The 49ers went through the “substation scandal”, the Rams lost Myles Garrett and half of the starting defense, and now it seems that it’s the Seahawks turn to either survive a rash of injuries and have their depth tested in a must-win game or fall because of it. Will any Seahawks be left to face the Cardinals on Sunday?
3 of the top 10 players in our most recent Seahawks Rankings series are out, including Leonard Williams, Charles Cross, and Sam Darnold. A fourth, Quenton Nelson, would rank in the top 5 and is also out. Uchenna Nwosu and Rashid Shaheed were ranked in the top 20 and they’re out too.
Just minutes after I wrote about who the starting five offensive line should be and where Grey Zabel fits in with the addition of Nelson, the Seahawks announced that Nelson would undergo a “procedure” on his knee and miss at least one game. Cross will miss his second game in a row, meaning that Josh Jones and Zabel will start on the left side, with Anthony Bradford returning to his starting position at right guard.
These absences would have looked even more devastating if we went back to the Seahawks Rankings that we did in July, when Seaside Joe readers put Williams, Darnold, and Cross all in the top 5, with quite a few more injury losses that now pale in comparison to the current state of the roster but still help explain why Seattle doesn’t feel like quite the same anymore:
Jadarian Price (23rd) had an IR stint
Elijah Arroyo (27th) is on season-ending IR
Bud Clark (29th) is on IR
Robbie Ouzts (33rd) is on IR
Jake Bobo (37th) is on IR
Mason Richman (49th) is on IR
Ouzts and Bobo are two underrated assets on offense who would have helped the Seahawks block better, while Price represented the only running back on offense with the lateral quickness to run a successful outside zone scheme. Price is back (as is Zach Charbonnet) but four key offensive starters are out.
How can anyone know what to expect from Sunday’s offense?
On one hand, this combination of starters has never played together. On the other, does the plan ever really change from “Give it JSN”?
It’s worth noting — because at a certain point “Sam Darnold and Brian Fleury are the only problems” is an unnecessary distraction — that the quarterback is hardly the only disappointment compared to what WE said we expected of these players in July.
Look at where we (including me) ranked these Seahawks less than four months ago:
Abraham Lucas, 9th
A.J. Barner, 11th
Grey Zabel, 13th
Shaheed, 14th
Josh Jobe, 15th
Derick Hall, 16th
Jason Myers, 19th
Cooper Kupp, 21st
Whether we overrated them back then, or I’m underrating them now, all of these placements — and more ranked lower (where has Rylie Mills been?) — feel off halfway through the season. Perhaps this is an overreaction based on the results of the last six games, but I don’t really think so.
The Seahawks are the defending Super Bowl champions and their top 30 players should have been the BEST top 30 players in the NFL.
Instead, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is playing like Michael Jordan on the Bulls, where the best thing you can say about the supporting cast is that they’re perfectly suited to help their ONE superstar get the ball and score. If JSN left the team in his prime to play baseball for two years, Seattle might sneak into the playoffs, but they wouldn’t get past the second round—just like the Bulls.
Pretty sure we all thought the Seahawks offense was more well-rounded than that.
Defensively, Jobe and Hall’s new three-year contracts look about the same as Shaheed’s: Not the worst deals in the league — had to sign somebody to play those positions — but unlikely to reach the third season based on what we’ve seen thus far. If this is sounding too negative, let’s mention —
5 Seahawks Out-Performing Expectations
LB Ernest Jones
Jones rose from 8th to 3rd in our second player rankings. It is vital to have 6-8 superstars and Jones has solidified himself as one.
LB Drake Thomas
Thomas was ranked 22nd on our first list and 20th on the second. Although he still gets confused for a safety sometimes because of his size, this can also work to his advantage and you know he has to be good because he’s kept the very-good Tyrice Knight off of the field.
ST Irv Charles
It’s only been three games but Charles’ reputation as an elite special teamer has proven true thus far. He was ranked 67th on the first go-around and 58th on the second, but he looks like someone Seattle wants to keep beyond 2026.
C Jalen Sundell
Remarkably, Sundell’s stock fell five spots the last time we ranked everybody—from 17th to 22nd. That’s not for me, Sundell is at least Seattle’s third-best offensive lineman when everyone is healthy. With Cross and Nelson out, that makes him number one.
OL Josh Jones
It’s only been one game but I don’t have many other options to pick. Jones’s stock has risen from 43rd to 38th and if Cross misses the next two games and he continues to play at a high level, I don’t know how the Seahawks could send him back to the bench when they return from the bye.
Do you think I missed anyone? Remember I’m comparing it to our list, so review the last one and see if anyone has risen considerably for you:
I think some of the players you might have considered just haven’t played a lot recently: Emanuel Wilson was benched for the two returning running backs. Nehemiah Pritchett’s playing time has taken a nose dive over the past month. Drew Lock’s stock might go up, but he hasn’t played since Week 2 and we last did the rankings after Week 4. Ty Okada’s stock may rise just as default for so many other stocks falling but has he clearly improved from last season? He was already pretty good. Anthony Bradford has earned some goodwill by not playing.
Mystery Men
For other players, some fans may have forgotten that they’re on the team and actually playing on Sundays but they haven’t had their names called.
The “LEGEND of Rylie Mills” had him ranked 31st, then 36th. Mills played 23 snaps on Monday, in part because of Williams’s injury, and recorded his first tackle since Week 2. Mills will no doubt have an increased role on Sunday.
Dante Fowler was right behind Mills at 32nd, then had the largest drop in our second rankings by falling to 58th. That may have been generous. I knew he wouldn’t be anything like DeMarcus Lawrence, but Fowler should have never taken a 53-man spot over Jared Ivey.
Julian Neal fell from 34th to 41st. He’s been on IR for a month, wasn’t really playing before then. It’s easy for players to become afterthoughts when they fail to stand out early in their careers, even third-round picks. Seattle’s two third-round picks before Neal were Jalen Milroe and Christian Haynes.
Haynes had one of the biggest rises on our latest ranking — 58th to 35th — and now he’s on the Dolphins. And I wonder —
What happens to Jalen Milroe if he doesn’t get a start?
Replacing Sam Darnold with Drew Lock feels like too much of a lateral move to me to do it as a way to “spark” the offense. Let’s be honest: Neither quarterback has done ANYTHING this season when not targeting JSN.
JSN has 264 yards and 4 TDs with Lock
Lock has 422 yards and 4 TDs
Therefore, Lock is just as much of a “nobody” without JSN as Darnold, right? If they can throw it to one player, I’m sure Milroe can figure that much out as a passer. The difference is that Milroe is the only one of the three quarterbacks who can escape a muddy pocket and also diversify Seattle’s offense with a rushing threat behind center.
If defenses have to respect Milroe as a runner, it makes an RPO offense between him and Price pretty dangerous with each player moving in opposite directions after the snap.
I’m not saying that I’m expecting Milroe to be Lamar Jackson — there’s a stark difference in how they played as college quarterbacks and in their early NFL appearances — but like Malik Willis maybe?
This is not about “Who should the Seahawks start?” if we’re having a conversation in July because that wouldn’t be Milroe. However, if the current problem is that the entire supporting cast is struggling save one elite MVP-caliber receiver, shouldn’t Seattle be trying to pick a different kind of quarterback to replace Darnold?
At the very least if disaster strikes and the Seahawks lose this game, or fall out of the race later, at a certain point Mike Macdonald should make the executive decision to find out if Milroe has what it takes for the NFL. In my opinion, nothing I’ve seen of Milroe in two preseasons has given me much hope of that—however, there are players who only come out of their shells when the games are real and the pressure is on.
If the Seahawks don’t find out what they have in Milroe this season, they are on gambling on his future after this year. Perhaps also gambling on their playoffs this season.
Your Week 9 Expectations
How much would your expectations have changed based on the latest injury news, it at all? I guess we’ll never know.
Average Score: Seahawks 26, Cardinals 15
This is not Scorigami, it has happened nine times before, including a Seattle 26-15 win over the Eagles in 2016. Can you name the current Seahawks player who was in that game?
Cardinals defensive coordinator Nick Rallis is considered a wunderkind because he was only 29 when he was hired into that position by former Arizona head coach Jonathan Gannon. The Cardinals are 32nd in points allowed per game and per drive. I think it is to the confusion of Cardinals fans that he continues to be the DC at age 33.
Is this matchup the relief that Seattle’s offense needs?
Drew Lock Passing Yards: 234
Jadarian Price Rushing Yards: 58.5
Jaxon Smith-Njigba Receiving Yards: 133.3
Last week you predicted that JSN would reach 137 yards — your highest expectations of the season — and he hit 118. I could see him hitting 150 yards.
Price had 29 yards in his return last week. Only 6% of you were at 29 yards or fewer this week. I could see Zach Charbonnet’s usage increasing and Emanuel Wilson getting at least some action, so I don’t think Price will reach 58 yards.
2nd most receiving: 41% Horton, 28% Barner, 13% Price
1st Seahawks TD: 46% JSN, 25% Charbonnet, 13% Price
In the last three games, Horton’s playing time has more than doubled but he has only caught 4 of 12 targets for 39 yards. We can try to explain that or blame it on someone else—at the end of the day it hasn’t been working except for his two-point conversion catch.
Unfortunately, what other options does Seattle have? Out of 125 qualified receivers in Week 8, A.J. Barner was ranked 125th in Catch Rate Over Expectation. I couldn’t even quite explain what that means…it’s not good.
When I started the Expectations Survey with a “2nd-most REC yards” question, I never thought it’d become a search for who was the least-bad.
Sack Leader - 44% Murphy, 12% Hall, 10% Williams
Force a TO - 26.5% Jones, 22% Love, 13% Lawrence
OPOG - 78% JSN, 10% Lock, 9% Price
DPOG - 32% Jones, 21% Murphy, 15% Emmanwori
STPOG - 65% Dickson, 13% Myers, 9% Horton/Charles
Jason Myers Points: Average Answer 7.5
Emmanwori’s share of DPOG votes took a considerable dip from the previous two weeks. But if I was taking a gamble on a sack leader this week with Williams and Nwosu out, I would pick Emmanwori.
Milroe is an option this week. Lock had severe tendonitis. He’s only been allowed to sparingly throw the ball and a question could arise as to whether he can this week. If Lock can’t throw, can we win on our run game?
This is not the first time that Josh jones has out preformed Cross. Almost every time he has filled in for him his PFF grades were better.
We have some very good backups that probably will be starters next year as current starters get too costly.
Milroe? Just hand the ball off or dump passes. I have yet to see he can read complex defenses