What, Sam-Wori? Tournament of THE Champions, Quarterfinals

Who is the most important Seahawks player of 2026? 4 more votes to determine the 4 last players

This tournament started with Seattle’s 90-man roster and immediately cut that in half for part one. Half of that half was automatically slotted into a 24-player Seahawks bracket, and approximately 10,000 of your votes later, we have the top-eight.

After Abe Lucas held off Devon Witherspoon’s ‘last gasp’ this weekend, these are the Fateful Eight:

Who will you vote for to reach the Final Four?

Remember: The basis of the vote is “importance”. Who is the most vital to Seattle’s success next season?

Not last season or two seasons from now. Only in 2026.

Other criteria would have put different players, including Witherspoon many times over, into the final eight of a tournament of Seahawks. It’s not that he doesn’t belong here either, but it goes to show that the Seattle Seahawks have the best top-eight in the NFL.

(4) Leonard Williams vs (5) Charles Cross

Fascinating way to start the quarterfinals. I have no idea where this vote will fall.

Williams gets better with age, posting 18 sacks in the last two seasons since Mike Macdonald arrived. His totals rank since 2024:

• 18 sacks (t16th)

• 18 sacks (1st among DTs)

• 25 tackles for a loss (15th)

• 25 TFL (2nd among DTs)

• 50 QB hits (6th)

• 50 QB hits (2nd among DTs)

In nearly the same number of games, at roughly the same age, Williams has as many sacks as T.J. Watt. Does it feel like the media talks about him as often as Watt? It doesn’t. And these are just pass rushing numbers, which don’t account for run defense or how Williams is able to create so many opportunities for his Seahawk teammates.

Cross is the first franchise left tackle Seattle has drafted since Russell Okung in 2010, and he’s only 25. Getting better feels more like an inevitability than a wish.

Although the Seahawks were able to win a few games without him last season, fans can remember how slippery the slope is when Seattle’s left tackle situation becomes a carousel of castoffs.

The Seahawks had to trade two day two picks for Duane Brown to stop the bleeding last time.

Cross was only blamed for two sacks last season, and was flagged five times. After signing Cross to a four-year, $104 million extension in January, Macdonald praised how valuable he is as a teammate and mentor:

"He's got such a great spirit to him, and he's a great teammate," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. "Very unselfish, extremely hard worker, humble, confident, all those things. (Leaders) come in all sorts of different personalities, and he's authentic to him, and I think his teammates really respect the heck out of him. He's been great for Grey since Grey walked in the door. That's what you see, and then, he's just a great person, really is. I don't know if you've gotten to know him, but he's just a great person that we really respect, and turns out he's a great football player too."

The trenches are where football games are decided and these two Seahawks were as important as anybody when it came to Seattle winning those battles last season. Who will be slightly more important to repeating in 2026?

I don’t want to influence any of your picks. Only inform them as much as I can. What say you?

(3) Jaxon Smith-Njigba vs (6) Ernest Jones

If Ernest Jones still played for the Rams, not only would we have to reassess how likely it is that the Seahawks would be reigning Super Bowl champs right now, but it could be L.A.’s defense that becomes unstoppable. (This is assuming the Rams current depth chart with Trent McDuffie and Myles Garrett.)

Ernest’s redemption story is really just as impressive as Sam Darnold’s, just at a position that gets a lot less attention. All the Rams or Titans had to do was extend him and he’d never get the chance to link up with Macdonald.

Because they didn’t, and he did, Ernest Jones is now a second-team All-Pro linebacker after consistently plugging the right gaps in run defense (something that his predecessors had trouble with) and setting a new standard at the position with six interceptions, including playoffs.

Macdonald called Jones an “alpha,” which is high praise for a player on a defense with this many men who are used to being seen as the alpha.

What more can be said about JSN at this point? He’s become one of those player’s whose resume is synonymous with his name alone. I said it before Smith-Njigba played in his first game with the Seahawks: Based on the records he set in high school and college, there is no limit for what JSN can do in the NFL.

Reaching 2,000 yards is not a matter of “IF” with JSN. It’s a matter of whether or not Seattle wants or needs to run that kind of offense, which they probably don’t. But if they did, he could.

(1) Sam Darnold vs (8) Nick Emmanwori

No matter how the rest of this tournament goes for Nick Emmanwori, just remember that barely more than a year ago, 34 picks in the draft were made without his name being called. Either 2025 is the greatest first round in history (which it isn’t even close to being) or the NFL messed up big time.

Emmanwori’s first season was hardly perfect, but he improved week to week and he could be the most popular rookie since DK Metcalf. If not, dare we say, Russell Wilson.

And speaking of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks …

It’s difficult to unseat any quarterback from a position of power on the heels of winning his first championship. Darnold not only proved to be an upgrade from Geno Smith, but also to some degree what Wilson had become in the latter half of his career.

There are things that Wilson is better at than Darnold, and vice versa.

Darnold wasn’t asked to do much in the second half of the season, or playoffs. But when he was called upon, he answered. That’s all Seattle could ask for last season. Now it’s up to Darnold to be more consistent and continue protecting the ball as well as he did in the final 10 games.

• First 10 games: 10 INTs, 5 fumbles

• Last 10 games: 4 INTs, 6 fumbles

No matter how the vote falls, the Seahawks are in good hands when it comes to both passing the ball and stopping the pass.

(2) Byron Murphy vs (7) Abe Lucas

Fans can’t speak to the improvement of Seattle’s offensive line without first mentioning the 2022 draft double-whammy of Cross and Lucas. Is that not the single greatest Seahawks OL draft in history?

While Cross was more expected as a top-10 pick, Lucas’s ascension was more of a slowburn after he started OTAs behind Jake Curhan and we genuinely did not know he’d be a Week 1 starter until just before the season.

In the last four years, Lucas has probably been a better tackle than Cross—although it’s still debatable—but he doesn’t protect Darnold’s blindside and his injury history has done more to force Seattle to be ready for his absences.

It says a lot that Lucas was able to beat a fan favorite like Witherspoon in vote. Although Seahawks fans have waited their entire lives for the team to find a great right tackle, so maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising.

Literally on the flip side of the trenches, Murphy’s two season-arc implies that year three could put him in rare company among defensive tackles. Watch him here in the A-gap against L.A.’s right guard and blowing up the play to stop Kyren Williams for a loss:

Murphy’s seven sacks last season could the lowest total he has for a while, because while he can stop the run, that’s not what made him the second defensive player drafted in 2024. It’s the confidence that scouts have in Murphy to become a disruptive inside pass rusher.

And he’s next to Leonard Williams?

And his coach is Mike Macdonald?

That’s a recipe for huge season and the Seahawks really do not have another defensive tackle on the roster like him. But you could probably say the same thing about the depth chart at right tackle. There are no easy picks.

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