Seahawks Fans Are Split on WR6, Producing an Unlikely Three-Way Tie
Ricky White III, Emmanuel Henderson and Irv Charles finished separated by only seven votes among 286 Seahawks fans, making wide receiver the closest battle on the entire 53-man roster.
Fans don’t know if the Seahawks are even going to keep a sixth wide receiver or not, but if they do, Seattle’s bound to disappoint more people with that decision than they please. The first results are in from Seaside Joe’s 12 question survey for Seahawks fans are on—four questions regarding players on the roster bubble—and there’s a virtual three-way tie in the battle for the last receiver spot.
81 votes for Ricky White III
78 votes for Emmanuel Henderson
74 votes for Irv Charles
With Charles being in third place and only trailing first place by seven votes, we could flip these results by merely reaching another few dozen Seahawks fans. Or by polling the 53 people—not too shabby either—who voted for Cody White and asking them to pick one of the top three instead.
All this competition and yet when over 200 of Seaside Joe’s readers combined to make a 53-man roster last week, Seattle only kept five receivers.
We know the Seahawks are going to keep at least five receivers and we know which five receivers they are going to keep: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Rashid Shaheed, Cooper Kupp, Tory Horton, and Jake Bobo. JSN, Shaheed, and Kupp (who turned heads early in camp with a one-handed catch) perfectly fit the mold of a trio you’d want starting in an 11 personnel (3 WR, 1 TE, 1 RB) offense.
Behind those three, Horton has already proven effective as a fourth receiver when healthy and Bobo serves the role of an emergency option and a good teammate who also plays a significant part on special teams. Seattle’s wide receiver room could stop right there and be one of the best in the NFL.
However, the Seahawks kept six receivers out of camp last year and had a fondness for Dareke Young, who followed Klint Kubiak to the Las Vegas Raiders. By trading for Charles and drafting Henderson in the sixth round, Seattle hasn’t been shy about sharing their cards with an intention to find a Young replacement.
It still doesn’t mean that they’ll feel forced to pick one at final cuts.
It’s sort of like when a show loses its main actor, like when Steve Carrell left “The Office”, you know that the network has to find a replacement of equal measure, even if filling those shoes is actually impossible.
But when a show loses one of its many side characters, or they just become unimportant (Jan, Ryan, Roy, or whatever Rashida Jones’s character was named), finding a replacement may not be necessary. Or you could luck into a minor character later down the line who is way more awesome.
That’s sort of where the Seahawks are at with their battle for a sixth wide receiver heading into camp:
Do they have their “Nate” in camp right now, a receiver who could not only replace but out-do Dareke Young? Or will nobody stand out enough to earn a spot while Seattle looks content to keep two fullbacks on the roster?
To paraphrase Michael Scott: “If I had a catch phrase it wouldn’t be ‘You’re fired’. It would be ‘You’re hired. And you can work here as long as you want.’”
As a whole fans have not decided between the three receivers most likely vying for that spot, all three earning this opportunity because of their work on special teams: The rookie (Henderson), the veteran (Charles), and the wild card (White III).
Can we break this tie today?
For what it’s worth, the voting didn’t work out like this when we did our 53-man rosters. In those results, Henderson was on 33% of rosters, Charles was on 22%, and White III was on 13%. For some reason it has flipped and now White III has a slight lead.
Even funnier, when we ranked 90 Seahawks, Henderson was 57th, Cody White was 62nd, Charles was 67th, and White III was 76th, Are we now overcompensating for Ricky White because he didn’t win before?
Share your theories in the comments:
Bryce-capades
Again the results are inconsistent with previous polls.
Cabeldue failed to make the 53-man roster, whereas Kight and Richman were both voted to be among Seattle’s 10 offensive linemen on the roster. Are we now voting for Cabeldue because we assumed that this was how he could get onto the 53-man roster too?
Because even when I ran a follow-up poll asking for your favorite bubble player, Cabeldue was only in the mix for second place:
And Cabeldue ranked 72nd in the 90-player ranking. That’s lower than Kenny McIntosh, a player who got waived on Monday. (Yes, he got waived because he can’t stay healthy.)
Maybe fans are feeling a little wary of potentially losing Cabeldue at final cuts, but you can see as well as I can that the Seahawks will be forced to release players who they don’t want to lose. This year they have more than 53 players worthy of being kept.
I’m still not sure where Seahawks fans stand now: Is Cabeldue now ahead of Richman and Kight, or is it overcompensation?
Of course, it’s still way too early in camp for anyone to have a good opinion here. We’re going to circle back on everything—the 53-man roster, the 90-man rankings, and these questions—a month from now and see how these results look towards the end of camp.
Will Crimson Tide ebb or flow?
Milroe, who threw an interception at the end of practice on Monday (coincidentally I stumbled onto a tweet almost one year ago to the day of Milroe throwing a practice pick-six to Nick Emmanwori), was on 78% of your 53-man rosters last week. That’s already not very encouraging for a third-round pick, but it’s not horrible either.
Keeping a third quarterback in this day and age suggests a strong belief by the organization that the player will develop into a starter or a really good backup.
However, that support took a significant hit when I framed Milroe’s safety with the context of a bad preseason: Only 56% of Seahawks fans were still confident that Milroe should be on the roster if he struggles next month.
I’ll also take some blame here. The wording of the question and the somewhat arbitrary four other options I gave could have skewed the results a little.
However, it’s still clear that many Seahawks fans, perhaps as many as half, expect to see obvious progress from Milroe in the preseason compared to last year. It’s always impressive to be the best athlete on the field in a preseason game, but that doesn’t make that player an NFL caliber quarterback.
The other half may look to a player like Malik Willis, a quarterback who the Titans traded to the Packers after two underwhelming seasons but has since shown glimpses of brilliance, and think now is way too soon to give up on Milroe.
While a bad preseason may not sink Milroe, a great preseason could force the Seahawks to trade Drew Lock instead.
Patty’s Dub
If forced to choose only one defensive player from this pack of four players on the bubble, 34.6% of Seahawks sided with Patrick O’Connell as a fourth linebacker over Nehemiah Pritchett or Connor O’Toole, players who tied with 78 votes apiece.
Andre Fuller wasn’t that close, but nevertheless a solid showing from a seventh-round rookie who is a longshot to make the roster.
Could anybody really stand out after one or two days of practice without pads? Michael Dansby—not an option here—did intercept Milroe on Monday. But the answer is basically still no. It’s not that noteworthy to stand out at the very beginning of training camp; some players will stand out for the entirety of camp and preseason and still not make the roster.
That being said, standing out is not necessarily just an opportunity to make Seattle’s roster.
This is especially true when Hard Knocks is filming your practices and for a lucky few, your off-field activities. We’ve seen bubble players throughout the years who will be featured on Hard Knocks, get cut, and build careers elsewhere in the league. Perhaps most famously, Danny Woodhead stood out in 2010 when the Jets were on Hard Knocks, he got cut, and then later did his part in torturing the Jets as a member of the Patriots.
It could make it harder for the Seahawks to get certain players through waivers this year. Standing out may not prove as difficult as staying on.
Who are some of your favorite Seahawks who stood out in training camp/preseason but didn’t make the final roster?