How different a week has made in the life of this one Seattle Seahawk fan. It was around this time last week that I decided to un-retire this blog in response to the ineptitude shown by the Seattle Seahawks offense over the course of a month.

I wasn’t just getting PTSD from the Shane Waldron days of offensive play calling, I was actually missing them due to how poorly I believed Brian Fleury was doing as the new OC with the talent that was rostered. After all, minus one certain running back, Seattle walked back the entire offense from last year, and while I was expecting some struggles adjusting to a new play caller, I hadn’t anticipated things going off the rails that profoundly awful.

In response, I un-retired this blog to put words to screen a pronouncement that, say what you will about the play caller and the quarterback, it was entirely up to John Schneider and Mike Macdonald to fix that awful mess of an offense. I won’t pretend that either Seahawk figure head even remotely knows who I am, but what I delight to see how the Seattle Seahawks came out on Sunday Night Football to handle the powerhouse Kansas City Chiefs.

Coupled with yet another stellar defensive performance, suddenly we bore witness to a Seattle offense that was perfectly acceptable, for the most part, and complimentary. Sam Darnold suddenly looked like the Sam Darnold of the past two seasons ands not his old Jets version. He was quick with the football coming out of his hands, he was accurate and decisive, and his protection was good, and he was balanced out by a very determined run game that Fleury, much like Klint Kubiak last year, stayed very committed to even with the occasional negative gain.

This is exactly the type of offense you must run with this particular starting quarterback. You can hold whatever opinion you want to have about Sam Darnold. There are many out there. I believe he is one of the more unique QBs in the game, with a wide variance between what he is extremely good at and what he struggles mightily with. This variance paints a very clear picture on what kind of offense you have got to lean into with him, if he is your starter, and is was beyond frustrating to watch Seattle for the past month and a half of football deviate so far away from it.

When Sam is under center with a heavier usage of play action mixed with occasional drop back, over that past two and a half seasons, he rates as a top five quarterback in this league, analytically, and you can look those numbers up if you don’t believe me. However, when in shotgun, in very obvious passing situations, without maximum protection, he rates as one of the worst starters in the league.

The fascinating thing about this is that play action, for many young quarterbacks coming out of college and currently in the pros, is a very hard thing to dependably do, yet here in Seattle we have one of the best to currently do it. There is one very specific style of offensive football that you must lean into with him, and that is to run the F out of the football in heavy formations coupled with quick passing and play action, and that is it. That is exactly the game Brian Fleury called for him, finally, against the Chiefs, and it could not have come at a more critical point in the season.

The analogous summary on Darnold is that he is very much the Keanu Reeves of NFL QBs. If you ask Reeves to be in an English period piece or some adapted Shakespeare for the screen type of production, it will be laughable to watch him in very unintended ways, but you ask him to carry a kick ass action film like John Wick, or the Matrix, or Speed, he’s suddenly a very watchable A list talent.

Run the f’ing football with Sam Darnold, and let the man play action off of it, and you will be able to win a lot of games with him at quarterback, especially if that style of play is matched with a great defense. As we all know, that is a very basic formula that is good enough to win a Super Bowl with.

So, yes, circling back to last Sunday night, this was a very satisfactory outing against the Chiefs who most thought would come into Lumen Field, and pulverize Darnold and company. It was so satisfactory that I felt no need to run to this blog to write about it.

It is very clear that over this mini bye after the debacle in Denver, Mike Macdonald had been thinking the same thing most of us were. We had strayed too far away from the formula of what had worked with this offense last year, and we had morphed into something that was simply not representative of the Seahawk football brand that just won a Super Bowl, and it was not a good fit for this particular quarterback. As witnessed against a very intimidating Chiefs defense, Brian Fleury mostly called a pretty solid game of offensive football, but make no mistake, this was most likely a direct result of Mike Macdonald stepping in and steering the ship back on course coming out of Denver ten days prior.

Interestingly enough, I woke up yesterday morning day feeling that it was now time for John Schneider to step up and do his part to add necessary talent. Beyond this huge matchup against the Bears on Monday night, the schedule starts to soften up for the Hawks, and it just felt right to me that Schneider needed to now make a move this week to prepare for it. I had absolutely been singularly focused at running back, and Jonathan Taylor had been in my sights for a while.

“Go get Taylor, John… just go get him.”

I have not been in the mindset to simply leave things to chance that Zach Charbornnet and Jadarian Price returning to health would be enough, and I wanted to add a true apex running back. I have been pining for this type of move for weeks, and I have not cared whether it would be an overcorrection of letting Ken Walker leave in free agency. I just wanted this type of move, badly.

In all this process, not once, had I seriously considered that the Indianapolis Colts would actually trade away All Pro offensive guard Quenton Nelson, as many fans were hoping for. From the get go, I gave it zero consideration. To understand this position is to understand the reality of this league.

Truly elite offensive guards are incredibly hard to come by these days in the pros. Most teams do not carry these sort of players and it is up to the OCs to figure out how to make do with marginal players at these positions. They are simply not being developed in college like they once were, and it can take a few years for young guys to develop into decent ones in this league.

Quenton Nelson is just not a good guard. He is arguably the very best offensive guard in the league. In other words, he is the Josh Allen of guards, the Myles Garrett of guards, and somehow, some way, he was given to Seattle for a mere third and fifth round pick. That astounds me.

If I were a Colts fan right now, I would be left with a feeling of ultimate dejection. I honestly feel for them. They have chosen to hang onto Taylor when running back is one of the easiest positions to replace and they chose to part ways with the best guard in the league when good guards are incredibly difficult these days to come by. That simply astounds me.

This move is so titanic that if I were a 49er fan who had just watched that game Seattle played on Sunday night against the Chiefs, and learned of this trade of Nelson to Seattle yesterday, I would have been left with an incredibly uneasy feeling. After all, the Niners narrowly sneaked by with a win in Seattle a couple weeks ago when Darnold was crapping down his leg in an offensive approach ill suited for him, and suddenly against the Chiefs, he looked like a much better version of himself with a heavier packaged under center physical approach. Now Seattle has added the best guard in football to this mix for a bag of chips and a can of soda pop.

I suspect there are likely many Seahawk fans who would have preferred Seattle to have traded for a premier running back such as Jonathan Taylor, and I get that. As I stated above, I really wanted Schneider to go get him after Sunday night. Let me be absolutely as clear with you as I can be on what they have chosen to do instead. I immensely prefer Quenton Nelson over Taylor, and it isn’t even remotely close.

Nelson gives Seattle a bonafide stud on the offensive line. He’s a true tone setter. He will mug you on run plays and he will stone a top tier interior pass rusher on pass downs. This is a man that is, at age 30, right in his prime to help this team win a third Super Bowl.

He is a pending free agent at the end of this season, but let me be absolutely clear about this in the following. This is a player that you do not allow to leave in free agency.

Seattle has ten games left on their schedule and a greatly increased chance at the post season to make a lasting impression on him to get a long term deal done, and they must do this. Anything short of this is inexcusable. He should be the starting left guard for the next five seasons, at least. He is that good to make sure he is kept around.

Whatever concession that they need to make to keep him here long term, they have got to make, and if they go on another deep playoff run, one of the chief concessions that he might ask for will be what the plan is at quarterback, especially if Sam trends the second half of the season towards the better version of himself. Bear this in mind, if you are resistant to Darnold getting expended in the near future.

Quenton Nelson suffered through a long revolving door at quarterback behind him ever since he game into the league with Darnold in 2018. He played as a rookie with Andrew Luck only to see him shockingly retire in his prime. They then went through a gauntlet of veteran replacements in Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, and Phillip Rivers, and Daniel Jones, and they spent a top five pick on Anthony Richardson who has been a massive bust. None of these quarterbacks were a suitable answer and as a consequence, Indy has toiled in mediocrity.

If Seattle continues to turn this offensive ship around with Nelson’s addition to the offense line, and Darnold goes on a bit of a second half the season heater, which he is capable of doing, and they enjoy another run at some post season success, it would be understandable if Nelson and his agent would want to see Darnold as a longer termed solution at quarterback over punting on him in the future for a rookie quarterback, or kicking the tires on a Mac Jones, or Drew Lock. This is a very important thing to consider down the road for him and this franchise, but again, let me stress this to you. Seattle must figure out a way to keep this man here long term. I cannot over emphasize this position more clearly.

Now, moving on, what does this mean for Grey Zabel?

This is the fascinating question that I am eager to see answered.

It is assumed by many that Zabel will switch to right guard and Anthony Bradford will serve as a top backup. I am not a hundred percent certain of this. Say what you will about him, but Anthony Bradford provides a massive tone setting presence in the run game, and he has improved as a pass blocker. I am not so sure Seattle will want to take that aspect of his game off the field if they want to be the physically dominant team that they aspire to be.

When Zabel was coming out of the draft, he was often listed as a guard/center prospect. I can recall coming across a scouting report or two that had mentioned center as being the position that he could really excel at as a pro.

As it stands, I think he’s a good young guard. He’s not great, but he has room to grow into a top half of the league one, eventually, and it wouldn’t shock me if Macdonald choses to move him to right guard, and simply have Bradford serve as a top backup.

It would be more fascinating, however, if Macdonald and staff chose to slide Zabel into the center role, and have Jalen Sundell serve as a top reserve across the line, instead, however. There might be initial speed bumps with this transition, but this would be the move to get me most excited about the Seahawks offense this season, and beyond.

Seattle has had a premier left guard before in Steve Hutchinson, and they have had a top center in Max Unger. In all my years of following this team. They have never had a top tier guard and a top tier center playing together. The guards that played on each side of Unger during the LOB days were okay. Robbie Tobeck was a good not greater center when Hutch was opening massive holes for Shaun Alexander to run through.

If Seattle chose to move Zabel to center, they would have two incredibly imposing guards on each side of him with Nelson, and Bradford, and they would arguably have one of the strongest most athletic centers in all of professional football. Let that process in with you for a moment.

Think about the holes that would create for Zach Charbonnet who is now set to return against the Bears, and Jadarian Price, and Emmanuel Wilson. Think of the clean pocket that Sam Darnold would suddenly be afforded. Think about the tone setting that the interior of Seattle’s offensive line can provide with three big physical athletic monsters playing together inside.

I don’t know if they make this switch mid season, but Zabel to center excites my mind a lot more than simply moving over to right guard. It is about getting the three most physical players on the offensive line playing together inside.

It’s a fun thought.

When we kicked into the offseason last Spring, my desire was to see this team be active in free agency to add a quality veteran running back, and then I wanted to see this team use the draft to land another young quality guard. When free agency came and went and all they did was add Emmanuel Wilson on a very inexpensive veteran contract, I still wanted them to go guard in the first round and running back later.

Months later, we essentially have achieved the inverse of what I desired. We traded for a badass veteran guard, and we drafted an explosive running back who figures to fit in prominently to the run game once he returns from IR in short time. I will take this over what I had hoped for last Spring each and every single time.

And I get it if the average fan does not get excited about guards or defensive tackles being drafted early, or acquired for by trade. These are not exciting skill player positions. To an average fan, trading for Taylor or Saquon Barkley would have gotten their juices flowing more over the news of adding Nelson, I suspect.

The reality of football, however, is that interior lineman on both sides of the football are incredibly vital positions, and I, for one, grew very tired during the Pete Carroll years of having these spots devalued in favor of receivers, linebackers, running backs, and safeties. Eventually, Seattle had lost their way, they became soft, and in result, Carrol was dismissed from duty very unceremoniously in the face of all of his accomplishments.

We are in year three of Mike Macdonald, and we have just enjoyed a second Super Bowl victory. Under Mike, Seattle has drafted stud defensive tackle Byron Murphy in round one, and they have extended Big Cat Williams. Arguably, Seattle has the very best defensive tackle tandem in the league, and they are a huge reason for their defensive dominance.

Under Mike, Seattle has also drafted Zabel in round one, and they just traded for Nelson. My expectation is that Seattle will boast one of the absolute toughest offensive lines in football now.

Make no mistake about how this team intends to operate. We can have all the love fests we want to about JSN, Nick Emmanwori, and Devon Witherspoon, these are bright young superstar players, but the real DNA of this football team appears to be directed to the trenches. As a long time fan of this team, I cannot tell you how much that means to me.

Seattle wants to bring a physical level of dominance to the NFC West that resembles the best teams over the years that have played and one championships in the AFC North, and I have here for it. They intend to physically dominate oppositions up front, and be “shocking and relentless” behind that.

There might be another trade to be had at the deadline. Possibly a running back could still be in the mix, and I could see an edge rusher being a thing. I could also see possibly adding a decent tight end, or another receiver. For my part, with this move for Nelson, I think I would be most excited to see Macdonald add another edge rusher, and I think Khalil Mack is very much a player to watch for Seattle if they want to now throw all chips on the table for a run at the division title again.

But this was the big move. It is such a massive get for John Schneider that it just might go down as the best mid season acquisition in franchise history, and I am very careful on this blog to avoid hyperbolic assertions such as this, but this is how much I believe in Nelson coming here.

Quenton Nelson was the big fish to reel in, and short of possibly adding Maxx Crosby to the defense, I don’t know if there was a better move out there to possibly make. The 49ers, in reaction, traded for Deforest Buckner, and that was a very good move for them, but I would much rather have Nelson than Buckner in Seattle. Seattle’s interior defensive line is tops in the league. Now they have a chance at having the top interior offensive line with this move. I’m really stupid excited about that.

Last of all, I would like to leave you all with this one final thought. There was a lot of stress and hand ringing over a month ago with the Khosla Family finalizing the purchase of this team. At the time, that was perfectly understandable.

Seahawk fans have been spoiled for decades with the Allen Family owning this team, and the commitment they had shown as owners to be competitive. Under their ownership, Seattle has enjoyed the best long stretch of sports in this town, bar none, better than Husky football under Don James, and better than peak Sonics basketball in the late seventies into the nineties, and certainly better than any Mariner stretch (sorry Mariner fans).

It remains to be seen how the Khosla Fam will ultimately serve as owners of the Seahawks, but for my part, given the weight of this trade, and the fact that they signed off on this, I think these early returns are very, very encouraging. I want to give them a big shout out for this move.

Nelson is not a cheap player, and he will be very expensive to retain, but that did not dissuade them as owners. In fact, being from the Bay Area and following the Niners, they more than anyone, probably understand the impact of going and getting a top tier veteran addition to the offense line. They were in the stands as fans when John Lynch poached left tackle Trent Williams out of Washington for a third round pick. At the time, Williams was the same age as Nelson is now, and that move, perhaps more than any other one, was the one that put their offense over the top. For all we know, Neal Khosla might have been the one in Schneider’s ear, encouraging him to go get Nelson. If so, I am digging this new ownership group a whole heck of a lot better now. I will just leave you all with that final thought.

Go Hawks.

Of all the news around the Seattle Seahawks this offseason in through training camp, no news has filled me with more joy than the news that broke yesterday of the team reaching a 3 year $90 million extension with defensive tackle Leonard Williams. With all respects to JSN, and Devon Witherspoon reaching their extensions, Big Cat Williams, for my money, is the one Seattle Seahawk I have felt all along that the team could most ill afford to lose in free agency.

In fact, if we are to take away the importance of the quarterback position, I would argue that no position in football is more impactful for a team than a defensive lineman who can both be an impactful pass rusher, and run defender. For example, if Seattle were to have reached negotiation stalemates with either Jaxon Smith Njigba or Witherspoon and decided to move on, it would surely set panic amongst the fanbase, but there does exist a reality that receiver and cornerback are fairly easy to replace positions in the college draft. Drafting and developing quarterbacks is significantly harder, and I think finding top end defensive tackles through the draft is, as well.

For all the fanfare that JSN rightly has, and Witherspoon has, and hybrid defender Nick Emmawori will surely have, football, real American football, to it’s core, is a game won and lost inside the trenches. I know that I sound like a cliche narrator off of an old NFL Films piece shot in the 1980’s by stating this, but it is a truth that simply cannot be denied. For anyone who would push back against this fundamental truth, I can simply point to this team in Seattle who, last season, stole glory away from the hyped up LA Rams, and beat the crap out of the Patriots in Super Bowl LX.

While dipsticks these days like Fox Sports host Jason McIntyre get caught up in dumb arguments about whether or not Sam Darnold is a top ten quarterback this year (he is), and fantasy football enthusiasts geek out over receivers and all purpose running backs, the teams that can consistently win the battles inside the gaps between guard and center, and guard and tackle will be in the strongest positions to win a title almost always. The Seahawks proved that last year, the Eagles did, as well, the year before, and the year before that, so did the Chiefs.

Looking at the Seattle defense in particular, the uniqueness of their domination completely starts up front. In a nutshell, Seattle’s Dark Side D is basically a 4-2-5 defense that operates with two safeties who will work deep, and a 6-3 220 athletic freak who works the slot as a defensive back in a linebacker’s body. This look essentially invites offenses to run the ball. From a football 101 standpoint, if you only count seven defenders in the box up front, you should want to run against that, and against Seattle’s defense last year, offenses tried and failed something quite miserably at it.

Seattle’s starting defensive tackle tandem of Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy Junior proved too dominant in their unique strength, and athleticism, and skill to run against. The depth of players such as Jarran Reed, Brandon Pili, and much later on in the Super Bowl, Rylie Mills made it very difficult, as well. If you can have a defense where the defensive tackle rotation is so strong that you can play most games out of nickel and offenses cannot get the run game going, that is a MASSIVE advantage for your team.

The Seattle Seahawks are built to win games because they are built to win the A and B gaps inside. I believe this is a very intentional vision under head coach Mike Macdonald. Just look at the first two drafts under his leadership. 2024, DT Byron Murphy was the first pick, and guard Christian Haynes was the second. In 2025, guard Grey Zabel was the first pick, and hybrid safety/linebacker Nick Emmanwori was the second.

Shoot, even this year in 2026, they took a running back in round one, and another safety in round two. It remains to be seen how impactful Jadarian Price and eventually Bud Clark will be, but all of these picks, in one way, or another exemplifies an emphasis on building strength up the middle offensively and defensively.

By locking up Big Cat Williams for the next four seasons, it shows a high importance commitment from Seattle to dominate inside. This signing shouldn’t impact their ability to extend Byron Murphy to a very similar contract in a year, either. With the fifth year option being available to use on Murphy’s first round rookie contract, his extension dollars wouldn’t kick in until year three of Big Cat’s deal, and I believe this is all very mapped out by the front office.

The Eagles have placed a heavy commitment on having two high priced defensive tackles along with a high priced quarterback, and it feels like Seattle is poised to do very much the same with a likely Darnold extension looming next offseason. This is as good of a way as any, in my view, of sustaining a proper contending team.

I will state again that it is really difficult to draft and develop proper NFL quarterbacks, and do everything defensive linemen. When you have veteran players that fit these molds on your roster, you tend to want to hang onto them, so yes, I am projecting that Darnold will be most likely the next big extension to happen for this team down the line, and probably we see that Murphy extension happening around the same time, as well, in 2027.

In the meantime, Seattle will soon enough have real games to play again. From my vantage, I think it is perfectly fine for folks to have questions about this team regards to whether they have enough at running back, edge rush, and maybe in the secondary. While I think there is every chance we could see a productive rookie year out of Jadarian Price, the proof will have to be in the pudding. In terms of the edge rush group, and DBs, I am going to really trust Macdonald on this one.

After tonight’s game, I could see a front office move or two to shore up these areas a bit more on defense, or even at running back. I could also see Seattle being perfectly comfortable rolling with what they have.

Last year, at this time, I was not super comfortable with what Seattle had at middle linebacker behind Ernest Jones, and I did not see Drake Thomas emerging to have the year he had last year. Now, I see Thomas as one of the team’s best defenders. I also didn’t see safety Ty Okada’s play coming, and today, I feel very comfortable with him as a replacement for Coby Bryant. Perhaps behind Price, and eventually Zach Charbonnet coming back, they really do like Jacardia Wright quite a bit.

All I know is that with the commitment to Big Cat, the Seahawks are showing us how they intend to continue winning. They want to continue owning the trench battles inside.

I have no problem seeing them give a 32 year old man a big extension like this, either. Big Cat, who ESPN rates as the best defensive tackle presently in the game, feels like a player akin to Calais Campbell, long, and lean, and grown man strong who can play this game at a high level well through his thirties. Best of all, he is so uniquely built and skilled that you can move him anywhere on the defensive line to create mismatches. Like Witherspoon in the secondary, he is Macdonald’s ultimate chess piece player up front. You can put him at nose, three tech, or end, and he will whoop ass.

As we have seen through these episodes of Hard Knocks, he is a pretty special dude off the field, as well, and inside the locker room. He is quintessentially a Mike Macdonald “warrior in the garden” sorta player. He is the very fabric of what the coach wants as a Seattle Seahawk, and he is a massive reason why this team rightly won that Super Bowl last February.

For these reasons, I love this extension. I am super excited about it, in fact.

Go Hawks.

As I sat and watched the Seahawks practice on Saturday in front of all the HBO Hard Knocks cameras, and crew, my mind could not help but shift to a thought I have been having for a while about them, but have been resistant to write about.

There are two types of people in this world. There are those who saw the Seattle Seahawks last year, and recognized a really good football team capable of wining a championship, and then there are those who were doing everything within their psychology to resist that recognition.

For those who were into the Seahawks, they saw DVOA analytic numbers that suggested a championship worthy team that was spearheaded by a menacing defense, and that was convincing enough. For those who refused to buy in, they were likely stuck on prior beliefs of Sam Darnold, and the simple fact that Seattle lacked the star power that they are accustomed to gravitate towards with other teams in the league (see Skip Bayless and his old buddy Stephen A Smith).

Even in the wake of Seattle kicking this holy snot out of the Patriots in Super Bowl LX months ago and embarrassing them, these lines of division remain very active today. On podcasts, on national syndicated shows, and other forums, we will have those who will either say “hey, don’t count out the Seahawks” or they will say “I have serious doubts about Seattle.”

The common view is that Super Bowl LXI is the Los Angeles Rams’ game to either win, or lose this year. It is understandable with the aggressive moves they made in the offseason to strengthen their defense, especially when weighed with the fact Seattle chose to kinda hang tight, draft a running back and reload the secondary via the draft, as well. There was no splashy trade for Maxx Crosby, or free agent signing of Joey Bosa for Seattle, and the Rams went big for Myles Garrett, and there is talk that they are coaxing Aaron Donald out of retirement, as well.

So, I am not going to get upset if folks on Sports Center are into the Rams. When my eyebrows get raised, it is when someone boldly questions whether the Seahawks, who just won the Super Bowl with one of the youngest rosters in the league and is walking them all back outside of a couple starters from last season, can be a proper contender again. When Bucky Brooks goes bold and predicts a 7-10 record for the defending champs, he gets my attention.

Mind you, not every well paid member of the sports media is dissing Seattle. Albert Breer spent a day at training camp last week and saw what I recently saw; these Seahawks are going to be a badass team to contend with again. Rich Eisen kept doubting them a bit last year, and is refusing to do it again this season. Sam Darnold enthusiast Colin Cowherd remains high on them. Pat McAfee digs them, as well.

But then there are these others, like Brooks, Jason McIntyre, Warren Sharp who are outwardly choosing to remain very skeptical. With some of these folks, it is as if the success of the 2025 Seattle Seahawks came down to two names; former offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, and former RB1 Ken Walker. Without these two involved, how can Seattle truly compete?

For me, at look at these takes, and I don’t think they are coming from dumb people who don’t know football. I just think they are coming from people who really are not paying near enough attention to Seattle for one reason, or another.

In truth, I think there are those in the national media who probably, at least a little bit, get annoyed whenever Seattle surprises and plays higher than their expectations of them. They aren’t a big market California team on the West Coast, or a storied franchise in Texas, and they aren’t an East Coast team where the majority of football viewers in America reside. It will not boost their ratings talking about the Seahawks on Sports Center, and their starting quarterback busted out of the New York market years ago when he had to play against peak Bill Belicheck and Tom Brady.

For those who will remain skeptics, they will point to history being against Super Bowl champs repeating, and they will choose to remain skeptical of Sam Darnold with the belief that the loss of Klint Kubiak as a play caller, and the loss of Ken Walker as a running back will be his downfall this year even though Seattle still possesses that Offensive Player Of The Year in receiver Jaxon Smith Njigba. Even though there is sound reason to believe that going into the second year of the same offensive system with the same starting offensive line, same group of receivers and position coaches, Sam has every opportunity ascend further as a quarterback, there are those who will simply have their blinders on simply because of the name on the back of his jersey.

In fact, I think we can narrow down your belief or disbelief in the Seahawks this year to this one thing; Sam Darnold. You either believe that he has now turned his career around and is one of the better young quarterbacks in the league, or you are still hanging onto your priors, and you want to think that the last two seasons of his career have been a big fluke. It is as simple as that.

Well, I sat on the berm of the Virginia Mason Center’s practice facility in Renton, Washington on a Saturday afternoon, and I am here to tell you folks that what I saw on the practice field was a very good Sam Darnold going against a very good first string Seahawk defense, and it was, in all honesty, one of the best displays of quarterbacking at the VMAC that I’ve seen, and I have been annually going to these practices for well over a decade. Sam looked really good, y’all, and it was noticeable in comparison to Jalen Milroe and Drew Lock who also had their bright moments, as well.

With Sam, I just saw a confident and in control field general QB who looked sure with his feet and mechanics, scanning through his progressions, and layering his passes downfield with great velocity and accuracy to his receivers and tight ends. In a number of his more impressive passes, it felt like he was looking off his safeties and setting things up for where he knew someone was about to break open. I think Jalen Milroe, in particular, showed some interesting growth and skill, but I didn’t get this same sense from him, or Lock when they were taking their reps. Sam just felt different.

I won’t go into specifics with routes, and packages, but I will just say that for Seahawk fans who are worried about how this team will transition on offense with Brian Fleury now calling plays, I saw lots that gave me grounds for optimism. They were using Rashid Shaheed some interesting ways that felt different from last season, and the connection between him and Darnold was obvious. Both the downfield and quick game concepts to JSN were also very present, but it was the use of the tight ends was eye opening.

I came into practice expecting to see AJ Barner be a major focal point at tight end, but I was left a bit blown away with how good Elijah Arroyo looked as a big quick target downfield. Arroyo came out of Miami last year with high expectations as big freakish athletic tight end, but he didn’t catch on as one would have hoped, and it didn’t seem like Kubiak was much interested in seeing if he could find ways to get him going. On Saturday, it felt like Fleury was showcasing him against the first and second string defenses, and he was taking advantage of his freakish size and speed and footwork downfield. I am a big Barner fan, but if this is a sign of things to come in 2026, I think Seahawk fans could be in for a big treat with Arroyo.

As for the running backs, and concern there, I was left with the thought that Jadarian Price moves as number one running back should move in a zone blocking scheme, and Emmanuel Wilson looked surprisingly decisive and made great play downfield catching a pass over the middle by Drew Lock that would have probably been a long touchdown. George Holani seemed fine but didn’t stand out like Price, and Wilson did, but I suspect he does things as third down back that the coaches really like. If the Seahawks get Zach Charbonnet back in the early portion of the season, as some think they might, it feels like Seattle has a pretty decent collection of runners that could end up being a surprising strength of the team.

As for the offensive line, the starters kept Sam pretty clean all afternoon, and he was able to move and survey. In a padless practice, the defense wasn’t allowed to hit, but you could tell what would have been a tackle for loss or a sack. I thought the starters kept the QB clean, and gave pathways to the runners, and the depth players got more exposed to the point where Milroe would have been sacked a couple times, and there would have been a few TFLs given up.

The starting defense is fast flowing to the football. On Saturday, the offense definitely had a day, but you could still feel the speed and efficiency of the defenders.

Watching from the berm, I had no worries about the Seahawk defense in the face of Darnold and his receivers having a big afternoon. If the pads were on, and these guys were allowed to hit, it likely would have evened things out quite a bit.

To understand the Seattle Dark Side defense, just rewatch The Lord Of The Rings films. The Seahawks defense are a pack of orchestrated hungry orcs, who will swarm you in waves, and you cannot feel their true nature until the pads come on. I think we will see this through the preseason games, and from what I watched during practice rookie defensive backs Bud Clark and Andre Fuller feel like Mike Macdonald fits. Seattle seems to have a defensive back type under Macdonald plays sticky and scrappy and kinetic. You can just feel them.

While I recognize this is my own personal projection on Seattle, I cannot shake the sense that so long as Macdonald remains this team’s head coach, Seattle’s defensive backfield will reload with these type of defensive backs, and not miss a beat. They will for sure pay Devon Witherspoon, and I would assume that they will pay Nick Emmanwori when his time is due, but I can see them adding guys like Clark, Fuller, Ryan Neal via the draft, and not feel the need to spend big in free agency to keep this Dark Side Defense thing intact. They will simply keep producing and cultivating more angry, hungry orcs.

From my vantage point on Saturday, seeing the defensive tackle tandem of Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy standing side by side, and then seeing the likes of Jarran Reed and Ryllie Mills rotating in gave an impression of brutish physicality that will continue spearheading this impressive side of the ball. It should not surprise that they are in contract talks with Big Cat Williams. It would not surprise me if they spend a high round pick next Spring on a defensive tackle when there is some expectation of them drafting at another position. For as impressive as Seattle’s defensive backfield is, I think their true superpower exists at defensive tackle and that will always be a point of emphasis for Macdonald. This is a very Baltimore Ravens style thing.

This team, in fact, now truly represents a peak Baltimore Raven style machine. This will run contrast to the Rams, 49ers, and the Cardinals who have shifted to a Sean McVay coach running their ship. While the other NFC West teams will look to orchestrate offensive highlights sure to excite fans watching Sports Center, the Seahawks will look to drag these teams into the marshes like massive alligators and suffocate them into submission so that the orcs may feast.

Seattle just doesn’t want to out scheme you defensively. They always want to kick the pants off your body. Just rewatch Super Bowl LX if you need a reminder. They want to wreck the foundation of your offense, and then they want to rip apart the will of your skill players. This is the Seattle way, and this is a direct descendent of the peak Ray Lewis led Ravens.

This is why I think it is folly to discount this team this year. From what I watched on the practice field, Sam Darnold looks better than ever. The offensive line feels in sync. The offensive skill players feel impressive.

And the Dark Side defense is still a thing that will have to be reckoned with each and every game, and best of luck with that.

If you are the doubting type, doubt away. If there is one thing that Seattle revels in, it is proving the likes of Skip Bayless, and others wrong, and they seem well positioned to do it yet again this year.

I am excited to see it. I’m ready for it.

Go Hawks.