Big Cat has never been better than he is right now and one of the reasons that San Francisco could not run the ball on Sunday.”

This chart shows that the Seahawks had the fourth-best EPA per play run defense in Week 1:

Defending the 49ers run game was a huge problem last season, even when Christian McCaffrey was unavailable, so that is definitely one thing different from 2024 that happened on Sunday that can’t be overlooked.

Now a continuation of questions and comments from Super Joes that I started to address on Tuesday.

Danno: Week one has been known as a week where the results are not always indicative of the potential of a team’s season performance.

I’m just going to address your first sentence before anything else, Danno. It’s not just “Week 1”, it’s any week. No single game is ever wholly representative of a team’s entire weekly performance for the entire season. Most teams wish they were that consistent! But it’s rarely the case.

It’s just that Week 1 is Week 1, so every little thing gets magnified in a way that it wouldn’t be if there had already been 4-5 games played before it. I don’t think any of us are under the impression that Seattle’s stamped home who they are yet, including you (as you say next, “I believe the Seahawks will turn the ship around in week 2”), I just want to emphasize that this is an annual occurence. It’s Groundhog Day. We overreact to everything that happens at the start of the season and then if Seattle wins four in a row, we’ll probably overreact to that too.

But teams change so much during a season because of things like:

• Injuries

• Demotions/Promotions

• Coaching changes

• Strength of Schedule shifts

• Luck

• Trades

• Signings/Claims

• Weather!

Anyways, I don’t mean to cut you off, but that first sentence caught my eye because it’s important to emphasize that there’s nothing magical about Week 1. Yes, you can be implenting something for the first time, but teams also do that in Week 9 and Week 16 too (remember when the Seahawks shifted to a zone-read offense in 2012 in the middle of Wilson’s rookie year?). Week 1 is just another game.

Danno: Maybe the problem with the offense was concern over running a different offensive scheme to confuse the 49ers, versus doing the expected. So rather than run wide zone, play action, 21 and 12 or 22 personnel, they changed it up to fool them. I can’t explain it. It seemed all preseason all we heard was that and under center and heavy personnel schemes. But that’s not what I saw and it didn’t mesh with what I expected either. We need to get back to doing what’s expected. No need to change until the other teams prove they can stop you. Ouzts! Give it a go, please! Then maybe instead of averaging 2 yards a carry, we get 5 YPC. I can’t believe it will be as dysfunctional as what we ran on this past Sunday.

I think opinions about Seattle’s run game will either reach peak panic levels or become totally relaxed depending on what happens against the Steelers because Pittsburgh was so bad at stopping it last week.

Roger Woitte: Woolen looks lost and could be a net negative liability. He flashes competence but is targeted because he’s unreliable. I’m guessing if he’s not any better after 4 games, he’s benched or gone.

I saw a comment on Twitter that mentioned Tariq Woolen being chronically online and that he’s going to respond to the noise by Aaron Rodgers on Sunday, which I think is accidentally a VERY apt description of Woolen’s problem.

Woolen seems to be the type that thinks if he’s being criticized, it’s because he’s being unappreciated and disrespected, and not that fans are just reacting to him playing badly in huge situations. Or that if he gets an interception or a pass breakup, that’s enough to offset for and supercede all the negative plays that appear to highlight his lack of focus and football IQ.

This fanbase has been extremely all-over Woolen when he’s good and far too forgiving when he plays bad so the problem is not Seahawks fans or the media.

I don’t want Woolen to intercept Rodgers. I want him to stop giving up bad plays and then thinking that one good play makes up for it.

JohnnyLondon: What’s wrong with Ken? Do the opposing D just play the run every time he’s out there - because he’s not respected as a pass blocker like Zach, and our line is still too inexperienced/dysfunctional/useless to open lanes/creases for him? Is he still dancing and dithering? Just finding his way back from injury? Or all of the above? Because week 1 was woeful for him, and I’m just hoping beyond hope that this is a rough start that will improve as the the Oline play more meaningful snaps, rather than signal the beginning of the end for him.

After the first game, I mentioned the unforgiving nature of playing offensive line because your one bad play negates your 40 good plays, whereas the opposite is true for a pass rusher. The same can be said for running backs:

The best running backs in history could be stuffed 10 times, but one rip puts them in the Hall of Fame.

I’m not comparing Walker to Barry Sanders, or even Saquon Barkley (who had 8 runs in Week 1 for 1 or fewer yards and that’s behind the Eagles offensive line), but the difference between a good game and a terrible game could just be that Kenneth Walker didn’t get enough opportunities. Barkley had a historic 2024 season and he was still stuffed for 0 or negative yards on 90 rushing attempts!

It’s hard to be in a position to offset your negative runs when you’re sharing the backfield in a committee and you get 10 attempts. Walker is a home run hitter and home run hitters often have high strikeout rates.

Maybe Kenneth Walker won’t become great, or maybe he’ll never be as good as he looked early in his career, nobody can really say right now but I haven’t seen enough. People have brought up his 2024 season as proof of continued struggles, but what about all the talk about Seattle’s offensive line being the worst in the NFL last year? We saw what happened when Barkley went from the Giants to the Eagles: He averaged 4.0 yards per carry in his last 4 seasons in New York, then that went up to 5.8 YPC and 2,000 rushing yards in Philadelphia.

Walker isn’t Barkley, but he’s probably better than the Walker we’ve seen lately.

Grant: Was Darnold a problem in week 1 that no one is talking about? His stats were underwhelming. He targeted JSN more than everyone else combined - would KK have actually called it this way? The running game struggled - could he have audibled out of doomed running plays pre-snap? The offense seemed ultra conservative and I know that's mostly by design, but how much risk-aversion is too much, and how much responsibility belongs to the QB.

I thought Sam Darnold had a good game and that’s been the general consensus I’ve seen from analysts online who don’t even cover the Seahawks, which is saying something because Darnold was the dartboard for many people in the media over the offseason.

• The “overthrow” to Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the fourth quarter that would have set Seattle up with first down in Niners territory, JSN was clearly held and no flag was thrown. That may have actually been a dot.

• He snaps off another potential scoring opportunity to JSN prior to the fourth quarter fumble in 49ers territory.

• On the final drive, he hits JSN for 11, then JSN for 40, then maybe throws the go-ahead touchdown if Abe Lucas isn’t immediately in his lap; that’s a strong statement for a quarterback with everything to prove in his first start and the Seahawks needing a touchdown to win. I don’t blame him for the fumble, but I know not everyone sees it that way.

If the volume stats were underwhelming, and they certainly were given he only had 99 yards going into the final drive, it is potentially just due to a lack of opportunities. Only 52 offensive plays, about 33% fewer plays than the 49ers.

What if holding is called? What if JSN catches everything and fumbles nothing? What if Mike Macdonald goes for it instead of kicking?

I don’t think Darnold is ever going to be a spectacular quarterback, but everything I saw seems to suggest that his seat is safe for a long while.

What were your grades of Sam Darnold’s debut?

Tim McConnell: Based on Woolens play and his potential to need to be resigned, what are the chances he gets traded mid-season, and if he does, who would be the candidate?

Some fans may recall that I advocated for trading Tariq Woolen months ago, before the draft, which has never been a very popular opinion. I don’t think you’ll ever find a coaching staff that doesn’t believe it can “fix” an ultra-athletic player like Woolen, so why not expect him to have some trade value?

The obvious team is the Las Vegas Raiders. Maybe Seattle could get a fifth round pick; If they waited until free agency to get a comp pick, that would probably only be a 2027 fourth rounder at best, which is the same as a 2026 fifth rounder.

I think at any point, the Seahawks could give more responsibility to Nehemiah Pritchett or promote Shaquill Griffin to the 53-man roster. Derion Kendrick is another option, but is a corner who is probably equally frustrating.

I said after the last game that I don’t expect the Seahawks to make a change right away, especially with DK Metcalf on deck. If he ends up getting benched or limited playing time in any capacity, that’s the third time that’s happened to him in the last three years. I don’t see how much longer this can continue.

Seaside Joe 2382