The next 'JSN breakout' receiver could already be on the Seahawks

The year 3 jump could hit another Seahawk pass catcher in 2026

The Seahawks would not draft a receiver this year because Seattle doesn’t have room for a receiver this year. Not only do the Seahawks roll five-deep at wide receiver with no wiggle room, but John Schneider and new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury know that there’s another budding star on the roster who has earned a chance to have the same year three breakout season that Jaxon Smith-Njigba got in 2025.

A.J. Barner.

A player who has not yet turned 24 (that makes Barner less than a year older than two of the top three highest-ranked tight ends in the 2026 rookie class), Barner’s most recent catch was a touchdown in the Super Bowl and he’s rapidly eclipsed 95% of the league’s tight ends in a short amount of time.

Barner’s targets increased from 38 to 68 in 2025 (+180%) and those numbers got better and more consistent as the season went on.

Fleury, who started coaching George Kittle in 2022 as the 49ers tight ends coach, surely recognizes that the reigning Offensive Player of the Year is not his only golden ticket among the possible targets next season for Sam Darnold. Barner’s potential to eat up more of the offense (and the probability that he’s going to sign an extension next year) could have even helped John Schneider’s decision to not tag Kenneth Walker and let him sign with the Chiefs.

If Barner had a JSN-like third-year leap, his 2026 stat line could look like this:

JSN’s year 2 yardage increase: 1.8x

JSN’s year 3 yardage increase: 1.6x

Smith-Njigba was third on the offense in targets in 2023 and finished with 63 catches for 628 yards. The next season JSN was first in targets and finished with 1,130 yards on 100 catches.

Then last season, JSN’s targets increased by 1.2x and he finished with 119 catches for 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Barner had an even better sophomore jump than JSN.

Barner’s year 2 yardage increase: 2.1x

A.J. Barner’s targets went up from 38 to 68, his receptions went up from 30 to 52, and his yardage went up from 245 to 519.

Both JSN and Barner experienced two important shifts in Seattle’s offense last year:

• Sam Darnold

• Klint Kubiak

It also can’t be understated that the Seahawks offensive line improved consistently throughout the season and compared to the years with Abe Lucas missing games or struggling to protect the quarterback from the inside at G/C, Seattle had two healthy offensive tackles, Grey Zabel, and Jalen Sundell.

This combination helped JSN win Offensive Player of the Year, Walker win Super Bowl MVP and leave on a high note, Kubiak earn a head coaching position, Darnold prove some of his doubters wrong (there are still holdouts believe it or not), and Barner has nearly joined the upper echelon of tight ends:

519 yards may not seem like a lot at first glance but in actuality his numbers were on par with Brock Bowers’s in the second half of the season, a more highly touted tight end born the same year as Barner.

Bowers could be better and Bowers was on a worse team in every respect.

NFL fans could still give Barner a bit more respect going into next season and on his current trajectory who knows how much he will be paid. Did you notice that Isaiah Likely, a tight end who has never had 500 yards, is the third highest-paid tight end in the league now?

I’m not aware of Likely being as good of a blocker as Barner either.

If A.J. Barner had a 1.6x increase in 2026: 830 yards

Barner had an even better sophomore leap than JSN, but he if had the same jump in his third season then he would land at 830 yards.

That would have been the fifth-most among tight ends in 2025.

Would it be hard to imagine Barner’s targets increasing from 68 to 90?

If I include the 11 targets he received against the Rams in Week 11 (I actually excluded this from the above sample size comparing him to Bowers because I felt that an outlier was unfair), Barner had 42 targets in the last eight games.

That puts him just one target shy of 90 targets.

Barner’s production pace in the second half last year was 600 yards over a 17-game season, so that would still be well short of 800.

If he increases his yards per catch from 9 to 11, then he’d be at 730 yards. Around these numbers, Barner might need 100-110 targets to reach 800+ yards in 2026.

But this is an offense that might need A.J. Barner to do that.

Barner would have only needed three more targets last season to pass Cooper Kupp for second-most on the offense. Rashid Shaheed was nowhere near that pace after joining Seattle, although his $18 million salary to return suggests that the Seahawks will attempt to work him into the offense again.

But Kupp’s playing time will probably decrease.

Tory Horton and Elijah Arroyo have had a difficult time staying healthy.

And no other tight end is challenging Barner’s reign as the 1.

With his extension-eligible 2027 offseason as the carrot on the stick, dangling a potential raise from $1.2 million per year to $13 million+ per year on his next deal, Barner’s smartest play is to be banging on Fleury’s door every day asking what he can do to get better.

Better yet, “How can I make you look good?”

As the 49ers tight ends coach from 2022-2024, Fleury oversaw Kittle’s averages of 90 targets, 68 catches, 963 yards, and eight touchdowns.

Kittle averaged 14.3 yards per catch too—FAR better efficiency than the rest of his career.

San Francisco had a similar predicament too, in that they would usually have a clear WR1, injuries on the WR depth chart, and the 49ers want to run the ball more than they want to pass the ball. Kittle was the safety net for all of it.

Barner is poised to be Seattle’s safety net next season, a distinction that sets him up to be the Seahawks true number two receiver alongside JSN and alleviating any concerns that the team needs to address that role in the draft.

Seaside Joe 2588