Seahawks 53-man roster projection

The Seahawks put on the pads on Monday, so it's a good time to check in with where the roster currently stands, 7/31/2023

As fair as it would be to get anxiety over Sunday’s news that Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet are both missing practices due to injuries, a positive takeaway from the first week of Seahawks camp is that there’s an exciting amount of depth at receiver, tight end, cornerback, and maybe even safety and the interior of the offensive line.

Drew Lock may also turn out to be an exceptionally good backup quarterback.

If you’re like Seaside Joe, then your first instinct might have been to consider the possibilities of trading someone who could be blocked, like Dee Eskridge or Tre Brown, for even more “win now” supplies if it turned out that Seattle was running low on roster space. But this is the wrong instinct.

If the Seahawks are lucky enough to be blessed with “too many starters” at receiver or cornerback, then by the hand of Holmgren: Do not touch that dial!

Eskridge, Brown, and Kenny McIntosh are among those getting a lot of positive attention in the first week of training camp and it could be that we get to Week 1 and they’ve kept up that momentum but don’t have roles to play against the L.A. Rams. Give it time.

The Seahawks have been burned by poor depth in the recent past. Like not having adequate safeties behind Earl Thomas or Jamal Adams. Not having enough good running backs behind Marshawn Lynch or Chris Carson. Not being prepared to replace Bobby Wagner. Times when they could have used Eskridge and Brown, and now maybe they’ll actually be ready to go when it is their time.

Seattle can wait until 2024 to figure out their best long-term starters after this season. Pete Carroll will be lucky if he has at least 11 on either side of the ball for 18 weeks, hopefully more.

With padded practices starting on Monday afternoon, now seems like a good time to do a 53-man roster check-in, something we can always go back to evaluate in the future to see how much expectations will have changed. The way I like to do 53-man roster projections is a little bit different than most, as I first like to secure all the players who I’m mostly confident will make the roster and then filling in the gaps with what spots are remaining.

In my first runthrough, I had 51 names, leaving only two spots for the other 39 players currently on the roster. BECAUSE they seem to have good depth, Seattle will have to make difficult cuts this year, not something Pete has had to do enough of in the past six or seven seasons.

This post is a good opportunity for a Regular Joes bonus article, as I suspect most readers would rather get Monday’s training camp notes as the free article, so that will be later today.