4 Seahawks Breakout Players: Picked by Seahawks Fans

Seahawks fans picked the players most likely to become stars, lead the team in sacks, and emerge as Sam Darnold’s top weapons behind Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Jadarian Price will become a nationally-recognized star as an NFL rookie. Derick Hall will lead a stacked Seahawks defensive front in sacks. Rashid Shaheed will have more receiving yards than anyone on Seattle’s offense not named Jaxon Smith-Njigba. A.J. Barner will either become a star, or finish second on the team in yards, or both.

The ravings of a madman? No.

The ravings of many madpeople. Over 200 Seahawks fans so crazy…they just might be right.

Seaside Joe ran a 12-question survey this week for Seahawks fans, ranging from topics like training camp expectations to 2026 predictions. The point isn’t to find out what will happen, it’s to compare notes on what we think will happen. Because it should matter to us what other fans think.

Fans know more than the media does.

Don’t Miss: This week’s COMPREHENSIVE Seahawks training camp report

I’ve already covered a couple of your survey results this week, like who will win certain position battles. Now let’s move onto how you feel about Seattle’s individual standouts.

The Seahawks didn’t win the Super Bowl solely because of top-end talent, but largely because of depth and a lack of many weaknesses. The media is questioning if that holds true after Seattle opted (keyword: “opted”) to part ways with players like Kenneth Walker III, Coby Bryant, Boye Mafe, and Riq Woolen.

The skeptics are looking backwards. The fans who are crazy about the Seahawks are looking ahead.

Barnyard Earns Yards

After paying him $42 million per season, Smith-Njigba is firmly seated atop Sam Darnold and Brian Fleury’s priorities on the Seahawks. But the question of “Who comes next?” was never firmly answered in 2025.

Cooper Kupp was second on the team in targets (70), which was still 93 fewer than JSN. Barner was next at 68, but over 16% of those opportunities came in one game; Barner had zero targets in Seattle’s wild card win over the 49ers and although the game was a blowout, could you imagine a world in which a priority WR/TE was left out of the game plan?

Then Rashid Shaheed entered the picture, but his targets over the last six games went: 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1.

It’s not surprising that once pressed to choose one player who would end up as the Seahawks’ number two receiver that fans couldn’t come to a consensus.

Who is most-likely to have 2nd-most receiving yards?

• WR Rashid Shaheed (41.6%)

• TE A.J. Barner (37.2%)

• WR Tory Horton (17.7%)

• WR Cooper Kupp (3.1%)

• TE Elijah Arroyo got 1 vote

With a belief that Shaheed will become a featured component of Fleury’s offense after a full offseason of workouts and practices with Darnold (not to mention $18 million per year on a new contract), fans gave him the slight edge over Barner. Not a big enough edge to think that there aren’t plenty of Barnheads in the Barnyard.

Barner finished with 519 yards last season, but Fleury does come to Seattle with a reputation as a tight ends-forward coach. After all, San Francisco’s best receiver (besides the running back) is the tight end.

Shaheed barely made a dent in the Seahawks passing offense last season, but Albert Breer noted that Fleury sees him as a bit of a “Deebo Samuel” type. I’m reminded of the Jimmy Graham situation, when the once-a-star tight end became noticeably more comfortable in Seattle’s offense in years 2 and 3, compared to year 1, even if he was never the same as the Saints’ Jimmy Graham.

Per John Boyle:

Then there’s the player who was actually second on the Seahawks in receiving yards last season.

Cooper Kupp only got 3% of the vote, which if this were Kalshi or one of those prediction market betting apps, I would put money on in a hurry. (This is not a sponsorship, I’ve never used one of those apps and I never will.) It’s not that I think Kupp will be second on the team, but only 3%? I mean, not only could he do it, but if the Seahawks lost JSN for any period of time then I would bet on Kupp to become Seattle’s WR1 while he’s out.

He’s the most qualified for it.

With Horton, you’re definitely gambling on his upside, the “what if?” equations, but as the depth chart currently stands he’s going to struggle to get a starter’s worth of snaps. Kupp hasn’t looked any worse for his age in training camp and the Seahawks are still paying him $13 million to stick around this season. That wasn’t just out of respect.

So Barner didn’t quite win this vote. Could he win the next?

Unfortunately for him, he had almost the exact same roadblock but with a different Seahawks skill player.