Seahawks stock watch: 5 UP after Week 1

Boye Mafe, Jerome Baker, Tyler Lockett noted the disrespect: Seaside Joe 2022

In the past, I might sometimes write something like “this Seahawk player’s stock is up” and simply been going off of an abstract, undefined valuation buried in my brain, somewhere between thinking about what to have for lunch and an embarrassing conversation I had with somebody in the ninth grade. This season, we aren’t going to be quite so abstract.

And steak. I’m going to eat steak for lunch today.

With the “Close Your Eyes” test scores all tabulated, and Friday’s published article on the edge rushers only leaves QBs/STs as the final positions to share the results with you, I have a 1-5 score for all 53 players currently on the roster, as well as Abe Lucas and Artie Burns. That means that I don’t just think I know what Geno Smith is “worth” to the Seahawks…I have a number next to his name. Actually, I have seven numbers: Six categories + One average.

What I’ve learned by creating these scores is that the Close Your Eyes test essentially amounts to what I would call “Player Value”. To what degree is each player “untouchable” because he would be difficult to replace?

If you looked at the recent history of the Kansas City Chiefs, they won the Super Bowl in 2019 with players like Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, Tyreek Hill, Tyrann Mathieu, Charvarius Ward, and Frank Clark. Time has kind of proven to us that the only three players that the Chiefs rated as “irreplaceable” were Mahomes, Kelce, and Jones. The same goes for the Chiefs later parting ways with players like Orlando Brown and L’Jarius Snead, key players at valuabe positions on championship teams.

When Sneed became too expensive, they traded him. There was never a “too expensive” limit for Chris Jones. Why? Well, what’s my Close Your Eyes test score for Jones?

DT Chris Jones

History: 5/5

Health: 5/5

Athleticism: 5/5

Consistency: 4.5/5

Supply and Demand: 5/5

Versatility: 4.5/5

Total: 29 out of 30 points, which is higher than anybody on the Seahawks.

Am I overrating Jones? He’s a 30-year-old first ballot Hall of Famer in the prime of his career playing a role that makes him the most dangerous player on any defense (if you can’t block an interior pass rusher, he can get to the quarterback sooner than anyobdy else), he’s rarely injured, and he might be the best all-around defensive player in the NFL right now. The last time I saw Jones before last week, he was ending the Super Bowl. This is what an elite, irreplaceable player looks like and I can only knock Jones for inconsistent effort and that’s probably a byproduct of his awareness that he can take some plays off because of how good he is (Aaron Donald, a true 5/5 player, would not take plays off).

The Seahawks highest-rated players are DK Metcalf and Devon Witherspoon, both of whom scored a 4.3 and I think that number reflects that they’re both capable of being as valuable as Chris Jones in the future. The common denominator between all of Seattle’s highest-scored players is their elite athleticism, while the one thing that all of them need to improve is their consistency.

If these players (with the help of the new coaches) can start by stacking good games, they can next move to stacking good seasons. Within a year, we could be talking about a handful of Seahawks scored 4.5 or better, including Metcalf, Witherspoon, Kenneth Walker, Charles Cross, Boye Mafe, Riq Woolen, and several others, including that guy who I didn’t mention who makes you wanna tell me, “You didn’t mention (this player)!”

Him too.

(Byron Murphy too, just keep in mind that not even Chris Jones became a dominant player until his third season and then he had to go a few more years in a row after that to prove it.)

So now that I have scores as a starting point, we will be able to keep track of how the Seahawks rate with a mid-season update and then an end-of-season update to their scores. In the meantime, without officially updating any of their scores, I’ll do week-to-week stock reports for players who could be trending up or down based on recent events. This week I’m posting the Stock Report on a Friday, but that could change in the future.

5 UP

LB Jerome Baker

Score: 3.4/5

LT Charles Cross

Score: 3.8/5

There’s some grey area as far as what to make of recent analytics by ESPN’s Seth Walder, but Charles Cross finished with “24 wins” on 27 run plays, which ranked him fifth among tackles in Week 1. And that wasn’t even supposed to be Cross’s best trait going into year three.

OLB Boye Mafe

Score: 3.6/5

Speaking of ESPN analytics, Mafe ranked 12th in edge rush pass run win rate, I just wish that the stat community could gather and agree on what a “pressure” is because the numbers vary wildly by site. Quietly, Leonard Williams was fourth among DTs in pass rush win rate.

TE A.J. Barner

Score: 2.3/5

First, I said that Barner probably wouldn’t even play. Then I didn’t even acknowledge him after playing 32 snaps, mostly blocking his ass off. The biggest issue facing him in the future will be Pharaoh Brown’s return from a foot injury and taking that role back.

WR Tyler Lockett

Score: 3.1/5

I’d be pretty offended by this score if I was Tyler Lockett. He responded by being the only valuable Seahawks receiver in the passing game. The Broncos focused Patrick Surtain and a lot of attention towards DK Metcalf, if teams continue to do this will it mean a career year for Lockett?

3 DOWN/SIDEWAYS

LG Laken Tomlinson

Score: 2.6/5

I couldn’t even really say that I would downgrade Tomlinson for his Seahawks debut because there wasn’t really anything surprising about Seattle’s struggles in that area. The only thing that any guard on the Seahawks can do is be surprisingly good, but there’s nothing unpredictable about the pressures and penalties.

RG Anthony Bradford

Score: 2.5/5

Is Ryan Grubb at fault, to some degree, for Bradford’s holding penalty that resuled in a safety? Well, we can’t really argue that he should have called a running play because when that happened, Seattle gave up another safety.

OLB Dre’Mont Jones

Score: 3.5/5

If Jones had the exact same game but was credited one of those lucky “sacks” with Bo Nix running out of bounds, would we be saying that he had a “good game”? Numbers are misleading. It’s interesting that Jones and Jarran Reed were named as the team captains on defense, another sign that Mike Macdonald has no plans to trade him or reduce his role when Uchenna Nwosu returns.

However, Jones is a player paid to be a game-changer: He has the highest cap hit ($10.7m) of any player on defense, and that number goes up to $25.6 million in 2025. Even if the Seahawks cut Jones, his dead cap remaining of $14 million would be the third-most cap that Seattle has to commit to any defensive player next year. What we have typically seen is a player who doesn’t really draw attention in either a negative or positive way, so clearly there is something at odds between how outsiders value Jones and how the Seahawks value him.