Seahawks Player Rankings: Nos. 11-15
Seattle's "depth" would be top-10 players on most teams
Some of these Seahawks broke out last year, maybe the year before, and others could break out in 2026. Continuing the rundown of all 91 players on Seattle’s roster heading into training camp, here are the five players who just missed the top 10.
You can catch up on all the previous ranking articles here.
15. CB Josh Jobe
Most Seahawks fans know that Jobe was a free agent this year and that Seattle kept him in the building with a three-year, $24 million deal. But do you remember that Jobe was also a free agent last year?
Oh to be the days when Josh Jobe only cost $2 million.
The Seahawks re-signed Jobe last March after he had worked his way up from the practice squad and started six games in 2024. The team posted last year’s news on Facebook and some fans could really see the vision for 2025:
I hope they saw it too, Giovany.
Jobe told the media back then that although he felt like he had a breakout season, he also had “more to prove” and “I’ve got to keep going”.
Mike Macdonald was encouraged by the work Jobe was doing behind the scenes, stuff that Facebook couldn’t see:
"It's probably the best part of the job when you see guys grow, and what gets you hooked is when guys do stuff one day that they haven't done the day before, to see hard work really pay off…these guys work extremely hard and a lot of them were working in the shadows to help the rest of the team."
At this time last year, Jobe was not a starter. He was competing against Shaquill Griffin, Nehemiah Pritchett, and others for the CB3 role, but even those snaps could (and eventually would) be taken by rookie Nick Emmanwori. Jobe would not only win that job, but soon leapfrog starter Riq Woolen for playing time too.
Julian Love called Jobe the most “unsung” player in Seattle’s secondary, noting that he’s often made to cover receivers without any help:
"We put him on islands a lot of the time, just saying, 'All right, it's on you,'" Love said. "You don't have schemes—you can't Mike Macdonald your way through playing corner for us, you've got to man up and play ball. He lines up, he's going to line up this close to these receivers. He had a tall task all year, and he met that task."
Despite being left on an island, the former undrafted free agent only allowed 49.5 percent of throws at him to be completed (12th-best in the NFL), averaging 5.7 yards per target. Those numbers were 43.8 percent and 5.8 yards per target in the playoffs.
Jobe will be a little bit more expensive this year, but with Woolen now completely out of the picture, he’ll also be more valuable.
14. G Grey Zabel
This is what every team wants: They want first-round picks to be among their best players almost immediately. Even a Super Bowl-winning roster like this one should expect a top-20 pick to slot in among their most valuable players by year two.
In fact, Zabel ranking 14th—when he could easily be a top-10 player on some rosters, or a top-five player on the Dolphins—speaks to the strength of Seattle’s core, and is not an indictment on the guard.
Case in point, Zabel barely missed the top-10 of ESPN’s interior offensive line rankings, as voted on by NFL execs, scouts, and coaches:
"He played his ass off as a rookie. He's going to be a Pro Bowler for [the Seahawks]. Excellent." -- NFC executive
This praise couldn’t just be because Zabel was drafted early (he got mentioned ahead of Tyler Booker, the guard who was drafted ahead of him last year) because a lot of guards and centers get drafted early. I don’t see Graham Barton’s name, the center who a lot of Seahawks fans wanted the team to draft in 2024. I didn’t see Zion Johnson, a guard who was drafted 17th overall three years earlier.
Underwhelming picks along the offensive line almost always disappoint early and never recover. They rarely start out as good as Zabel and then become bad.
There aren’t any stats that will tell you how good Zabel is (although he did rank first in run-block win rate, whatever that is) or what he needs to get better at. Those analytics still have a long way to go. The only number that matters to me?
18th.
John Schneider threw out his entire draft philosophy playbook to pick Zabel 18th overall, just a year after he said “guards are over-drafted”, which tells me that Seattle knows they have an exceptional left guard. He also has an exceptional position coach, John Benton, and the unique opportunity to be mentored by Steve Hutchinson, the Hall of Fame consultant that the Seahawks used to help them realize what they had to do in the draft.
Zabel called 76 “no better number to wear” in Seahawks history:
"Being able to connect with (Hutch) was a surreal experience," Zabel said. "I remember after my interview with him down at the Senior Bowl, I immediately called my dad to tell him that. Super excited and hopefully I'll have more conversations with him."
The bar for Zabel is not to be as good as Steve Hutchinson. But if he continues to play as he did last year, with a normal amount of second-year improvement, Zabel can be as good as Zabel can be. That’s really good.
13. WR/KR Rashid Shaheed
Although it was still a little unclear to me—and I know this is not how many of you felt—how the Seahawks came to value Shaheed at $17 million per season, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone why Seattle wanted to finish what they started at the trade deadline by re-signing an elite punt and kick returner who is in the perfect situation with Jay Harbaugh calling the blocking schemes on special teams.
If the Seahawks only gave away one game ball, Shaheed may have come away with at least two last season, if not three+, and that’s despite spending half the year in New Orleans.
Nobody will argue against Shaheed’s big play ability.
Shaheed had an 87-yard touchdown against the Giants while he was with the Saints last season and his 21.7 MPH was clocked as the fastest game speed of any player in the league that week. He isn’t as fast as Tyreek Hill, but Shaheed is the fastest receiver on the Seahawks and that’s the main reason Seattle was so intent on adding him, then keeping him.
The argument is less “Is Shaheed worth $17 million per year?” and more “What are you going to pay someone else to do the same job?”
Schneider could have tried drafting someone to replace Shaheed, but that’s not a very high-percentage bet unless you’re picking early in the first round.
He could have tried signing a different free agent, but Shaheed’s already right there and he’s ready to sign. Besides, after the Titans signed Wan’Dale Robinson for $17.5 million per season (a player not as fast as Shaheed) and the Patriots paid Romeo Doubs $17 million per season, it gave more context to the contract Seattle paid for Shaheed, which is:
The going rate for a number 2-3ish receiver has exceeded our expectations.
Or at least, my expectations.
Now Shaheed, as well as Sam Darnold and Brian Fleury, has to make the Seahawks look right for their belief in him as a receiver who just needs more time to develop into a high-volume weapon for the offense. After he helped Seattle beat the Colts with five catches for 74 yards, Shaheed had five catches for 88 yards over the last five games combined.
51 of those 88 yards came on a single play against the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship.
That’s an average of 1 catch for 18 yards per game during Seattle’s Super Bowl run.
Obviously I’ve still ranked Shaheed very high anyway. I guess if the Seahawks are believers in Shaheed’s potential after he gets more time in the offense, so too can I be.
12. S Julian Love
When Pete Carroll signed Love in 2023, the thing he loved the most about him was his willingness and ability to pull double-duty between defense and special teams:
"The opportunity to get Julian, who's a remarkable player, he had a remarkable season last year—I can't remember a guy who played over a thousand snaps and played over 200 snaps on special as well. That's an unusual mix," Carroll said. "That's just one aspect of what Julian brings. He's a really versatile football player, he called their defenses—he had the green dot—he's a captain. It's a very rare opportunity to get a guy like that, so we jumped at it."
Three years later, Love has only played 202 special teams snaps (fewer than his last season with the Giants) in Seattle, but only because he’s a better safety than even Carroll had imagined.
There are so many average to below-average safeties who can get 100 tackles in a season that it was easy to dismiss Love as another one who may come and go without leaving a mark. Consider Rayshawn Jenkins or Marcus Robinson in the annals of Seahawks history.
However, Love’s background as a college cornerback at Notre Dame who then moved to safety in the NFL has clearly given him unique ball skills at the position:
Although Love missed half of the regular season, when he was back to playing all of the snaps he was the same as ever, if not better. Check out his last five games, including playoffs.
Not a single game allowing a passer rating over 40:
In total, 10 passes were thrown with Love as the nearest defender, resulting in four catches for 35 yards and two interceptions. The second pick helped Seattle seal the Super Bowl.
Still only 28, Love could play at least three more seasons at a high level. The issue is his contract, which jumps from a $6 million cap hit in 2025 to a $12.8 million cap hit in 2026, and then a $15.2 million cap hit in 2027.
Teams generally don’t pay that much for safeties when their contracts are about to run out, so this is the biggest season of Love’s career so far. He’ll be extra motivated to earn another extension next year so the Seahawks can bring down his cap number.
He’s not everything that Pete Carroll expected. He’s more.
11. TE A.J. Barner
I have yet to find out what’s wrong with A.J. Barner. What am I not seeing that apparently so many others feel makes Barner an average player with no more room to get better? ESPN’s tight end rankings didn’t have Barner in the top-10, didn’t have him as an honorable mention, and didn’t see him get a single mention.
How could Barner not get even better when he’s already grown so much since the draft two years ago?
Scouting reports said Barner would be limited as a “blocking-only” tight end, coming off of a career at Indiana and Michigan in which he had 64 catches for 610 yards and five touchdowns total. Those numbers are even better when you consider that Barner originally committed to go to Ohio University (not OSU) to play defensive end. He was fairly new to football at the time and in high school he stood out more as a linebacker than as a tight end.
Then he set a new career-best with 245 yards as an NFL rookie, followed by 52 catches for 519 yards and six touchdowns in year two.
Among the 31 tight ends with at least 100 targets in the last two seasons, Barner’s catch rate is fourth (77.4%), his success rate is third (63.2%), and his touchdowns (10) is tied for ninth. And he’s done it as a 22-23 year old, same age as Brock Bowers. Same age as Tyler Warren, who was a rookie last year. Over a year younger than Sam LaPorta.
Don’t put Barner at their level if you don’t want to, but those are tight ends ranked first, fifth, and fourth on ESPN’s list. Could Barner have made the back end of the top-10 or gotten a mention, at least? Is he better, at this stage of his career, than Mark Andrews (9th) and Travis Kelce (10th)?
Is he better than Dalton Kincaid, a big receiver who is almost three years older than Barner and has been injured way more often?
Barner is big (6’6, 250+) and he’s certainly fast enough, he’s got great hands, and his reputation coming into the league was that he’d be no worse than an elite blocking tight end. He’s well-positioned in a Brian Fleury offense to not just be Seattle’s number one tight end, but could also be the number two receiving weapon—and he’s already an elite short yardage back, gaining nine first downs on 10 tush push plays in 2025.
So I don’t know what everyone else seems to know about tight ends that I don’t know, but when I find out what’s wrong with him, I’ll let you know.