Seahawks make surprising trade for a receiver
The reason that John Schneider traded for a 29-year-old Jets receiver who doesn't play offense and what the Seahawks gave up to get Irv Charles
The Seattle Seahawks and New York Jets made a trade on Wednesday that teams don’t usually execute until training camp cuts, but apparently John Schneider sees something in a 29-year-old receiver with 53 career offensive snaps. The Seahawks traded a conditional 2028 seventh round pick to the Jets for receiver and special team Irv Charles, according to Zack Blatt of The Athletic.
The trade is so unusual that I had to check Zack’s account three or four times to make sure it wasn’t a fake or wasn’t hacked. No offense to Charles, but fans must be astonished that Seattle feels so strongly about a special teamer who did not even play last season due to a torn ACL.
Who is Irv Charles?
A four-star recruit who went to Penn State in 2015, Charles could not find his footing as a receiver and was kicked off of the Nittany Lions for violating team rules at the end of the 2017 season. He had caught just three passes in his career.
“I was just trying to do things on my own,” Charles said without providing details. “I never got in trouble with the law or anything like that, but it was everything I needed it at the time, honestly. It got me out of my own head and got me from thinking that football is everything.
Charles took a year off of football and enrolled at IUP in 2018, but for academic reasons couldn’t actually play for the team until after he got his degree at Penn State. Finally, the 6’4, 219 lbs Charles had 792 yards and 12 touchdowns in one season with IUP.
After one season of college, seven years after he was a high school graduate, Charles signed as an undrafted free agent with his favorite team, the Jets.
Special Teamer
Charles modeled his game after former Jets (and Seahawks) receiver Brandon Marshall, but could only make his way onto the roster by way of special teams. Something that his head coach at the time was very impressed by:
“We’ve been trying to find ways to get him up and we had an opportunity and we did it,” said coach Robert Saleh, who referred to Charles during the summer as “an absolute wolf” on special teams.
He could be in special team coordinator Jay Harbaugh’s visions for the gunner role that was previously occupied by Dareke Young, which as Seahawks fans know played a huge part in Seattle’s NFC Championship win over the Rams.
He played the majority of the special teams snaps in the 25 games he was available for between 2023-2024.
Trading for Charles in May is odd.
But could also just commentary on something we already know about the Seattle Seahawks: They really, really, REALLY care about special teams.
The Seahawks had the best special teams in the NFL last season (top-3, at least) and aim to repeat — in more ways than one — in 2026.
What the Seahawks traded away
Although you would not expect the Seahawks to trade anything for a player with Charles’s resume, a 2028 conditional seventh round pick is close to the least amount of draft capital that a team could give up right now. The Seahawks and Jets couldn’t even swap 2027 seventh round picks without Seattle being the team sure to be getting the better pick.
They’d have to swap a 2027 6th for a 2027 seventh. A seventh round pick two years from now is virtually worthless and some conditions will have to be met for it to even transfer, probably meaning he has to make the roster.
I do not mean that the prospects are worthless. I mean that if Schneider ends up wanting a seventh round pick in 2028, he could easily go get one. Just this year, Seattle added a seventh round pick by trading down in the sixth round. Easy.
It’s sort of like in Breaking Bad when Saul tells Walt and Jesse that they need to give him a dollar so that he can officially become their lawyer.
That’s why Irv Charles is on the Seahawks now. A collective of important voices in the organization wanted him, the Jets couldn’t see a path for him to make the roster this year, and the cost was low.
Now he just has to beat out roughly 40 other players for the last spot on Seattle’s roster.
Know what I mean?
https://youtu.be/jvlEqAjg8aU?si=pHyS_lCcZoEb1t0L
From the video, it looks like he will fit right in. Hopefully, he’s well recovered, wins the job, and takes the position to the next level.
Who knows? He might even get some red zone snaps, given his size. Fleury is a TE guy who might also like big bodied receivers when the field gets compressed.