Trading for Travon Walker would be a major risk

Is the former number one pick the type of player who the Seahawks would want for a mid-round pick?

There aren’t any rumors connecting the Seahawks to Travon Walker, nor of the Jaguars even being open to shopping him before the deadline, so why bring it up?

That’s coming up in this week’s Super Joes Q&A. Every week I send an exclusive newsletter to the “Super Joes” club asking for questions and thoughts on the Seahawks. If you want to receive the next email asking for questions, upgrade today!

Bret: I’m curious what you’ve dredged up about the run defense and the basis for its success. Is Byron Murphy’s improvement the biggest factor? Has he achieved “game wrecker” status?

As a corollary, are we truly in need of another off-ball linebacker “upgrade” such that we need to make a trade deadline move for something other than mere depth? Our run defense seems so solid, I struggle with whether we’re set for now at off-ball backer

Ernest Jones has now officially played 17 games with the Seahawks and here are his “full season” stats:

153 tackles (78 solo, 75 assists), 4 interceptions, 4 TFL, 7 PD, 1 sack, 3 QB hits, 1 FF

If you’re looking for a personnel answer, I would ask why not Jones? The Seahawks went from the worst run defense to start last year to ranking seventh in yards allowed per game and first in rushing touchdowns allowed in the final nine of last season.

In the last 16 games, the Seahawks have given up four rushing touchdowns. That’s half as many as the next-best team, the Patriots.

The start of that streak perfectly coincides with Mike Macdonald being asked in a press conference if his play calling was the reason for Seattle’s bad run defense up to that point:

Macdonald answered by saying that was a poor read by the Internet’s coaching staff:

He answered by saying, “I don’t think so. Not in the last few games. That might have been a fair assessment Weeks 2-4, maybe, but not in the last few games.”

And then the Seahawks became the best run defense in the NFL over the next year.

So there’s Jones and there’s Macdonald. As you point out, Byron Murphy II is better this season and his playing time has increased (at least 60% in every game, a mark he only hit twice in his rookie campaign) so that’s more of a very exciting player and no Dre’Mont Jones.

Although Seattle did return most of their defense from last season, they have also made a lot of changes:

• Josh Jobe playing time increased from 39% to 95%

• Leonard Williams from 66% to 75%

• Murphy from 40% to 65%

• Drake Thomas from 3% to 54%

• DeMarcus Lawrence from 0% to 50%

• Uchenna Nwosu from 17% to 47%

• Nick Emmanwori from 0% to 38%

As Macdonald ramps down Tyrice Knight, he ramps up ways to use other players like Emmanwori.

Next Gen Stats has Jones with 29 stops this year (a “stop” is a tackle that results in a negative EPA, which is a fancy way of saying the defensive player tackled the offensive player short of his intended goal) which would put Ernest Jones on pace for 70 stops over 17 games.

Williams had the most stops for Seattle last year: 53. But Jones had 45 stops in 10 games last year, which is actually a higher rate than his current mark.

That tells me that Ernest Jones isn’t just having a good seven games, but that he’s probably a 70-85 stops type of linebacker. Only 6 players had 80 stops in 2024, including Macdonald’s former star at the position, Roquan Smith.

That’s not all because Leonard Williams has 25 stops, Murphy has 23, Lawrence and Nwosu both have 14, Thomas and Emmanwori both have 12 on limited snaps this season; Emmanwori has as many stops per game as Jones.

Devon Witherspoon has 10 stops and he’s only played two games.

So while I can say that “Murphy is better” and “Jones is fully integrated” and “Lawrence is an upgrade in run defense”, it’s a combination of many things and they all point back to Macdonald having enough time to figure out who is best 11 players for every defensive situation are, especially when it’s a probable run situation.

More on the Seahawks run defense can be found here.

zezinhom400: Looks like Seattle is holding pat at the trade deadline — so we roll with what we got. Prob no way to know what I’m about to ask, but do you think it’s because they really don’t perceive a need, or just weren’t able to get right player/right price?

Just for clarification, zezinhom mixed up yesterday with next Tuesday’s trade deadline, which could happen to any of us. I can still address it.

Macdonald says that the Seahawks will be “active” and involved where they can get involved:

Having come away with Williams and Jones before the last two deadlines, Seattle should feel motivated to find another midseason steal.

As far as the answers fans really want — “which player?” — Tuesday was a reminder that it’s not always the ones or the teams you expect: The 6-2 Patriots traded away Kyle Dugger and Keion White in a matter of hours.

Under those circumstances, we might look for players who don’t fit with a new regime and that’s probably why the Jaguars have come up often regarding options like Brian Thomas and Travis Etienne.

Former number one pick Travon Walker would make sense for the Seahawks, but he does have a $15 million guarantee for 2026.

If it only took a day three pick to trade for him, I don’t think Seahawks fans would care about the contract.

Aside from being a former number one pick, Walker is unremarkable. These numbers from Next Gen Stats show that he’s almost exclusively a pass rusher from the EDGE alignment:

If that’s too small to read: Walker has a 10% pressure rate from the edge, which isn’t great, and he’s only played 49 run defense snaps all season. A 10% pressure rate from a guy who almost exclusively plays on the edge and sits out of most running situations is usually the type you can add for next-to-nothing. So how much do you trust Macdonald to mold “the best athletic traits we’ve ever seen at edge” into a player worth $15 million next year?

This is all speculation on my part, but just remember that trade rumors are usually speculation on someone’s part. When the Patriots made two trades on Tuesday, it just reminded me that teams like the Jaguars with a new HC and GM with no connection to the roster they inherited are sometimes the most likely to offload player at the deadline and Jacksonville already got it started by parting with Tyson Campbell a few weeks ago.

I didn’t go into detail on Josh Hines-Allen because his contract would be more complicated to trade, but he is the better edge defender.

If the Jaguars were actually open to trading Brian Thomas, pairing him opposite of Jaxon Smith-Njigba would rival any duo in the league. However, if you think Thomas is to blame for a sophomore slump that’s a huge risk to take for the probable first round pick it would require to complete a trade.

Charley Filipek: 49ers trade 2026 sixth round pick to Patriots for Keion White and a 2026 seventh round pick. Does this make sense for the Patriots? !

Seems to come down to hiring Mike Vrabel and White’s playing time being diminished. I said a 10% pressure rate is bad? White’s is 4%. From an edge alignment, it’s 3%.

The Patriots probably saw White as a burden, whereas the 49ers are actually running out of defensive ends who they can suit up on Sundays. It reminds me of when they traded for Chase Young in 2023. He ate up a lot of snaps but he didn’t make a huge difference that season.

La’au: What is a “concept” on offense that seems to be underutilized but has been successful in your eyes the first half of the season?

One thing to consider would be Klint Kubiak’s use of pre-snap motion:

The Seahawks are only 23rd in plays out of motion, but 9th in touchdowns scored on those plays (15), 15th in EPA per play (0.00), and dead-first in passing yards per play out of motion (8.3).

For that reason, the Seahawks are arguably the deadliest team when they run motion but below-average in rate of motion useage.

The only reason the Seahawks aren’t the deadliest team, and probably why they don’t use it more often, is that Seattle is 32nd in EPA per running play out of motion. It’s yet another area where Kubiak’s run offense is failing.

In Tuesday’s article about the Moons playing exclusively in shotgun, what I didn’t mention is that the Seahawks are 32nd in plays out of shotgun. This may be a good ratio for them, but Seattle is tied for 6th in yards per pass out of shotgun (6.8)….and 32nd in EPA per run out of shotgun.

Seaside Joe 2431