Milroe-mer's Odyssey: Seahawks Don't Need a Savior, Just More Options
Jalen Milroe's first game of 2026 emphasizes -- again -- why preseason is not "season"
The preseason is like the island of Ogygia in Homer’s Odyssey. You, the fans, are Odysseus. The games are Calypso, tricking you into believing that what you’re seeing and feeling is actually real*.
*I beg you for forgiveness if my bad retelling of Ogygia based on only watching the movie The Odyssey twice is horribly inaccurate
“The Seahawks only scored 7 points against the Cowboys…”
But it’s not real.
Those are the Seahawks uniforms, but those are not the Seahawks.
Calypso offers Odysseus eternal youth, same as preseason rosters. The uniform numbers and the ages stay the same, but the names are constantly changing.
Two years ago, Seahawks fans were rooting for Sam Howell, believing he could tap into his potential and perhaps one day become Seattle’s starter.
On Saturday, Seahawks fans were rooting against Sam Howell, with as little regard that he was just a Seahawk as Odysseus had for home when he was under Calypso’s spell.
The NFL’s preseason quarterback carousel is no different than a room of suitors waiting for an opportunity that will never come.
The opportunity to be Seattle’s next quarterback-in-waiting belongs to Jalen Milroe. There’s no need to even hold interviews or post a job listing on Indeed. Nobody else is the waiting room, not even Drew Lock.
It’s Milroe or try again next year.
And that’s fine, because the fact of the matter is this:
If you’re a backup quarterback not named Fernando Mendoza or Ty Simpson, the franchise isn’t pinning much hope on you.
In the entirety of the NFL, there is not a single other backup quarterback who matters that much relative to the actual starters, other than these two first round rookies. J.J. McCarthy doesn’t matter that much to the Vikings, Shedeur Sanders doesn’t matter that much to the Browns, Justin Fields doesn’t matter that much to the Chiefs, and the loser of any QB competition (like Michael Penix v. Tua Tagovailoa) won’t matter that much either.
No disrespect to any backup quarterbacks out there, obviously I know that backups often become starters and sometimes become stars, but my point is that as of right now teams are solely fixated on helping their current starters; Mendoza and Simpson are the only two recent major investments at the position and therefore the only exceptions, but they could be starters (or irrelevant) by next year.
And Seahawks fans certainly shouldn’t be overly worried about Milroe’s future either, for two reasons above all:
You should want Sam Darnold to be the face of the franchise for the next 10 years, if he can manage it
The team actually didn’t invest that much into Milroe; the Seahawks spent a higher pick on Christian Haynes than they did Milroe
There is very little burden on Milroe to become a good quarterback, at least on Seattle’s part. He has a ton of pressure on himself of course, like personally it would change his life immeasurably if he figures out how to play NFL quarterback.
But it actually doesn’t matter that much to the Seahawks if he doesn’t.
That could sound harsh, if not factually inaccurate, so let me break it down even further:
If Milroe succeeds, the value to the Seahawks is fantastic.
Worst case scenario, Seattle trades Milroe for a draft pick higher than the third they spent on him.
Great. Fans should be all for that, if that’s the worst case scenario in the event he starts playing like an NFL starter.
And in the best case scenario, Milroe is so damn good that the Seahawks actually trade Sam Darnold. Then they have a quarterback who is not only younger, but with his dual threat ability could be the next Lamar Jackson. That’s in the best case scenario.
Even somewhere in the middle, Milroe might be like Malik Willis, developing just enough to earn an opportunity and set himself up for life. This doesn’t benefit Seattle that much (the Titans traded Willis after two seasons and only got a seventh round pick) but maybe that’s where Milroe is headed.
Although based on his fourth preseason game, it’s not clear to anyone that he is going in the right direction.
If Milroe fails, it doesn’t hurt the Seahawks at all.
It just is. If Milroe never even becomes a backup quarterback, Seattle only spent the 92nd overall pick on him. It’s not that important.
Cody Barton was the 88th pick. D’Wayne Eskridge was the 57th pick. Rasheem Green was the 79th pick.
A team’s third-round picks are supposed to be exactly like Jalen Milroe actually:
high upside
downside they never play
starter or quickly flames out
Third-rounders are often first-rounders with red flags. Milroe has first-round athleticism and a first-round arm, but four years after high school was still playing like a seventh-round quarterback.
Alabama fans were divided on if Milroe should have been benched during both of his seasons as the starter, and the biggest reason he wasn’t in 2024? New head coach Kalen DeBoer was highly appreciative of Milroe’s efforts that offseason to keep other Crimson Tide players from transferring away in the offseason.
Milroe consistently proves that he has traits that coaches LOVE.
Extreme work ethic
Positive mental attitude
Team-first locker room presence
He’s a “football player”, meaning he exhibits the qualities of your best guy
Jalen Milroe is exactly the type of football player who coaches immediately recognize is the best athlete on the field, therefore he should be the quarterback as a youth, as a high schooler, and sometimes, as a college player, even if he’s not accurate. Even if he’s one of the least accurate passers to ever be drafted as a quarterback.
These are attributes that have bought Milroe more time, and should continue to work in his favor towards a roster spot in September. I wouldn’t think that Seattle ends the experiment after only one full season with the Seahawks.
If I can watch The Odyssey for six hours, surely the Seahawks can give Milroe more than six preseason games.
But preseason brings the lotus-eaters, which means that we’re being lulled into a false sense of belief that Seahawks uniforms=the Seahawks.
“Wait! Who’s that I see?! Elijah Arroyo? Seaside Jodysseus is a liar!”
A Seahawks game without starters, save a few brief appearances by players who might have a role in 2026, is not a Seahawks game.
And with Aden Durde calling plays on defense, Brian Fleury was by far the most important person on the team who had a full-time role on Saturday.
This is actually good news for Jalen Milroe.
Of course, we know that Milroe was not given a great opportunity to succeed with a third-rate offensive line and receivers who, for whatever reason, were not able to escape the Cowboys’ third-rate defensive secondary.
Bobby Hart may have been one of the worst players in a Seahawks uniform I’ve ever seen, and he wasn’t the only one on the offensive line who has to worry about being released this week.
On the entire roster, not including the specialists Jason Myers and Michael Dickson, the biggest standout was a player we already know is above his pay grade in the preseason: Tyrice Knight. Mike Macdonald said after the game that injuries at linebacker forced Knight to play more than the team would have liked.
But take another player for example:
Rashad Rochelle had the most exciting play of the game for Seattle. And he was run down by…Jonathan Mingo? That was a weird visual. Even the broadcast booth was yelling at Rochelle to “just go straight!”
There is a not-so-subtle difference between the regular season and the preseason. So Milroe can use that as an excuse, but he doesn’t strike me as the type who doesn’t want accountability. That’s good too. It’s great actually.
Maybe Milroe would do a little better if he was called on for a regular season game with the full complement of offensive starting support, but I think absent that his mechanics, his footwork, and his decisions left too much to be desired on Saturday. My critique of Milroe had nothing to do with the supporting cast.
Visually, it was not hard to see the differences between Milroe and…
Sam Howell.
The best quarterback in the game on Saturday was Howell. The second-best was Joe Milton. It’s an undeniable visual difference in their mechanics, their arm strength, and their decision-making that separated them from Milroe. And even, at times, from Lock. Howell had the confidence, even the accuracy, to take shots downfield. I’m not sure—someone here can remind me—if Milroe has ever taken a deep shot in the NFL preseason. What do you remember from 2025? Did he throw downfield? And we know that Howell is not good enough to consistently start in the NFL.
Luckily, the Seahawks don’t have to work with Howell, who is 26. They’re developing Milroe, who is 23.
If Howell fails, maybe he’ll become a quarterbacks coach. If Milroe fails, maybe he’ll become Taysom Hill. There are still ways to work with Milroe as a football player even if he doesn’t work out as a quarterback.
That’s an added benefit and a reason to still like Milroe regardless of what happened in the game; he can progress next week, he can add value to the Seahawks even when he’s not the starting quarterback.
Most failed quarterback picks—and the vast majority of quarterback picks do fail—don’t have a fallback plan. Milroe does.
Given enough time, who knows what will happen.
Even if the preseason Seahawks are not the Seahawks, you can’t judge a person by their clothing. You never know what a beggar will turn out to be.
Hmmm - while watching Milroe yesterday I kept thinking about how he must be modeling his play after Lamar Jackson. Frequently running the ball himself.
OT: Did everyone with Amazon Prime get their email notices that they are now being locked into a region and will be subjected to blackouts the networks currently use to force fans to paid streaming services?
I love preseason games. I also understand the stakes. Winning or losing doesn’t affect the team, but playing well or poorly affects careers. The play on the field matters. The scoreboard doesn’t.