The Cardinals upgraded at QB in the middle of the season

Jacoby Brissett has made Arizona better than the last time Seattle played them, plus answering your questions about Rashid Shaheed, etc.

This is not going to be the same Cardinals team that the Seahawks escaped in Week 4. They’re better, but maybe so are the Seahawks.

Every week I open up the floor to Super Joes subscribers. If you want to get the next Super Joes Q&A, sign up for or upgrade to the founding member tier today:

Danno: I’m uneasy about not playing against Kyler. He seemed so easy to beat. I thought they were just too dumb to figure it out. I remember laughing so hard when I saw that contract. And laughing twice as hard when I saw that little Kyler was not allowed out to play video games until he finished his homework. Who’s the bigger dummy? Turns out it was the organization. Kyler can retire and play video games for the rest of his life.

Here’s a stat I came across today…It’s Cardinals receiver Michael Wilson’s stats with Kyler Murray vs. with Jacoby Brissett:

Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride also have better numbers with Brissett. The Cardinals are scoring more points with Brissett: 25.7 to 18.8.

I think Arizona would have traded Murray already (the Moons made too much sense) but his contract has $36 million guaranteed in 2026 and nobody else is going to pay that. Then the Cardinals put Murray on IR after the deadline passed. Right now it looks like Arizona will get to 2026, cut him, eat $58 million in dead money, and get back in the market for a QB. Teams are seeing how quickly the Broncos were able to turn around after releasing Russell Wilson and more likely to just eat the money and run.

Eduardo: It seems that many of our free agents and draft picks are playing above their draft/FA status. Drake Thomas is exceeding expectations at LB while Ty Okada and Josh Jobe are doing the same in the secondary. Same can be said for Barner and Horton. Is there a metric that can exemplify this for a player relative to his draft status? I ask, because I’d be interested to see where the Seahawks rank in such a metric to see if Schneider and Co. are hitting it out of the park more frequently than other teams.

There are attempts to quantify this all the time. However much you trust those attempts is entirely up to you. Someone named Jason Pauley wrote about this in 2021 citing Adjusted Value and expected AV per draft slot as the measurement, using the entire range from 2000-2020, and the Seahawks came out in seventh place.

Someone on Reddit attempted this with Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections from 2002-2024 and Seattle was 10th in Pro Bowls but very low in All-Pros. But probably more relevant to your question is this post on Reddit ranking the 2022-2024 drafts and using AV + weighted AV per draft slot.

The Seahawks ranked 4th in 2022 (Cross, Lucas, Mafe, Woolen, Bryant, Walker, etc.), 4th in 2023 (JSN, Witherspoon, Hall, Charbonnet, etc.), and 14th in 2024 (not much data yet anyway), for an overall ranking of 2nd/32 teams between 2022-2024 behind the Packers.

This is not quite the same as what you’re asking because Seattle’s getting a lot of heavy lifting here from early and early-ish draft picks. Even so, the Seahawks got a hefty boost from picks like Woolen and even Tyrice Knight. And as you point out, this does not include the value of pickups like Thomas, Jobe, Okada, Jalen Sundell, Tory Horton, and Barner. (Shout out to Dareke Young and Chazz Surratt on special teams too.)

Does anyone know where the Seahawks rank including 2025 data? I doubt that. Can we all as Seahawks fans feel confident that the Seahawks are doing a good job of scouting players and picking up cheap options who fit with what Mike Macdonald and John Schneider want from players? Yes. Is that good enough? It is for me.

I do think the Seahawks get really good competition here from the L.A. Rams within the division. Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams, A.J. Jackson, Quentin Lake, Nathan Landman, Byron Young, Kam Kinchens, Kobie Turner, Omar Speights lead a list if late draft picks/UDFAs/free agents punching above their acquisition cost.

Paul G: Including the Seahawks, how many teams will have Marcus Valdes-Scantling on their roster this season?

Here’s a crazy fact: MVS has signed with 5 different teams in the last 18 months and made about $6 million. The Seahawks have paid more than half of his earnings despite him never playing in a single game for Seattle.

Chuck Turtleman: As good as this offense is, this team *seems* much better on play-action than drop back passes. This is just the ol’ eye test, and I don’t have PFF Premium to confirm that, but I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the case at least the last 3-4 games.

PFF is getting way too much credit. I don’t think you even need a subscription to any website to check a quarterback’s play action numbers. Here’s what I see on Sam Darnold from Pro-Football-Reference’s free splits:

Darnold’s numbers pop-off on play action, but you’d expect that from any quarterback because a play action pass tends to be further down field. It’s encouraging that Seattle still has a passer rating of 109 and 8.3 yards per attempt on non-play action. The most frequent play action passer is Matthew Stafford and he too has a wide split between the two sets (140.7 passer rating on play action, 10.6 on non-play action) but Darnold’s numbers in a way are even better.

The Seahawks average 13.9 yards per attempt on play action compared to 9.3 for the Rams.

Darnold has the fourth-best passer rating on play action (behind Lamar, Dak, and Stafford), the second-best Y/A and EPA per dropback (both behind Lamar). On non-play action, Darnold is still 7th in passer rating, 4th in Y/A, and 8th in EPA/dropback. Seattle’s a top-3 play action passing team and top-8 non-play action team.

Nelly: How will Rashid Shaheed’s presence in 12 personnel opposite of JSN affect loaded boxes?

I won’t pretend to have that answer ready for you to go and I think we will all learn Shaheed’s impact on the Seahawks together over the coming weeks. If you missed All-22’s video, or just watch it again, here it is:

What I can tell you is that the Seahawks face the second-highest rate of stacked boxes in the NFL behind only the Chargers. If Shaheed can help them bring that down, he’s well worth a fourth and a fifth round pick.

Bret: With Kubiak’s success in New Orleans before all the injuries, and now in Seattle, is there room to argue that he’s as responsible, or perhaps even more responsible, for Darnold’s success? Is Darnold really more decisive, or is the opportunity for decisiveness being schemed into the offense? Or is the true answer some combination thereof? I’m wondering how long before our offensive coordinator becomes a head coach at this rate.

Klint Kubiak has helped Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr have some of their best career games/stretches/seasons. Now he’s doing it with Sam Darnold. I feel like I would be reaching if I tried to say who is “more responsible” for Darnold’s career breakout season right now, leading the race for MVP with some voters, because it seems like the answer lies somewhere in between.

I can say that as an innocent bystander, I’d rather have Darnold and a new OC next year than Kubiak and a new QB next year.

Maybe the Seahawks will have to replace Kubiak next year, but I also think that GOOD coordinators are being more cautious with what jobs they’re willing to accept. I don’t think Kubiak is going to take a job offer from the Browns or the Titans just because they make one. We saw Ben Johnson turn down teams for 2 years until he felt that the Bears gave him the best chance to win. I don’t want to speculate too much on which teams might fire the head coach, but if a historically-good franchise job becomes available and they even want Kubiak, it could be a short-term relationship and then we’ll see how Darnold responds next season. Because he’s not going anywhere.

Don Ellis: Now that the dust has settled from the trade deadline, what areas need to be shored up going into the latter portion of the season? Can we improve these areas with the players and coaching we have now?

It looks like Christian Haynes will be added to the 53-man roster within a couple of weeks, giving Anthony Bradford even more incentive to step up his game at right guard. He is coming off of a better performance last week, so maybe he already senses that.

It does not seem like Ernest Jones 4’s injury is serious. Maybe he plays this week. Then linebacker depth is actually pretty good.

Every team goes through injuries during the season. Seattle’s are relatively harmless. Setting aside the potential for weaknesses to present themselves later in the year due to injuries, I think the Seahawks are as complete as any team in the league right now. What weaknesses they have, like running the football, are probably going to be solved with schematic changes rather than personnel changes.

Scott M: Coby Bryant...should he have taken the offer he was given? His season thus far is just OK statistically...one of lowest rated DBs on Seahawks per SISDATAHUB. Not sure he’s going to be the sought after product he was hoping for.

I’ve been writing since the offseason that I do not expect Coby Bryant to re-sign and my main reason for that is extensive evidence that teams do not re-sign safeties unless they’re top tier, probably because those players will find more value somewhere on the other 31 teams than they’ll get locally.

For example, if you look at a player like Cam Bynum, the Vikings drafted him in the fourth round and he gave them 4 good seasons but out of all their financial priorities in 2025 they felt they could just go get another cheap safety. The Colts stepped in with $15 million per season because they felt they couldn’t and they had the cap space to do it.

Bryant’s pass coverage game log in 2025:

The Seahawks are probably not making Bryant the best offer that he could get on the open market. That could change when Bryant is about to hit free agency and his agent finds out what the price is going to be (this is supposed to be illegal but it’s an open secret that players always know beforehand), but for now it would make sense that he’s low on their list of priorities and they probably just threw out a cheap number hoping that he was feeling antsy.

Grant: I need a new Seahawks jersey. Maybe I can sew an “Emmanwori” patch over the old one hanging in my closet (duct tape and sharpy?), but I should probably just get with the times. I want to pick someone that is most likely to be with the team for years to come, but I’m also the type that doesn’t want to be like everyone else (despite the evidence to the contrary hanging in my closet). JSN seems like an obvious choice, and that #11 could be slimming for my figure, but everyone is gonna be wearing that next year. Any advice from Ken and/or my fellow Seasiders?

My cousin asked me this question a few years ago and I told him to go with Michael Dickson. I’m pretty proud of that because look at how many players are still on the Seahawks from a few years ago. Not many other than Dickson.

Someone in the comments suggested Sam Darnold, which does make a lot of sense but doesn’t fit as a contrarian.

Two that stand out to me are Robbie Ouzts and A.J. Barner. I see long futures in their…uhh futures…and I don’t see them as being necessarily the most-worn jerseys either. Defensively, I do think Josh Jobe will re-sign but that’s risky. I think Jones and and Love will be around a while, but they’re a little bit more weathered. This is my high-risk, high-reward answer: Drake Thomas.

Let’s take it to the fans: What jerseys do you suggest for Grant? Slimming answers only!

Seaside Joe 2439