Seahawks-related recommendations

3 recommendations for the Seahawks 2025 season

At the end of today’s newsletter I’m going to close out your list of recommendations from last week’s fan survey (Seaside Joe reading list here and movie watch list here) by sharing the TV shows that your fellow community members think you should check out.

But first I want to tie these recs back into the Seattle Seahawks somehow, so these are some team-related recommendations from Seaside Joe himself about the 2025 Seahawks:

I recommend Grey Zabel jerseys

A rookie jersey is a risky pick, especially at $130+tax, but if you’re deadset on buying one anyway then Zabel is a much safer bet than say Jalen Milroe. We don’t know what sales look like yet, I’m just going to guess that Milroe’s is doing quite well because the Seahawks website even recommended to me that I “may also like” one.

However, they also recommended Myles Adams so I don’t think anyone is even minding the store:

Zabel may have been a reach at pick 18, but he also has an exceptionally high floor for a mid-first round choice and not just because he’s a great football player who has overcome tremendous odds to get here:

Although his value as a center or guard is iffy for a first round pick, there is a relatively high likelihood of Grey Zabel being a starter on Seattle’s o-line for at least the next four seasons.

• On one hand, James Carpenter and Germain Ifedi turned out to be first round guards and you wouldn’t want to be left stuck holding either of their jerseys.

• On the other, Zabel appears to be a better o-line prospect than either of those two and guard is his natural position, as opposed to Seattle moving him there because he disappointed at tackle.

This is really not about jerseys anyway — that was just a lead-in to why I recommend following Grey Zabel’s progress this year and that as opposed to other Seahawks offensive line draft picks maybe we are allowed to get our hopes up this time.

I recommend Ernest Jones run defense

I have followed Jones’ career since the moment he was drafted by the Rams in the third round of the 2021 draft and from my perspective he never that good until he got to the Seahawks last season. Good enough to start? Of course. But L.A. traded him to Tennessee and Tennessee traded him to Seattle because neither of those teams thought he was good enough to pay.

The Seahawks probably would have held the same opinion if not for the run defense doing a complete 180 when they traded for Ernest Jones in Week 8 (recommended re-watch: Legion of 12s did a Jones-Knight breakdown video at the end of the season)…

• First 7 games w/o Jones: 146 rushing yards allowed per game (28th)

• First 7 games w/o Jones: 5.0 YPC (28th)

• Final 10 games w/Jones: 103 rushing yards allowed per game (9th)

• Final 10 games w/Jones: 4.2 YPC (t10th)

We shouldn’t necessarily attribute this entirely to one player. Tyrice Knight was upgraded to starter a week after Jones arrived. The defense had two months to get comfortable with Mike Macdonald’s defense by the second half of the season. And Seattle’s second half opponents may have been worse rushing teams than their first half opponents.

But also within that equation is of course Ernest Jones, a seriously better linebacker than Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson.

We as fans don’t tend to “watch” run defense like we watch for sacks, incompletions, and turnovers, but if we can afix our eyes to Jones and Knight against the run this season then we will better understand why the Seahawks defense is improved from the last few years of Pete Carroll’s tenure.

Maybe someone should have recommended Ernest Jones to Pete when Seattle took D’Wayne Eskridge with their only draft pick in the top 3 rounds.

I recommend patience for Sam Darnold and Klint Kubiak

The defense should have an advantage over the offense, if for no other reason than Macdonald already having a year under his belt to teach his system to the players. Mostly players who were also on the roster last year, so there should be fewer penalties, quicker reaction times to what’s happening on the field, and far better communication than we saw in 2024.

All things that could and probably will negatively impact Kubiak’s offense in the first couple of months of the season. (Re-watch recommendation: All-22 breakdown of the Kubiak offense; Legion of 12s explainer video)

Something that has stood out to me since I first heard it was that Mike McDaniel’s Dolphins led the NFL in offensive penalties during his debut season as the head coach and OC (23.4 points per game in 2022) and that was largely due to the fact that he ran so much pre-snap motion and his offense was so detailed that players were not ready for it. McDaniel emphasized eliminating those penalties in year two:

“We couldn’t have emphasized it more this offseason," McDaniel said. "The facts are the facts. ‘You’re the worst. I’m the worst.’ When we false start, it’s not something people are very comfortable about. You show it in front of the team. You pride yourself as a coach to produce a clean product for the fans to watch.”

Miami improved to a team ranked 16th in offensive penalties in 2023 and that was the year that the Dolphins scored 29.2 points per game, good for 2nd in the NFL. Just that extra year to install the system helped the Dolphins essentially score one more touchdown per game.

So when Kubiak and Darnold make their debuts for Seattle in Week 1 against the San Francisco 49ers, I’m expecting mistakes. Hopefully not — in Kubiak’s first two games as the Saints OC, New Orleans put up 91 points — but Seahawks fans are going to have to be okay with it if the offense doesn’t look like it’s in perfect condition when the season begins.

“Good” would be a pleasant surprise.

Keeping in mind that unlike a defense that returns most of the same players, Seattle’s offense will have a minimum of four new starters (Darnold, Cooper Kupp, MVS or a different WR3, and Zabel) and potentially up to three or four others. That might actually be to the Seahawks benefit given that they won’t have to “un-teach” the old offense to players who were here before 2025.

On Darnold’s end, he will be working with an entirely new supporting cast to him, but hopefully that does not hold him back. It didn’t hurt him on the Vikings last season:

• Darnold debuted 19-of-24 with 2 TD/1 INT in a 28-6 win over the Giants

• Darnold had 69% completions, 11 TD/3 INT, 8.8 Y/A, 118.9 rating during Minnesota’s 4-0 start, including wins over the 49ers, Texans, and Packers

• The Vikings only lost to two different teams during the entire 2024 season and playoffs (Lions twice, Rams twice)

But how much of that success should be credited to play caller Kevin O’Connell and receiver Justin Jefferson? If it takes Darnold a few weeks to get on the same page with Kubiak, Kupp, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, then so be it. Fans shouldn’t be ready to turn to Drew Lock or Milroe if the offense has a bad September — it’s probably to be expected.

I recommend that if we wait it out (think back to Russell Wilson’s rookie season and all the struggles that Seattle’s offense had in September and October of that year prior to being the most explosive offense in the NFL by December) that good things come to those who are patient.

We’ll know when it is time to be worried about Darnold and that time is highly unlikely to be at the start of the season.

Seaside Joe Binge-Worthy Recs

For the first time in Seaside Joe history I’m going to add my own recommendation, but with the caveat that you should only really spend your time on this if you are already a huge fan of these types of shows.

The Devil’s Plan (Netflix)

For people who like: Competition TV shows, strategy boardgames, Korean things

In its simplest terms, The Devil’s Plan is “Big Brother but all the players are geniuses”. I kind of hate to use Big Brother as a baseline because this is not a show about showmances and petty arguments — it’s more about strategy than any other competition show — but it is 13 or 14 people who live in a house together (only for a couple of weeks) and compete for advantages and to avoid being eliminated.

In every episode, they play complicated games (the rules and strategy often go over my head, but you may have an easier time) to gain “pieces” that keep them safe, and then the losing half of the house plays another game to avoid being eliminated. When you have no pieces, you’re out of the game.

That alone wouldn’t make The Devil’s Plan much different than any other competition show, but the reason it stands out to me is the set pieces (there are hidden rooms, secret puzzles in the house) and the star of the show, which is really the editing. The way the editors are able to tell a story by hiding certain things that happened earlier that would explain the strategy makes for compelling truth bombs throughout the season.

I think it’s a great show BUT I also love competition TV shows more than I like anything else. I think a lot of people will tune out after an episode (just getting through the rule explanations can be overwhelming) but if you already like these kinds of shows and you give it time to develop, it’s worth it. (I know there’s also a British version called Genius Game, but I’ve only seen one episode of that so far.)

I really want to know, have any of you watched The Devil’s Plan?

YOUR TV BINGE RECS:

(Please know that if I overlook your recommendation, it’s not on purpose. I just messed up by having one answer box for all kinds of recs, so it’s hard for me to even know what’s a TV show sometimes…)

• Dept. Q (Netflix) (Recommended 4 times)

• Andor (Disney+) (Recommended 4 times)

• Murderbot (Apple TV) (2 times)

• Love Island (Peacock) (2 times)

• Matt’s Off-Road Recovery (YouTube) (2 times)

• Resident Alien (Peacock and Netflix) (2 times)

• The Resident (Netflix) (2 times)

• The Last of Us (Max) (2 times)

• Yellowstone (Paramount) (2 times)

• The Traitors (Peacock)

• Dream Academy (if this is Pop Star Academy, then it’s on Netflix)

• The Sopranos (Max)

• Welcome to Wrexham (Hulu)

• Psych (it’s on Peacock)

• Chernobyl miniseries (Max)

• Primal (Max)

• The Fat Electrician (YouTube)

• Your Honor (Netflix)

• Slow Horses (Apple TV)

• Arrested Development (Netflix)

• Utopia (BritBox)

• The White Lotus (Max) (Creator Mike White is returning for season 50 of Survivor, you can go back and watch him play on season 37)

• Reacher (Prime)

• The Patriot (Prime)

• My Name (Netflix)

• Parks and Rec (Peacock)

• Rabbit Hole (Paramount+)

• Arcane (Netflix)

• Your Lie In April (Netflix and Hulu)

• Alone (I think it’s everywhere, including Hulu, Netflix and Tubi)

• TimeGhost History (YouTube)

• Money Heist (Netflix)

• Bosch (Prime)

• The Chosen (Prime)

• Blue-Eyed Samurai (Netflix)

• Tires (Netflix)

• The Expanse (Prime)

• Stranger Things (Netflix)

• 3 Body Problem (Netflix)

• Silo (Apple TV)

• Cunk on Earth (Netflix)

• Weak Hero Class (Netflix)

• NCIS (Paramount)

• Big Mouth (Netflix)

• How I Met Your Mother (Hulu and Netflix)

• Criminal Code (Netflix)

• Mystery Science Theater 3000 (you can find movies on Peacock, Plex, Prime, etc.)

• Morse (BritBox)

Another recommendation that just occurred to me, because I only want to think of shows that people have probably never watched or heard of, is Mr. Mercedes on Peacock. It’s kind of a crazy show, but it stars Brendan Gleason, is based on a Stephen King book, and is a “tight” 30 episodes so at least you know when you start it that it has a very definitive ending in the future. On that note, you could also watch Dark on Netflix.

Seaside Joe 2304