It Is Time For John Schneider And Mike Macdonald To Fix This Seahawk Offense

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Well, so much for my retirement from this blog.

As those who have been regular followers of this site know, right prior to the kickoff of the 2026 NFL season, I wrote a piece that, at the time, I felt would be my final post. In that moment, it felt right for me to close out this blog. I had grown tired of laboring over it, and was more than ready to move onto other phases of life. The team, after all, had just won their second Super Bowl title, and I always try to leave a party on a high note, anyways.

So, why am I back at this thing when I was so dead set ready to move onto other things, you ask?

Well, I think the title of this post speaks for itself pretty clearly. The Seahawks offense, through six games into the season, has nose dived into such an unforeseen gawd awful mess that I actually sorta miss the Ryan Grubb and Shane Waldren days of Seahawks offensive play calling, and that is not an exaggeration.

When I wrote that final piece over a month ago, I assured Seahawks fans to not worry about this team, that it was in good hands with head coach Mike Macdonald, and GM John Schneider, that it was a bright young talented roster, and it had a talented quarterback ready to ascend to the next level of franchise QB play. Well, egg all over my face, right?

Yep.

Call me delusional if you will, but I did not foresee Sam Darnold regressing back to his old NY Jets days, and over the past two games, he is looking exactly that horrendous as a passer. In this stretch, he has looked jittery in the pocket, and unsure, and aside from the horrendous rate that he has been throwing interceptions, this is the most troubling thing to me in my mind about his play. It is not just the poor choices that has led to these turnovers, it is that fact that he appears to be having a major case of the yips, and every average fan can see this.

This is compounded by the fact that Drew Lock stepped in at quarterback during the opening game against the Patriots, when Darnold injured his butt, and played well enough for Seattle to pull off a come from behind win, and he played very well the following week against the Cardinals. In this two game stretch, Lock game managed surprisingly well, and showed the playmaking abilities of his that always has had John Schneider a bit of a fan of his.

The contrast between the play of these two quarterbacks is so sharp that it has a huge portion of the Seattle fanbase clamoring for Sam to be benched in favor of Drew. This is how well Drew Lock had played in those two games, and how badly Sam Darnold has played during the last four. Sam might still be the better quarterback of the two, but the weight of the evidence of play between these two quarterbacks this season is something that is too hard for fans to ignore.

So, why has Sam, who had such a strong showing during the playoffs and through the Super Bowl, suddenly looking like an unsure NY Jet rookie quarterback all over again?

Clearly, he is not aided by a run game that he enjoyed playing with during the second half of last year with Ken Walker, and Zach Charbonnet. In this, I will say that I was not the biggest fan of how John Schneider chose to handle the running back situation during last offseason, and the results over this past several games have only magnified what I felt was an unnecessarily risky approach to fortifying this group in the absence of the two main backs that carried much of this offense during the second half of the season last year.

I was fine enough with the decision to not pay Ken Walker, but I expected a bigger plunge in free agency with a few notable proven backs available along with using the draft to replace him. While I was fine enough with the Jadarian Price selection at the end of round one (although I preferred going guard first and then running back later), I could not shake the thought it was a highly calculated risk to rely on a rookie with Charbonnet still on the mend, and not likely ready for the first stretch of the season. Turns out that those concerns of mine were, in fact, very merited.

John gambled that Price and some scrubs would be enough to keep Seattle’s run game humming at the start of this season, and he was wrong. You can want Drew Lock as QB1 for this team right now all you want, but this is a fact that cannot be ignored. John Schneider did not do enough as the GM to properly fortify this running back room.

In result, Price, who was never the main focal RB at Notre Dame, had a hard time staying healthy through training camp, and while he flashed some very obvious skill in the first couple games of this season that helped the team to a 2-0 start, he presented Seattle another growing concern; successfully hanging onto the mother f’ing football. Even more systemic to this problem was the lack of depth behind Price.

Emmanuel Wilson would probably be a third running back option for many teams in this league and other teams, he probably wouldn’t even make their roster. George Holani would probably be a practice squad player, at best, for many other clubs. This is simply not good enough right now, without Price or Charbonnet being ready, and it shows all throughout these games.

There are worst teams in this league than Seattle who have way better running back situations. Due to the unexpected fact that the LA Rams are struggling perhaps worse than Seattle, I believe John Schneider is now absolutely duty bound to try to trade for a quality running back to help fix this offensive mess that has been created, in part, because of the huge hole on the team at running back.

The Colts are 2-4, and just fired their GM. Does this open the door for them to punt on this season and gather picks for what looks like a rich 2027 draft class? Could 27 year old Jonathan Taylor be exactly the shot in the arm Seattle needs right now? He was a Seahawks fan as a teen and outwardly expressed wanting the Seahawks to draft him the year he came out of college.

As we all know, the Eagles have the same lousy record, and seem to now be sellers for draft picks. Could Saquon Barkley be made available? He’s a bit older than Taylor and therefore, would likely demand less in turn.

Honesty, though, I think there’s a lot of teams who are lousy that have better situations are running back than Seattle does right now who merit Schneider reaching out to chat with. The Chargers, Jets, Titans, Falcons, Saints, and Bucs could all punt on this season, and offer Seattle a decent back to come in and mix with Charbonnet once he’s healthy enough to return, and Price, as well.

If Seattle swung big for Jonathan Taylor, I wouldn’t hate it. I get it that it might feel like an overcorrection for choosing not to extend K9, but so be it. I am so infatuated with Taylor that I’d even be perfectly fine offering up Price as part of the package. For Seattle to properly fix the run game and the play action passing attack that they would prefer to utilize off of it, he is the exact apex running back that is required in this style of offense, and if overpaying is something to do to get him, I’m more than okay with it.

But even in that, let us not kid ourselves, running back is not the biggest root to Seattle’s offensive struggles, and I don’t think it is necessarily Sam Darnold, either. We have to have a very serious discussion about Brian Fleury at offensive coordinator, and this is where it is within Mike Macdonald’s controls to properly fix.

When Seattle hired Fleury, they just came off a Super Bowl win, and therefore, were as late as you could possibly get in the coach hiring process. The few big named offensive play callers who had been out there, such as Arthur Smith and Frank Reich, had already taken on other gigs. It was expected that Seattle was going to hire to replace departing Klint Kubiak from within, and there were some notable candidates in run game coordinator Justin Outten (who had play calling experience and was a main reason why Seattle’s run game took off gloriously during the last stretch of the season), pass game coordinator Jake Peetz, and then QB coach Andrew Janocko.

So, it was a bit shocking that Mike Macdonald, in the eleventh hour of interviews, brought in 49er run game coordinator and tight ends coach Fleury for a visit, and then to have it quickly announced that he’d won the job through this interview. It had been talked about how he had won Macdonald over on the chalk board, and how his background with coaching on both sides of the football was a determining factor, as well.

Well, Macdonald often mentions in interviews his own pension for overthinking things, at times, in his career. Is it possible that he got caught up in overthinking this position right after the glow of winning Super Bowl LX? As of today, it sorta looks like it.

Say what you will about Sam Darnold and his regression. If he doesn’t turn things around soon, it is very obvious that he won’t be playing himself into any sort of big extension this offseason, and that is a bigger discussion further down the road. However, if you are any sort of modest student of the game, you can see a very sharp distinction between Fleury’s play calling this year to what Kubiak did for this team last season.

Under Fleury, this offense has abandoned a lot of the under center concepts that worked well with Darnold last year. On top of that, he has also steered this offense away from the heavier maximum protection looks that Kubiak used considerably more frequent. There are a lot of analytic data points that show Sam works really well under center with extra blockers, and struggles considerably more out of shotgun formations with less protection.

Why has Fleury chosen to diverge away from what had been working well enough last year? This has been the most confounding question that I have been stuck with for weeks now.

It feels as though Brian Fleury is play calling for Brock Purdy instead of Sam Darnold, and it also feels like he is play calling as if he has George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey. Seattle very clearly does not have CMC, and with all due respect to AJ Barner, they do not have anything close to Kittle, as well. Also, very clearly, Sam Darnold is probably not the quick game passing attack merchant that Brock Purdy is, and his game is really more about explosive medium and deeper shots downfield, which of course, take further time to develop, hence the probable need for more maximum protection.

So, before we can really talk seriously about benching Sam for Drew Lock, we have to have a much more serious talk about the offensive coaching. The Seahawks can satisfy the fans all that they want to by putting Drew in, but if this offensive approach does not change, I seriously doubt Drew Lock is going to have the same degree of success in this offense he did against the Patriots and Cardinals now that the league has more properly scouted out Fleury’s tendencies as a play caller.

Mike Macdonald has got to get his play caller to reign things back into what worked better for this Sam and the talent around him last season, first, and foremost, and he knows that. This is why were are not going to see Drew right now, and I suspect most of the players on this team see it very similarly to Mike. If you bench Sam now without changing the offensive approach, and Drew Lock comes in, and also struggles, you’re going to start losing the locker room. It is that simple. Players will stop trusting the coaching.

So what reasonable changes can we see to get this offense back on a good enough track to better compliment this defense, and get back to winning Seattle Seahawk football?

This is going to sound counter intuitive, but I think it is loading up with heavier fronts, and leaning more into the run. Defenses need to start fearing the run game more, and the only way you get linebackers to bite on play action is to run it right them enough. This is probably why it is critical to get Zach Charbonnet back against the Chiefs, if possible, and why I think Schneider absolutely needs to start making calls at adding another proven good veteran back.

If the Seahawks added a Jonathan Taylor or Saquon Barkley, for example, what a potentially massive shot in the arm that would be for eleven more football games left in the schedule. If linebackers and safeties have to think about a player of that quality, and then Charbonnet, and the Jadarian Price once he gets healthy enough, the whole entire play action pass tree properly opens up again, and that would play to the exact strength of Sam Darnold.

Even if they made a more modest trade for, say, Brian Robinson or Bucky Irving, one can imagine a presence such as either mixed in with Charbonnet and eventually Price would greatly improve this rushing attack. Seattle, most definitely, needs more at running back, but also, Brian Fleury needs to show a more stubborn willingness to run the football, much like Klint Kubiak showed last year when it was clear that the running attack was struggling against loaded fronts.

Brian Fleury can lean into heavier fronts and, and stubbornly run to set up play action out of them. They can do more with extra tight ends, offering Sam (or Drew if need be) more with extra blockers who can read defenders and creep out into routes and make themselves available as outlet receivers depending on what pressures defenses send their way. It feels like in 2025, AJ Barner provided good pass catching production out of heavy sets this way, and it is baffling Fleury has not used him and the other tight ends this way, or fullback Brady Russell.

Speaking of Barner, why this team hasn’t gone back to the Barn Yard play is beyond me in the most hair pulling way. To take a play that was so automatically successful out of this offense on third and short feels like sacrilege to everything we felt was their DNA last season. By not leaning into this more has neutered so much of the toughness of this team, and maybe this is the real issue with Brian Fleury. Perhaps he is just not interested in play calling a smash mouth level of offense, and this is the big massive problem with this team, presently.

Let’s be real about why Brian Fleury wanted this job. No, I do not think he was a Kyle Shanahan plant sent up here to sabotage the Seattle offense in order to help his former boss to finally win a title. Fleury, in all likelihood, saw last year what everyone else saw. He saw Klint Kubiak, who most people believed at the start of last season was a mid level offensive play caller, coach up an offense with Sam Darnold at quarterback to a Super Bowl title, and then parlay it into a head coaching gig.

Fleury most likely took this gig up here to give himself a now or never chance at creating a similar opportunity, and minus a couple running backs, he saw everything in place with this offense to do the same thing Kubiak did. They are both Shanahan disciples, after all. So, it stands to reason, in this mind set, Fleury would like nothing more than to build more of his own stamp on this offense by having Darnold do more, and show the league that he can take a second tier-ish starting quarterback, and make him even better.

This is what I believe is the most likely motivating force behind this deviation away from what Kubiak did last year. It just makes too much sense in my mind, and it has absolutely steered this offense wrong. I believe Kubiak did much better with Sam by staying true to what would best help him out, and Fleury has greatly miscalculated what Sam could do without a quality backfield and a serviceable right guard with Anthony Bradford being placed in IR.

Seattle will now likely have Bradford back against the tough task of taking on the KC Chiefs on SNF this weekend. This alone should help out this offense, but it will only help if Mike Macdonald steers his chosen play caller back towards the tough physical nature of the offense Kubiak ran last season. A remote chance of having Charbonnet back should help, as well, but again, it will only be effective with a change of offensive play calling approach.

I am not ready to predict that Seattle would win this game with a potential return of these two players, but I will say that if both players are back and Seattle’s offense leans into a more physical approach, it would give this team a better fighters chance. As the schedule breaks right now, if Seattle can at least split these next two home games between the Chiefs and Bears, and stay at 500 in the win/loss record, the second will begin to soften up some with a Cardinals and Raiders game to follow up.

Maybe by then Seattle will have added a player of note to the running back room, and maybe even another edge rusher to lean further into winning with defense the rest of the way when the schedule further softens up beyond a rematch against the 49ers. These are two moves that I really believe need to be at the forefront of John Schneider’s mind.

Mike Macdonald can do everything he can to steer this offense back to its core principles that Kubiak built up last year. He can direct Fleury to change his approach, or even replace him outright midseason with someone else on his staff who he feels will do a better job if Fleury is still not cutting it, but at the end of the day, talent is talent, and it is up to Schneider to make the mid season move or two in order to improve what is currently rostered on this team. This is a must, if Seattle wants to enjoy another post season push.

The entire NFC is up for grabs in terms of the wild card playoff spots even if now catching the winning 49ers will be a tougher challenge for Seattle. The Rams gambled heavily adding to their roster this season, and injuries have caught up to them, and they’re in a bit of a shambles. The Eagles have lost Jalen Hurts for the season to a troubling blood clot issue which may have his entire career in jeopardy. The Cowboys feel like a continual mess. The NFC South is a joke. The only division in the NFC that feels properly competitive right now in the NFC North.

It would be a real shame if Schneider choses not to be aggressive right now in the trade market. I completely get it that the 2027 NFL Draft is looking promising with some quarterbacks and other key position players, and Schneider would feel protective of having eleven draft picks next Spring, but Leonard Williams did not likely choose to sign a big extension to toil in sub 500, or mediocrity this year, and DeMarcus Lawrence did not choose to come back another season to not be making another run at a Super Bowl.

If Schneider wants to position this team to take a swing at a quarterback next year, I will understand that based on Darnold’s current play, and age, and likely salary extension demands. I can think of about six or seven college quarterbacks right now that I can envision as a potential future starting quarterback for Seattle in a Shanahan style offensive approach, if they want to go younger and cheaper at the spot around the corner.

With massive extensions looming for star defensive tackle Byron Murphy, Nick Emmanwori, and presumably Grey Zabel (even though he’s been struggling in this mess), it makes sense why they’d be reluctant to pay Sam Darnold the top end dollars he’s going to be looking for even if 2026 proves to be a down year for him. If his play vastly improves this season with proper adjustments and additions made to this offense, I can even still justify a desire for Seattle to be cautious about offering him a big extension because of these reasons mentioned.

But Seattle cannot be so transfixed on potentially drafting a future starting QB that they punt on this season when the opportunity is there to right the course of this ship and set themselves up for a playoff run. They still possess a defense that it championship worthy. Their special teams is still pretty good. They still possess talent on offense with JSN and a few others to be explosive. If they can just be more alpha at running back, and adjust this offense back to what works better for Sam, there are enough winnable games left on this schedule for Seattle to prove a massive pain in the ass for a team like San Francisco come playoff time.

Mike Macdonald, I am sure is going to act as best as he can to right the offense as best as he can, but John Schneider needs to act, as well. He sat way too passively as the GM during the offseason, and it shows through these first six games. Now it is time for him to be aggressive. I hope he does it.

Go Hawks.

The Seattle Seahawks Will Be In Great Shape For Years And This Is My Final Post

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Friends, the time has come for me to call things a wrap on this here blog thingy-ma-giggy. I have been going at this for about eight years now, I believe, and I feel like it is best to move on, focus my time on other things, and just be a plain old fan of the Seattle Seahawks, and not think about writing musings anymore from that side of myself.

I don’t have any designs to foray into content creating on YouTube, or try to write for a more established online football content outfit. I just want to watch games, go see films, theater, and just be the best family dude I can be without my mind shifting towards what a next blog piece should be about.

After the Seahawks pulled off that unexpected run last season, and brilliantly kicked ass all over the New England Patriots team in Super Bowl LX, I thought about retiring this blog right then and there. The way in which the Seahawks proved a world full of skeptics wrong last season, righting a past wrong during the last time they faced the Patriots in a Super Bowl, and then beating them on division rival 49er turf, it just felt like that was right time to cap off this blog, and move onto other phases of life.

But then the team announced that it would be placed on the market for sale, and free agency happened, the draft happened, extensions happened, and there always felt like there was something else to react towards. Now, on the cusp of the 2026 season, I am ready to end things now with this here final post.

Before I expand these final good vibe thoughts on the Seahawks, I just want to take a little bit of time talking about this pet project blog thingy I created, and why I am a bit more than ready to move on. I realize that taking the time to explain why I started blogging and why I am moving off from it probably isn’t the most interesting material to throw into a final article, but I worked hard on this little blog for a number of years, and I feel like I have earned the right to state my case. So bear out this portion for a moment, and I promise the rest of this final article will be all about ball.

For everyone who has followed this blog along over the years, thank you for taking the time to follow along with me. While my writing style hasn’t always been the most polished, I truly hope most of my football thoughts were expressed well enough that you felt like you got something out of this along the way, here and there, at least.

This blog has functioned as a very tiny passion project of mine for a number of years. It was born out of years of friends messaging me during Seahawk games, wanting my quick takes in real time because I knew more about the sport than they did. Over time, I started to resent being messaged so much while I was trying to enjoy a football game. As an alternative, I thought it would be fun to put my thoughts out in the form of a blog, and I would just tell folks to read it afterwards instead of pinging at me during games.

At the time, I thought it would be a super fun thing to do, stretching out my brain muscles, developing myself a bit as a writer, and what could possibly be a more enjoyable topic for me to write about than none other than my beloved Seattle Seahawks, right?

Well, over long duration of time, that process grew less enjoyable. What started as a huge passion project started to feel more like a chore.

In today’s world of toxicity on social media and podcasts, and sports media, I found myself all too often choosing to react to what angry fans were saying, or what Stephen A Smith was spouting off about. To me, that is not a fun position to take as a writer, feeling like I constantly have to defend a quarterback that some dimwitted talking heads continue to diss on, or having to defend a front office because they didn’t pay a fairly injury prone running back $14 million dollars a year.

Initially when I started this, I thought maybe I would parlay these efforts into a sports writing gig at some point, but something held me away from pursuing. At first, I wrote it off as my own laziness. However, over time, intuitively, I started to feel that writing about sports as any form of work would erode some of the love of the game, and worse, erode passion away from the team I rooted most for. Sure enough, as I started to write more objectively about the Seahawks and the NFL in general, I could feel my fandom start to level off a bit.

I don’t like that feeling. I love being a fan of the Seattle Seahawks. I very much like to identify as a true Twelve. I have been devotedly on their bandwagon for decades, even through the lean Ken Behring years, and I yearn to return to the time where I was just a fan, and I could tune out the noise of naysayers. The easiest way for me to do this, is to simply stop this process of blogging.

I feel blessed to live in a great region in this country that has a vibrant city, beautiful mountains, waters to play in, and a kick ass pro football team to root for. Hopefully, we finall get the SuperSonics back, but that is a topic for someone else’s blog. For right here, right now, let me share with you some of my thoughts why I am very optimistic about the Seahawks heading into this season, and why I think we will enjoy years of sustained success with them.

Simply put, I see a very big deck of cards stacked in their favor. The Seahawks are led by the best front office in football, and they are aligned with one of the best young head coaches in the game. When you have top talent at the HC spot and the GM spot, and they have great alignment, good things tend to get routinely produced out of that.

Will the Seattle Seahawks repeat as Super Bowl champs this year? Who the fuck knows. Nobody does, and it is a really stupid question to ask, but yet that is what talking heads love to lead with around this team.

Unfortunately, we live in an age where sports media is run by super conglomerates. The Disney entertainment corporation now owns EPSN and the NFL Network, and I think that is a shame.

Going away are the smart football minds of those who either spent years playing the game, or covering it with boat loads of coaching and front office contacts to extract insight from. Sadly, they are being replaced by personalities who Disney recognizes as either likable or dynamic, and they simply fit a brand that they feel will draw folks in more who might not otherwise be the biggest of sports fan, on the whole.

I think there are negative consequences for this approach, but it is what it is. We live in a world where we are getting dumber and dumber cookie cutter takes on a daily basis.

Nowadays, football fans do not get nearly enough nuanced discussions about their favorite teams, they get people who present well for the camera, can recite some analytical data points and offer hot takes. These splashy new talking heads cannot offer other variables about the game because they just don’t know it well enough, and when their hot takes get proven wrong, they get a bit flustered.

Schadenfreude isn’t the greatest reason to tune into a sports show to watch host deal with how grossly wrong they were on a take, but that is just my perspective. Disney and those who control Fox Sports seem to think, otherwise.

The result of all these trends is simply that good teams in smaller markets get overshadowed by teams like the Cowboys, 49ers, Rams, and for some dumb reason, the Jets and Giants still get talked a lot about. This is why we see the Los Angeles Rams being built up in the media as the team that practically cannot be beaten even though there has not a single down of regular football has been played yet.

But yet with every headline regarding the Super Bowl Champ Seahawks on Sports Center, we get fed this “can the Seahawks repeat?” – garbage over and over and over.

Sure, they can. But they very well might not.

And guess what?

For all the big splashy moves the Rams have made, they might not get done this year, either. This is just a fact about the game.

Football is a hyper violent sport and it was way more complex than what a lot of people want to give it credit for. Spread sheets don’t read vibes within a locker room, and can’t predict how depth players might step up.

Therefore, what I am usually much more interested in is listening to someone like Albert Breer, or Mark Schlereth who can offer nuanced reasons why a team that not a lot of people are considering could get hot this year, and make it a serious run. Last season, these were guys who were looking at Seattle and were willing to talk them up whole heck of a lot more than the likes of Mina Kimes or Stephen A Smith were, and that is a fact.

I think the reason why Breer and Schlereth were willing to talk them up was because they had really good insight into the front office of Seattle, the coaching staff, schemes, and players, and they never made themselves slaves to data points, and past narratives like Kimes and Stephen A Smith tend to always retreat towards in front of cameras. People that really know ball beyond the data points can see and talk real football, but that is something the EPSN and its evil twin Fox Sports simply are not very interested in these days.

These Seattle Seahawks, however, are a real proper NFL football team.

They have placed a massive emphasis on building up their defensive tackle rotation into being tops in the league, and they are very committed with the newly minted Leonard Williams contract extension to win by controlling the A and B gaps for years. They are building a talented young offensive line with all five of their starters returning, and it feels like there is interested depth players being developed behind them. Their linebacking group is deep and talented. They are strong at tight end and receiver. Their secondary remains filled with talented young playmakers. Perhaps most of all, they have good stability at quarterback again, finally, with a guy who has been in the league for years, and still hasn’t even hit 30 years old yet.

Folks are free to have whatever view they want to have about Sam Darnold, but it is not disputable as to whether he is good enough to win you a Super Bowl. He most definitely can. For my money, he is a top ten quarterback in this league, and I suspect he is going to play 2026 like one, coming back into the same system with the same offensive line and receivers and tight end, but if you want to argue something against that, fine by me.

I could give two squats if someone wants to label him the fifteenth best QB in the league heading into this season. If you like Justin Herbert or Caleb Williams more than him, cool. I will am fine taking the guy who just won the Super Bowl, only just turned 29 years old in June, and was talented enough in college to be taken third overall in the 2018 draft class.

For my money, Sam perfectly fits what Mike Macdonald wants out of his quarterback. He is big armed, moves well under center, and is deadly good downfield in play action, which isn’t the easiest thing to ask many of today’s quarterbacks to be. Most of all, he is a dude who the players love, and the coaches, and the front office admires, and I think that is very important to the no drama and bullshit free stylings of Macdonald.

When I look at the tea leaves, I think Sam Darnold is poised to be the franchise quarterback of the Seahawks for a good number of years. If Fox Sports host Jason McIntyre wants to label him a deluxe version of Trent Difler, that is fine, it’s just another silly take. For me, more accurately, I think Sam is a deluxe version of Matthew Hasselbeck, and for those of us older Seahawks fans, I think most of us would be perfectly happy to continue taking that here for a while.

In the bigger picture of this Seattle Seahawk thing brewing in the PNW, aside from all the bright young talent spread throughout the roster, is that I see talent and alignment between the front office and coaching staff, and I see talent and alignment at quarterback. This is the big three headed monster that you want your football organization to be right in alignment about. This is the truth about the Seahawks that will not be talked about much on Sports Center or First Take.

Another big truth about this team is that they are strong where you want them to be strong if you want to root for a legitimate ass kicking football team. This is a young ball team that is constructed to beat yo’ ass in the trenches, and my goodness does it feel good to write that out with some conviction.

Seattle has a superstar tandem in the making at defensive tackle between Big Cat Williams and Byron Murphy, and they have lots of talent behind them, and around them on defense. They might feel a little thin at corner right now heading into the opener against the Patriots, but one way or another, Mike Macdonald will have that straightened out. They might feel a bit dangerously thin at running back right now, too, with Zach Charbonnet not being ready for the first four games, but I would rather feel thin at running back for a bit than weak at offensive line and defensive line.

We shall see how this season unfolds. Right now, I would give the Rams a proper edge in the division with all their splash moves. I kinda genuinely like Seattle being doubted and even thought be the underdog team again. I like the motivation this can bring to them. Let the chips fall wherever they may.

I see a window to get back to the Super Bowl and win other one, or two fairly big. They still have one of the youngest rosters in the league, and it stands to reason that many of their core players haven’t played their best ball yet.

Big Cat Williams is regarded as a top defensive tackle in the game, but what if this season Byron Murphy takes a big step forward in his growth and becomes even better than him? That won’t make 49er and Rams fans happy.

What if the team is just scratching the surface of potential in Nick Emmawori and Devon Witherspoon together? What if JSN has another gear in his growth and so does Rashid Shaheed, and Jadarian Price plays better than expectations as a rookie?

What if in a contract year, Anthony Bradford has a great season, and is a guy fans are desperate to see the front office hang onto?

What if Ty Okada emerges as the next great diamond in the rough Mike Macdonald defender?

Finally, what if the Khosla Family really are coming into Seattle ready and willing to be the best most supportive owners that they can be, and all this silly talk about Vinod being a Steelers fan is just goofiness that Mike Florio needs to milk daily because he is nothing more than a bitter Vikings fan who also happens to be a major football talking head?

This is the final thought I have for you Seahawks fans who have been following this blog over the years. I have a genuine good vibe on the Khosla Family. I have tremendous gratitude toward the Allen Family and the ownership style they led with, but I am kinda excited a bit for the Khoslas.

I know this change in ownership can be fairly nerve racking for many Seattle sports fans with the somewhat unsatisfactory state of Mariners ownership, the painful Sonics history, and the really horrendous Ken Behring era of Seahawks football, but I see signs around the Khoslas that give me some faith in them. I think they are coming in this sincerely wanting to be good stewards of this team and to build off of what the Allen Family so greatly achieved with owning this team. They way the operate in the tech world gives me this optimism.

I sense that Jody Allen wanted to sell to this group, and it has been reported that the coaching staff and front office were pulling for this group to buy the team, as well. I think they met, they talked, and they all felt the vibes.

I sense that Vinod is a very sharp business man, and when he sees good potential in something, he is aggressive to go for it. I really like that he and his son Neal are big sports fans. I would rather have owners who are fans of the sport than owners who are only looking at the investment and returns.

Could there be some refurbishing of Lumen Field being asked for down the line with this group, or more? Sure. I would almost expect it. The stadium is over a quarter century old, and many newer stadiums offer owners better revenue abilities. It stands to reason that the Khoslas will want upgrades, at the very least.

But let us be clear about this one very thing. The league very much wants the Seahawks to stay in the PNW. They want their footprint to remain in this region having a team that draws fans from Canada, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana, not to mention Washington and Oregon. The Seahawks are not going anywhere, and the Khosla Family knows this.

I suspect it will be Neal Khosla who will ultimately transition up here, and be the eventual long term controlling owner. The sense people have about him is that is a very bright dude who knows the value in learning, and isn’t a big ego tech fella. This feels like the right sort of person to own this team for decades moving forward.

We shall see, of course, but as of right now, I see no reason not to trust this family, and have some faith in them. You do you, but for me, I am intrigued to see what insights they will bring from their tech world to help this team take better steps forward into tomorrow. I am actually pretty excited about that.

These are the final thoughts I will leave you with before I retire this project for good.

Football is not a contact sport. It is a blood sport. That is why we love it. It feeds our ancient needs to see Davids prevail over Goliaths, and Heracles to kick the crap out of a lion and then wear his skull attached to fir as a menacing war hat in combat.

Life is beautiful, and it is terrifying, and no team sport exemplifies beauty and terror better than American football.

Football shows us the badasses that deep down we want to be, and elegant gazelles we can also be. This is why we watch it. There should be no shame in that even in the face of knowing that many of these players will be cutting their lives short playing this game.

And this Seahawks team, this Seahawks organization embraces all of that fully. Enjoy this time, Seahawks fans, and bring on the Rams. Seahawks are here to stay, Baby, and they want to put belt to ass each and every game they play. You can take that check to the bank anytime, and cash it in.

Go Hawks.

Why The Seahawks Extending Big Cat Williams Is Huge

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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.

Sorry Skeptics, The Seattle Seahawks Still Look Really Good

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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.

Why I Like The Khosla Family Buying The Seattle Seahawks

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Like many, if not most diehard fans of the Seattle Seahawks, I have been living a bit of a pins and needles existence over the past several months since Jody Allen put this team on the market. Almost daily, I have been checking my feeds for updates or news of potential buyers, and, at times, I felt the weight of the uncertainty, and speculations beyond exhausting.

The Seattle Seahawks are my favorite team in all of sports, and it isn’t close. Twenty years ago, the Seattle SuperSonics were a close enough number two, but alas, they are long no more as organization, and the nature in which they were ripped out of Seattle is still very scaring for me. So, it does stand to reason that I might carry a certain degree of anxiety about this whole Seahawks sale biz over the past few months. I am sure that I have not been the only anxious Twelve out there.

In this time, I have been hoping, and praying that someone high profile and controversial would not end up with the team, running the risk of seeing what has grown to become a very stable NFL franchise being reduced to a toxic circus act. Personally, I really did not want Elon Musk to be the surprise buyer of this team, and I wasn’t super thrilled about Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg either, as prospective owners. Culturally, they would have felt opposite of what this team has been for a decade and a half with John Schneider as the general manager.

I have also been hoping and praying that whoever ended up as the new majority owner would resemble enough of the fabrics of what made the late Paul Allen and his sister Jody great owners of our prized football team that sits in the Pacific Northwest. I wanted someone who had deep enough pockets with an analytical driven mind to strive for success, and I wanted this person (or people) to not be inclined to meddle in the decision making of Schneider and his front office.

For these months, I have been of the belief, albeit a very hopeful one, that Steve Balmer would probably end up being that person. To me, I just always circled back to him even with the news of the Wyc Grousbeck Boston Celtics group being interested, and then the news that minority owners of the San Francisco 49ers were interested, as well. In hindsight, this was probably fueled mostly by a lot of wishful thinking, but I was really thinking that Balmer was probably going to be one who needed up with the team.

It just made too much sense to me, and when Gregg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune and KJR Sports radio talked about a big local whale sitting in the wings watching bids come in before making his own in the end, it felt as inevitable as Thanos snapping his fingers in the MCU. Of course it’s going to be Balmer, right? Has to be.

Lo and behold this big local whale never came, and when news broke on Saturday that the 49er group also known that the Khosla Family, I was as shocked as any other Twelve out there. Because of the 49er connections, I just did not take them seriously enough as bidders, and as the dust settles down on this, I honestly think this might be one of the most Seattle Seahawk things ever.

When David Krieg stepped in to replace franchise legend Jim Zorn at quarterback in 1983, as a grade school kid who had only ever known Zorn as QB1 in town, I didn’t think this un-drafted quarterback from some small college in Wisconsin would ever amount to much. All he did was lead the Seahawks to their first ever playoff run, and make pro bowls, and playoffs for year later. To this day when folks bring up favorite Seahawk players of years past, I almost always mention this guy affectionately known at the time as Mudbone.

I also initially didn’t think much of Matt Hasslebeck being brought in as a quarterback years later, and all he did was surpass Krieg’s achievements, and lead Seattle to their first ever Super Bowl appearance. When he came in and struggled, I was as glad as anyone to see replaced by Trent Dilfer, but when he finally got his shot to start again, all he did was prove me wrong, and then I quickly became one of his biggest fans.

I super did not expect Russell Wilson to be anything of a starting caliber QB when Seattle drafted him in the third round back in 2012, and I winced at the idea years later of Geno Smith beating out Drew Lock to replace him. For me, Russ was too short to be a long term starter, and Geno was a scrub player who was simply Pete Carroll’s pet. Both guys vastly proved me wrong.

In 2024, I deeply wanted Mike Vrabel to be the hire to replace Pete Carroll over Mike Macdonald. I was just a bit too nervous about that move of going with an unproven young coach over someone more established, proven, and available. Nowadays, for very obvious reasons, I am incredibly grateful Schneider preferred Macdonald.

So, when I was looking at these reported interested parties, I really was not considering Vinod Khosla and family being serious front runners. Like I said, it was probably due to those 49er connections, but for me, I was choosing to warm more up to Wyc Grousbeck and his wealthy buddy from India because, frankly, Wyc had a great track record as the former majority owner of the Boston Celtics. He stayed out of the way of front office decisions, but was an eager spender in bringing in talent to win titles. This sounded very Paul Allen-esque to me. Even in that, though, I just refused to not circle back to Balmer simply because of his local ties, and vast wealth, and his known willingness to spend.

The thing that I have really learned about myself through this sale process is just how much I am apt to strongly gravitate towards known commodities. As someone who runs his own little Seattle based landscaping business, I always buy Stihl power tools and Ford pickups. An Echo trimmer might be just as effective, and a Chevy might just as reliable, but I just have a very firm belief in the German engineering of Stihl, and the Ford F-150 being the top selling truck of the USA for a very good reason. I get lulled into security going with the known.

Before Saturday’s big breaking news, I didn’t know much about the Khoslas. I knew that Vinod made his wealth in tech and venture capitalism in the Bay Area. I also knew that he was very much sort of an Anti Elon Musk type down there, driven more towards the philanthropic aspects of being ultra wealthy, and I did like that about him as a potential owner.

The more I have read up on him, though, as someone who identifies a bit more with the traditional values of old school blue dog democrats, I also very much like the fact that Vinod has stated in recent weeks like his has no problem with billionaires paying more taxes in America. You can have whatever views you want to in favor of or against this issue, but you cannot deny that this view of his feels pretty lock step with current trends of Seattle politics. I take that as a positive.

That said, I was also aware that he is not without controversy as someone who apparently developed a popular Bay Area surfing beach into a playground for the wealthy, and that has pissed off a bunch of folks in that region. Seahawk fans will forever reflect kindly on the late Paul Allen, but he, himself, was not without similar controversy in Seattle with his real estate developments in and around South Lake Union that reshaped downtown into something that has pissed off numerous folks over the years.

Billionaires, like the most of us, have both good traits, and then they also have traits that will inspire ire out of folks, especially today with so many Americans that are struggling and generally unhappy. It is what it is.

While I get people’s frustration with the ultra rich these days, I will not entertain a holier than thou wrath against the Khosla Family like some reactions I have seen since this news broke. You can have whatever views you want to have about AI tech for which the Vinod as been a major investor and champion of, but the reality of their story is that they are a family of Stafford smart people who have used a lot of their well earned money for philanthropic good as it pertains to the environment, food, education for the needy, and affordable health insurance for all, and you are welcome to look those facts up.

I might add, for those of the Seahawk fanbase who were opening that MacKenzie Scott would be the big local fish stepping up to buy this team in the end simply because of her altruistic philanthropic motivations, you should probably like that fact this it isn’t Vinod himself who will be the controlling owner of this team, but his wife Neeru, who has worked as an educator, and has championed STEM education availability for children of all tax brackets. Like Ms Scott, she is very much driven to helping lower class kids get proper education. If you want to get more of an idea of what she’s behind, I encourage you to look at her CK-12 Foundation.

Personally, when the news broke that it will be Neeru as the controlling owner of the team, I could not control the smile forming on my face. If this news is true, the Seattle Seahawks will stay female owned, and I like that a lot, frankly.

I think Jody Allen served as a fantastic active owner of this team in the aftermath of her brother Paul passing on, and she did so with a lot of online, radio wave, and print material bullshit piled her way, at times. She made the right calls on moving on from Russell Wilson, and Pete Carroll, she trusted the sharp football mind of GM John Schneider, and she did this without an ego that put herself at the forefront of the team. She was an absolute fantastic steward of this organization, and I will forever be thankful of that fact. If Neeru demonstrates any of the patience, and intelligence, and intuition that Jody provided over the years, this team will stay in strong hands. I am very confident in that.

In a short statement to the fans, the Vinod referred to his family as new stewards wanting very much to keep with the winning traditions of the Allens. I trust that this is how they think of themselves, as stewards, and the fact that it will be Neeru as the active owner out of their family, and not Vinod (or their son Neal), I think sends a pretty strong message that these will not be ego based people running the franchise.

Big egos build rockets for the rich to venture into outer space. The more altruistic wealthy will look for ways in which to nurture and preserve what is already on this planet. On the face of what I have dug up, I just do not sense that this family are big ego people. I do not see it, and that does feel like a big relief.

I think this shows that they are perhaps people who will not likely look to meddle with what is working well, but will rather want to help in whichever ways they can as new owners, and learn from John Schneider. Vinod, himself, has stated at age 71 how much joy he receives from still being in the process of learning.

In years to come, Neal will eventually end up as the long term owner of the Seahawks given their ages, but even he does not seem to be a narcissistically driven tech baron as his capitalist endeavor is providing affordable AI driven healthcare for all people, of all things. If anything, I suspect this purchase agreement was ultimately made for him to eventually be the owner, and at age 34, he will have ample time to truly learn the ins and outs of what it takes to sustain a successful NFL franchise. I consider this a positive.

So, yeah, on all these aspects of who the Khosla’s seem to be, I am feeling pretty much better about this purchase agreement. I am pretty hopeful, anyways.

Does any of this initial insight into these people guarantee that they will be good NFL owners? No, not really, but I do like how Vinod grew his little empire of wealth down in the Bay.

He is described as being very analytical driven with a long history of surrounding himself with smart talented people, and allowing those people show forth their talents and ideas as he works to assist, and push forward. He feels classically like a think tank techie, and that is very much who Paul Allen was in that world.

On Saturday night, Brian Nemhauser of the Hawkblogger podcast released an excellent reaction video detailing these aspects of Vinod, and why they extremely important traits in the tech world, and how this can positively carry over to the Seahawks, who under Mike Macdonald’s coaching style are more analytically driven than ever. He also reported in his podcast that the Khoslas had folks throughout the Seahawks organization expressing a rooting interest in them ending up as the group purchasing the team. This is probably the biggest reason why I am more than okay with this group winning out, and am now genuinely excited about them taking over.

The Seattle Seahawks are an extremely culture driven franchise. John Schneider has taken painstaking steps for years laying forth all the building blocks to building up this culture, and maintaining it. He made tough calls moving on from popular players who were no longer fitting the culture. Mike Macdonald was his preference to replace Pete Carroll over other popular coaching candidates in part because of how he felt Macdonald would carry forth the positive culture that was built up.

If John Schneider and others in his front office, and Mike Macdonald and others on his coaching staff feel very good with the Khosla Family becoming the new owners, then I am very much okay with it, as well. I will just leave it at that.

I will also not entertain much of the fact that they are from the Bay, have recently been part owners of the rival 49ers, and were season ticket holders for that team for decades. Pete Carroll grew up a big 49er fan and was their DC on a couple of their Super Bowl teams. Mike Holmgren was a famed coach for them, as well. Sam Darnold credits his brief time on their team as the big necessary step towards reviving his quarterback career. I think it is ludicrous paranoia to entertain ideas that the Khoslas are some sort of 49er driven plant to come up here and ruin our stable franchise.

And no, I do not think they will ever have designs of moving this team, ever.

The Seattle Seahawks will stay the Seattle Seahawks. This is a strong market, and the league will not allow them to move out of this region. So, I will not enterain any thoughts on that, either.

Could we be looking at a new or upgraded stadium down the road, at some point?

Sure, maybe.

We will see on that front, but that is probably years away from being a thing, but if that does ever come up, I would rather have municipal leaders deal with the likes of the Khoslas than I would an Elon Musk, or some dude who lives in London and owns mines in India. That is just my own vibes on that front.

Finally, I will also say this to those whose instant reaction to the news of the Khosla Family being the buyers was filled with toxicity against them. If you can manage it, try to be a bit more open minded, especially if you are a diehard fan of the team. We simply have to be realistic about a number of things.

Aside of the Green Bay Packers being publicly owned, there are no other sports franchises in North America that follow that model. The leagues will not allow it, and the situation in Green Bay was grandfathered in. This is a statement of fact.

The price tags for teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB are becoming so incredibly steep these days that the number of people on this planet that can afford to purchase them is rapidly shrinking. The billionaire class that is increasingly becoming hated on in these struggling times, is a very small demographic, and most people who have become members of this class probably have some unappealing skeletons or two in their closets. Therefore, aside from possibly MacKenzie Scott in these parts, anyone who was going to end up the majority owner of this franchise was destined to have something about them that feels unappealing to some.

If you hate AI, and don’t love the fact that Vinod took a popular beach away from stoner surfers in the Bay, you are more than welcome to trade in your Seahawk fandom card. I won’t have a beef with that.

If over the years, the Khoslas prove to be very much like the Allens in their stewardship of the Seahawks, and they help keep this team within championship contention, the bandwagon will always welcome your return at a future date, if you choose to change your tune, and climb back on board it. I will be here waiting for you.

For me, as I looked into these people a bit more now in the wake of the announced sales agreement, I am feeling significantly better about this situation more, and more. In fact, I think the feeling I feel now is more relief than anything else.

But if you are not right here with me, for whatever reason, that is okay. I trust in time all of this will be perfectly fine.

Again, I don’t sense it is likely these people will be meddlesome, and difficult, and on the spectrum driven by intense egos. That is not my read at all on who they appear to be, at all, and I am confident that Schneider and his front office probably have a very similar read, and maybe, just maybe this is why we didn’t see Steve Balmer step up in the end. Just saying.

We shall see.

Go Hawks.

While The Rams Go Big The Seahawks Go Hall

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The titanic move that the Los Angeles Rams made on Monday to acquire Myles Garrett is one that will be talked about for days and weeks heading into the 2026 season this Fall. It is a move that seismic in the NFL, and if they are now able to coax 35 year old Aaron Donald out of retirement for a chance to earn another ring, anything short of a Super Bowl victory this year will be seen as an epic failure for their organization. It is very literally Lombardi Trophy or bust for them now.

The Seahawks, on the other hand, as I suspected in the piece I wrote yesterday, are focused on taking care of their own. Yesterday, in a retaliatory move against the Rams acquiring Garrett The Great, they came to terms with youthful edge rusher Derick Hall on a very affordable 3 year $42 million contract with $21 million guaranteed. This move will be a snort little paragraph in any Monday Morning Quarterback style NFL reporting in the wake of all the bigger NFL news in this cycle, but from a Super Bowl Champ Seattle perspective, this was pretty big news.

The Seahawks managed to extend one of their bright young players on an astonishingly team friendly deal. On a national level, this news will have “meh” vibes attached to it, but from a Seahawks perspective (the only perspective that matters), this move is big.

They are keeping a talented young pass rusher, who during the course of Super Bowl LX, one could have easily argue his case for Super Bowl MVP with the way he was wrecking New England’s offensive line and effecting Drake Maye in the pocket, on a very team friendly contract. This is absolutely going to help them get other deals done around the corner for other key players they will look to keep around. In short, Derick Hall, who is a more complete player than Boye Mafe, will be making $6 million less per season for the next several years than him.

Frankly, it is quite astonishing that Hall would have agreed to this contract right now. It clearly shows that he just wanted to remain a Seattle Seahawk, and he had probably told his agent to just get this deal done as opposed to what Coby Bryant did last Summer when Seattle was trying to work out an extension for him. There are not many young players in this day and age of big free agent NFL dollars who are willing to do this.

Hall is a young player on this roster who I have been circling this offseason as a player to watch this Fall who is most likely to take a big step forward. Mike Macdonald had favored him over Mafe in the rotation of edge rushers, and without the presence of Mafe in the rotation, it just feels like things were aligned for him to have more opportunities to go after quarterbacks on what I was anticipating would be his contract year.

Now that he is secured through 2029, I think he can just settle into being a true Mike Macdonald style edge player, and young leader. A guy who will step onto the field determined to set strong edges against the run, and look to earn the right to rush on third and longs. This is the type of player that Macdonald prefers at the position.

Hall will likely never be in the class of edge defenders that Bosa, Garrett, Maxx Crosby, TJ Watt are, but I think his reasonable ceiling is DeMarcus Lawrence, who Seattle brought in last year to help them win a ring. In fact, I would estimate that Hall is the heir apparent to D Law once he decides to hang them up, and that is pretty damn good. Seattle has somehow managed to keep him around on a heck of a deal, and it cannot be underestimated how good that news is behind the scenes.

What I would expect around the corner is that they reach a deal with Devon Witherspoon during training camp this August that will make him a very wealthy young cornerback, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they reach some small extension with Big Cat Williams to keep the talented defensive tackle around for a couple more years, if he wants to keep going after it. These feel like two very obvious moves to perhaps happen next.

While the division rival Rams are dead set on taking massive swings from outside adding to their roster that narrowly lost out on a chance for the Super Bowl last season, the Seahawks will look at keeping their core players together, as much as possible. It is a less exciting philosophy than the “fuck them picks” mentality that the Rams are expressing again, but it is a philosophy that has a lot of merit.

The Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks remain one of the youngest rostered teams in the league. Many of the core players that helped them along last year haven’t touched their peaks as players yet. While I would not argue against a splash move for a Maxx Crosby, or whomever, I think earmarking core young players and committing to them might be the better overall play for this particular team that has drafted exceptionally well in recent years.

As a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, I really liked seeing the news come out yesterday that they reached this sort of deal with Hall. If the national takeaway is “meh” with it, I do not care. I know what kind of potential Seattle has with Hall, and I think his best games are ahead of him, and Seattle has kept him for a steal of a deal. This should be commended.

Go Hawks.

My Thoughts On the LA Rams Trading For Myles Garrett

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Funny thing about my way to work yesterday morning. I was talking with a pal during the commute about the idea of the Seahawks trading for All Pro defensive end Myles Garrett, and what the reaction would likely be for Rams and 49ers fans if such a deal was managed. We both concurred that it would be the most terrifying prospect imaginable for him to be added to Mike Macdonald’s already elite Dark Side defense.

In the next breath, I said that I would absolutely horrified if he ever ended up with the Rams or the 49ers.

Damn. Funny how yesterday started out with this conversation, and then sure enough, a couple hours later, my smart phone was blowing up with the news that the Rams pulled off a trade for him.

Before this trade happened, I believed it was debatable who should be considered a better contender between the Rams and Seahawks in the NFC. The Rams did a great job fixing the needy area of their secondary with free agency and a big trade, but I thought their draft was odd. The Seahawks, on the other hand, stayed quiet in free agency, but used the draft brilliantly to fill their one big need at running back, and then to further bolster their already strong young secondary. One could argue that the young roster that just won a Super Bowl gotten stronger at a clear area of strength, and perhaps they replaced a good running back with one who will be equally good, if not better.

Now that the Rams pulled off this massive move for Myles Garrett, however, I concede that they should be viewed as the heavy favorites to not only win the NFC but win the next Super Bowl. This is how they should be properly viewed by NFL pundits across the land.

The Rams watched, as we all did, the Seahawks step onto 49er turf in Santa Clara during Super Bowl LX, and wallop the under matched New England Patriots. They could sense, as we all could, how sour of a taste it was in the mouths of the 49er Faithful on that day, and they did not want the fans of LA to taste that awfulness this year as their stadium hosts the Super Bowl. Hell no. They properly did what they needed to do to prevent that.

Garrett is, unquestionably, the best defensive player in football right now. He is a proper game wrecking defensive end who is still very much in his prime even at age 30, and he will be heading to LA with very mean intentions of gathering a Super Bowl ring or two after his years of being stuck in Cleveland.

Can teams like Seattle, San Fransisco, Philadelphia, and others give the Rams a proper fight this year? If all goes right in the battle of NFL attrition, they absolutely can, but on paper, the LA Rams are now the proper NFC team to beat. This is the facts, Jack.

I have to say that I have some further feelings about this deal that land kinda mixed. I hate the fact that the Rams ended up with the best pass rusher in the game, but I commend them for this aggressive move. They didn’t want to see any prospects of the Seahawks or 49ers playing in a Super Bowl in their stadium this year, and they have done everything they could this offseason to give them their best shot at preventing either scenario from happening. They are not a team that is going to F’ around chasing after another ring with an aging quarterback still playing in his prime. They want to get him another one.

The Rams now currently possess possibly the best quarterback in the game, the best offensive play calling head coach, and they have now added the best overall defensive player to their roster. If they do not win the Super Bowl this year, it won’t be for lack of front office effort, or lack of talent on the field. It would probably be because some other team got that much hotter and better, for whatever reason, and maybe injuries at a few key positions finally got up to them.

From a Seahawks fan perspective, initially I was very disappointed that Seattle wasn’t able to make a similar push for Garrett. Sending a 2027 first round pick, a 2028 second round pick, a 2029 third round pick, and talented young edge rusher Jared Verse to Cleveland for him seems like a reasonable deal. I would have thought the cost would have been steeper despite the fact Garrett will be 31 years old later this year.

The more this move settled in with me, however, and the more I started to realize that Seattle would have likely had to have given up a talented player like Devon Witherspoon, or Byron Murphy, or Nick Emmanwori plus similar picks to go get him, themselves. With the dust settling upon that realization, the more I was okay with Seattle not making that sort of push for him. I want these sorta talented young guys on the roster long term together. They feel like the core to further build around on defense.

In terms of what I think Seattle does next to counter, I am not sure that they will do that much. I am not anticipating that they will suddenly go after Maxx Crosby in Vegas. They had an opportunity to offer something similar to what Baltimore initially did a couple months ago before they reneged on the trade and sent him back to Vegas, but they chose not to dance. Now it feels like Crosby has made peace with the fact he remains a Raider, and is ready to recommit to the team that drafted him.

My sense with Seattle is that their priority is to commit to players on this roster that just helped them win Super Bowl LX. They appear determined to make Devon Witherspoon a top paid cornerback, and they will also have contract extensions looming for defensive tackle Byron Murphy, Sam Darnold, AJ Barner, and others right around the corner, as well.

Truthfully, I think they might be more keen towards extending Big Cat Williams for a few more years, and keeping their star veteran defensive tackle around longer than going after another high profile veteran defensive lineman via trade or free agency. If Big Cat wants to continue playing a while longer with a chance at another ring, nobody on the defensive line makes a bigger impact on the game than he does, and he feels like a heart and soul player who dads will point towards and tell their sons to be like as a player and person. Culturally, he is the perfect fit for what Seattle wants every bit as much as what he offers performance wise.

I suspect that they will try to get an extension with Derick Hall, as well. It is easy to parse the words of Mike Macdonald and determine that Hall is a young player that he values. He plays the run well on the edges, and he offers great hustle as a rusher. I think there is no player on the defense who stands to take a bigger step forward than Hall does this year in his contract year off his rookie contract. He has been patiently waiting in the wings for a while, and 2026 might finally be his year to truly shine. With Garrrett now in LA, the Seahawks will need this out of him.

If Seattle was somewhat in the market for Garrett, and for whatever reason, chose not stay in pursuit, I do think there is now somewhat of a greater chance they could make one more little splash in free agency to add another piece to their pass rush. The Dante Fowler signing wasn’t very expensive, and they have available cap space to add a Joey Bosa, or a Jadeveon Clowney type. It is debatable if either player is a great culture fit for what Macdonald has built up in Seattle, but it feels like both would fit his scheme, and Clowney has played for him before in Baltimore.

Then there rests the trade market, and what might remain available. There has been some talk that they might be open to adding Kayvon Thibodeaux in his contract year with all the edge rush talent the Giants now have. I don’t know if he’s an ideal culture fit, but I suspect he’d fit this scheme pretty well. If things go rough in Vegas during the first half of the coming season, maybe they would revisit trading Crosby again, and John Schneider would be more than eager to pounce.

The Seahawks and Rams will not be playing each other until weeks 16 and 18 of this season. The NFL was very intentional of their scheduling between these two teams, and they wanted all the marbles of both teams to come down in the final weeks for must see television events.

The Rams have taken their best swings at fortifying their roster for these matchups. Now the ball is in Seattle’s court to see if there is a way or two to match between now and the midseason trade deadline that Schneider so often uses. A lot can happen between now and then. We shall see.

Go Hawks.

The Seahawks Nailed Yet Another Great Draft

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Get ready to enjoy Bud Clark in a Seahawk uniform

Everyone who is a big fan of the Seattle Seahawks should do a slow clap for General Manager John Schneider. He and his front office entered this draft with only four picks, and they walked away on Saturday afternoon making eight selections. In doing this, they collected some talented players who are going to help this team stay in championship window over the next few years.

Out of this haul, Seattle walked away with three guys who have the stuff to develop into quality starters, possible pro bowl type players, and they added a fourth player with starter potential in the mid rounds. The rest of the selections will provide potential depth in the secondary, defensive line, and the took a receiver who is a very interesting special teams player. I recently wrote that if Seattle came out of this draft with two quality starter types, it would be a highly successful draft. I feel like the exceeded that mark. Bravo.

Exactly what Schneider and his staff most accomplished over the last few days was to thread the needle between filling needs in this draft, and taking players where there was great value was there to select them. This has been a theme of their drafts for several years now, and it is a massive reason why they have built up one of the youngest and most talented teams in the league.

The Seahawks very much won Super Bowl LX largely off the talent that John Schneider has selected from 2022 and on. Aside from a few key trades for vets, and being wise to sign a few players such as Sam Darnold in free agency, Seattle’s team is predominantly made up of drafted players. This draft feels like a continuation, and the Seahawk front office remains ones of the best drafting front offices in the entire league.

None of Seattle’s picks in the first three rounds of this draft felt like reaches, and all made perfect sense based on what they had on their roster entering into the draft last Thursday. Again, bravo.

Here are some quick thoughts on each of the fellas who have just become Seattle Seahawks over the past weekend.

Notre Dame Running Back Jadarian Price

I have already written quite a bit about Price, but here are some further thoughts a few days later. Seattle tried to trade out of pick 32 on Thursday to land probably a mid round pick and still be in position to take him. When nothing materialized for them, they stood at 32, and took their guy. I believe he was their number one player all along, most likely.

While it was never my preference for Seattle to draft a running back high, they took a fella who was the consensus second best running back in the draft, and a player who some view as a more natural runner than his Notre Dame counterpart, Jeremiyah Love, who went third overall in this draft to Arizona.

Since this pick, I have done deeper dives into Price, and I can better see why he had so many fans within the draft pundit community. Jadarian Price is a very natural one cut running back who plays with excellent vision, and balance to fit the zone blocking scheme that Seattle embraces.

I have compared him a bit to Seahawk legend Shaun Alexander who also played with great vision, and balance, and instincts. As I have looked at him more closely, however, I can draw a comparison to another legendary running back.

Price has a style about him that is reminiscent of legendary Denver Bronco Terrell Davis. He is the same size as Davis was, plays with a very similar balance, similar speed, and the same ability to stay balanced and run through contact into open lanes. John Schneider probably looks through hours of tape on Jadarian Price, and made a similar conclusion, and he was therefore the plan all along to replace Ken Walker.

TCU Safety Bud Clark

When I was writing up a mock draft article last weekend, I went through a few versions of it before I settled on the one I decided to publish. The first version of it had Seattle take Jardarian Price at 32, and then take a safety at 64. Intuitively, this felt right based on where I was sensing the values land in the range of both picks, but then I second guessed everything, and changed it into something else very different.

The safety I was projecting for Seattle was not TCU’s Bud Clark. I did not think Clark would be available at 64. He was one of the very best playmaking safeties in all of college football last year, a player who constantly gets his hands on footballs, and he is a solid run defender, as well.

In my view, Seattle very much lucked into this pick. It would have made sense for San Fransisco a few picks before to take him there, and get a playmaker in the backend of their defense that they are very desperate for, but they moved out of their pick to collect more mid day picks, and they missed out on him. Seattle was very much the beneficiary of this.

Some will see this pick as a mere replacement for Coby Bryant. While this is likely true, I will add to that it also might end up being a significant upgrade, as well.

My player comp for Clark was Devon Witherspoon. Clark is a little bit longer than Spoon is, but he plays with a very similar frenetic instinctive style. He is versatile too, able to play safety, nickel, and cornerback. The idea of Clark and Spoon together on the same field is, frankly, a very wild one for me. I am all for it, however, especially considering Nick Emmanwori’s rare abilities at big nickel.

The only reason that I can imagine as to why Bud Clark lasted this long is that he is a bit older of a player at 24, and often times, if a team has to choose between a younger player coming out of college over someone who is a couples years older, the team will go with the younger guy thinking he will play longer in the league. The only other thing that I can think of that could have made him slide is his lighter frame at safety being a wiry 6-1 and 188 pounds, and perhaps his wiry frame scarred off front offices a bit who prefer stockier players at safety.

What Seattle gets here is a very sparky player in coverage who will likely make windows much tighter downfield for Matthew Stafford and Brock Purdy, and he will also provide very willing run support. This was a very good selection for the Seahawks. I love this pick.

Arkansas Cornerback Julian Neal

In the third round, Seattle traded back a bit with Pittsburgh from 96 to 99, and got an additional sixth round pick. At 96, the Steelers took Iowa tackle/guard Gennings Dunker, and my heart sank because Dunker was who I wanted Seattle to land.

However, when Seattle took Julian Neal a few picks later, I got very excited, and all was forgiven. The Seahawks grabbed a very physical cornerback in Neal, and perhaps the most physical defensive back out of the whole entire draft.

Why, Neal lasted that long, I have no idea, but for me, if Seattle had taken him at 64, I would have been behind it. For months, the draft pundits had been saying that this class was uniquely deep at cornerback, and it proved so for Seattle.

Here, Seattle found outstanding value by taking a guy who is well sized with long arms, and decent athleticism. He is nowhere the size and athletic freak of nature that Riq Woolen was for Seattle, but he will be significantly more physical on receivers and against the run. He reminds me a bit of Michael Jackson when he was in Seattle for a brief time a few years back, and he also reminds of Brandon Browner. He plays outside cornerback with a very similar junk yard dog mentality that Browner displayed during the peak Legion Of Boom days.

He’s a guy who Rams fans, 49er fans, and Cardinal fans are going to truly detest over the years. He’s a pit bull. I really got excited over this pick.

Iowa Guard Beau Stephens

On day three of the draft, the Seahawks had only two picks in round six, and if felt inevitably like it was going to be a very uninspiring conclusion to their draft weekend. I took my kiddo to his baseball game and I barely looked at my phone for updates that morning. Then somewhere in and amongst the second inning, I peaked at my NFL.com app and to my surprise, Seattle was on the lock at the top of the fifth round, and I got excited.

Lo and behold, they surprisingly got back into the early frame of the fifth round by trading a 2027 fourth round pick for pick 148 and this felt exciting. 2027 is regarded as a much stronger draft class and by dealing a coveted 2027 pick meant that there was someone still available in round five who they didn’t think would still be there, and they wanted to go get.

That player turned out to be Iowa guard Beau Stephens who they brought into the VMAC for a visit the previous week, and was someone I thought they might target in round three. While I much preferred his college teammate Gennings Dunker, who offers more athletic upside, I also felt like I could get behind this fella, if he ended up their pick at some point.

The best way to describe Stephens is a big physical offensive guard who works best in zone blocking schemes (which Seattle runs). He has a natural understanding of how to move and hit targets to create proper lanes for running backs. His is also thought of as being a technically sound pass blocker, and this might be what especially interested the Seahawks. He is a fit for the scheme and he can keep a quarterback clean.

He might actively compete with Anthony Bradford in training camp for the starting right guard spot. That said, I caution fans not to build up too many expectations for him this year.

While Seattle obviously felt the need to trade into round five to grab him, and I don’t think they do that if they don’t see starter potential, the reality is that Bradford played his best football last season, and they just won a Super Bowl with him. It would take Stephens having a kick ass training camp to unseat him at right guard, and if anything, it might take him a year to the system to get stronger against NFL competition before really being ready to step into a starter spot. We shall see.

As it stands now, I see Stephens as a player with starter potential, who might have a good floor as to the type of NFL guard he can be, but might also have a limited ceiling. If all he becomes in Seattle is a good not great guard who fits and works well enough in their system, then this will have been well worth the trade to get into round five to grab him giving a fourth rounder in 2027.

Kansas WR Emmanuel Henderson

I won’t pretend that I know much about this player because he was nowhere near on my radar. That said, I think what he most offers Seattle most is the potential of being the sixth receiver who will provide great special teams value as a returner and gunner. I think he’ll be looked at as a Dareke Young replacement for Special Teams guru Brian Harbaugh to work with, and it sounds like he was a player he was very excited to get.

Toledo Cornerback Andre Fuller

This is a player who was on my radar because he was a VMAC visit, and I wanted to look into him a bit after his visit was reported. He’s described as another long athletic cornerback who can work press coverage. It is also noted that he is another good special teams player, which matters greatly to Seattle. If anything, he will provide competition to the fifth cornerback spot with a good chance at staying with the team as a practice squad player to further develop.

Minnesota Defensive Tackle Deven Eastern

This gigantic 6-5 315 pound dude was nowhere near my radar. That said, I had a feeling like Seattle might like to add a big DT just because they don’t have many big nose tackle types on the roster. He’s described as a decent athlete for his size who can give centers fits with his quick first step, and use his long arms as leverage against the run and as a rusher, but he has to work on playing with lower pad level. This makes me think he’s a project player that they want to bring into training camp to see if there is something there to develop perhaps on the practice squad.

Arizona Cornerback Michael Dansby

This guy was so off the radar the NFL.com didn’t even offer a draft profile for him. John Schneider said that he was a player they liked, though for his versatility. He had a fair amount of interceptions and pass breakups over his past two seasons of college ball at San Jose State and Arizona, so perhaps they feel like there is a diamond in the rough with him. It is interesting that with his selection and Bud Clark, Seattle seems to have been intent on finding more ball hawk types for their defense.

Final thoughts about this draft and what rests ahead for Seattle

I dig this draft class a lot.

I will admit that I wasn’t initially head over heels enamored with the Jadarian Price selection at 32, but this move has grown on me quite a bit. I am excited to see what he will bring to the Seattle offense in the second year of their outside zone scheme. In time, he might even prove to be a better fit for it than what K9 was.

What I dig most about this draft, however, is the values they found in rounds two and three with the additions of Bud Clark, and Julian Neal. I think Seattle might have come out of this class with two potential draft steals here who could develop into long term starters on an elite defense, and this excites me.

Clark is destined to bring a true ball hawk quality to this defense that was hasn’t had in a while. I think his ceiling as a player is very good, and so is his floor. He shouldn’t have lasted to pick 64, but he did, and this is a blessing for Seahawk fans. It will perfectly fit this defense and the culture of this team.

Likewise for Julian Neal. With him, you are going to see added physicality to the secondary. He will remind you of the classic LOB players. In time, he will likely mix it up more with Puka Nakua on contested, and he will spell further trouble for San Francisco when they try to run those outside stretch plays, and screens. He is going to become a very physical player in Seattle’s secondary for years to come. I loved the value with this pick.

I am also intrigued with Beau Stephens and the fact that Seattle was enamored enough with him to be determined to bring him in when he was still available in the fifth round. Trading a valuable 2027 fourth round to take him in round five of this draft tells me that they believe he can be a starter. We shall see.

As for what the Seahawks can do right now, they can dabble in free agency starting this week, and none of the signings they do between now and Summer will count against the compensatory picks they gained for 2027 with the free agent losses of K9, Boye Mafe, Woolen, and Bryant. Seattle will have ten picks in next year’s draft that is projected to be pretty good, and they can now look to add a veteran edge rusher, or two. I suspect that they will add someone in the next week or two.

Seattle is connected with Dante Fowler who they met with before the draft, and they were close to signing Von Miller last Summer who is also still available on the market. Seattle chose not to draft an edge rusher out of this class, and I was good with it because of the value they got at other positions. I think Seattle is destined bring in Fowler and maybe even Miller both, to be honest. They have the cap space to do this.

Whatever moves they make either in free agency or trade, I suspect veteran edge rushers are going to be eager to come into Seattle with a chance to play in Macdonald’s defense and chase after a ring. That should be a fairly easy sell for anyone who wants to play in a badass defense on a team that just won a Super Bowl and has a young deep roster.

As for the other teams in the NFC West, where do I even start?

I thought the LA Rams showed incredible lunacy drafting Alabama QB Ty Simpson at 13 overall, and then drafting yet another tight end in round two. Simpson is a massive question mark as a QB who only started 15 games in college, and they already have three talented tight ends on the roster. I get that they need to think about life after Matthew Stafford, but Ty Simpson at pick 13? Really???

In terms of the 49ers, it feels like John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan have caught the Pete Carroll hubris virus of trading out of round one of the draft to reach for yet another receiver at the top of round two. Then they tripled down on the reach virus in round three by selecting a small defensive end who doesn’t play the run well, and a running back who wasn’t thought to be anything other than a late round pick, at best.

To their credit, the Niners took an interesting defensive tackle at the top of round four, but I think the rest of their draft was kinda “meh.” This was the second year in a row where I was concerned about what the 49ers might land with their picks, and then they just kinda.. blew them. If they do not make a deep playoff run this year, I think the end could be near for this long standing regime in the division. This felt like another truly bad draft for them, yet again.

I didn’t love seeing Jeremiyah Love and Chase Bisontis go to the Arizona Cardinals. Love is destined to be a very special playmaking running back in this league, and I think Bisontis has the makings of being a really good left guard. These were two really good pickups for this franchise.

That said, I thought the Cardinals did a really weird thing at the top of round three by drafting Miami QB Carson Beck, who I think won’t likely amount to much of the player in the league. Beck isn’t a great athlete, he’s doesn’t possess any special traits that scream franchise QB, and on top of that, he seems more interested in the type of girls he dates, and cars that he drives than being the best QB he can be. Plus, he was a largely turnover machine in college. This was a very wasteful pick, in my view, with the talent that remained on board for this team that is desperate for adding more talent.

So when I look at the landscape of the competition in the NFC West in terms of this draft, I don’t think the Rams and 49ers made moves to better themselves over Seattle, at all, and I think the Cardinals did a very Cardinals thing by drafting a couple talented players early and then messing things up later on. Seattle, on the other hand, continued their trend of drafting smart.

This is just my view, and I am a diehard Seahawks fan who will always be skewed by my fandom, so take this with whatever grain of salt that you want, but as of today, it feels like Seattle is probably set up where they are simply one signing of a quality veteran pass rusher away from being the heavy contender for the division crown again. I think they just need to add one more decent edge rusher to the mix, and they will be good to go.

Sure, the Rams added Trent McDuffie in a trade, but the Seahawks have Devon Witherspoon. Who is the better cornerback between the two?

Seattle also has Nick Emmanwori, Julian Love, and Josh Jobe, and now they have added Bud Clark and Julian Neal to their secondary mix. It would not shock me at all if Seattle’s defense is even better this year than what we saw last season, especially if Von Miller decides to sign here.

Will Seattle repeat as Super Bowl champs?

That does feel like a lot to ask on one hand, but on another, this team is walking back most of their starters and they just added three players through the draft who could start for them right away. Therefore, I don’t think it is that much of a pipe dream.

From a national perspective, I sense everyone is going to be high on the Rams and 49ers again, even though the Seahawks are the Super Bowl champs. Honestly, I am fine with that.

I like it when people sleep on the Seahawks, and this draft gives me more optimism that they are going to surprise people yet again this year. I am here for it.

Go Hawks.

For The Seattle Seahawks, Jadarian Price Was Right

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It was Price all along

Over the past couple weeks, I wrote two draft articles for the Seahawks. I spent a lot of time weighing prospects who I felt would be fits for Seattle, and I narrowed down a few that I really liked a lot, and felt the team would probably dig, as well… just guys that felt like true Seattle Seahawks.

My first article was a guide to the draft for readers who don’t follow college ball much, but maybe had concerns about the players Seattle lost in free agency, and how they might get replaced. I took a very specific tone that basically said that I wasn’t sweating Seattle’s running back situation with the loss of Ken Walker, and one way or another, the position will be addressed. Personally, I felt like it didn’t need to get addressed in the first round of the draft, at all, and that was driven by my own personal view that running backs can be found later on in most drafts.

My follow up post was a mock draft article two days before the real thing was to start. In that mock, I had Seattle wait out running back into the third round. I thought it was a position they would wait it for, and they would take perhaps a guard and an edge rusher beforehand, or maybe a defensive back. I had them going guard, edge rush, and then running back.

In an earlier version of that mock draft piece I was writing, however, I had the Seahawks taking Jadarian Price at 32. After spending time the following week stating a case as to why they shouldn’t draft a running back in round one, I circled back around to Price, and I just started to feel like he would be their guy.

Price is a breakaway style of runner very much in the order of Ken Walker, and he’s a solid personality fit. He is also a great returner, and they had nobody on the roster like him. He was the consensus RB2 of the draft for a reason, and it just felt like his talents fit their need like a glove.

Then after a while, I just couldn’t commit to this thought, and I chickened out of it. I revised it, and published something very different. Obviously, my gut was trying to tell me something, and I probably should have trusted it more.

Price, to me, felt almost too logical. He is a very natural one cut running back with great vision to fit Seattle’s zone blocking scheme, and like K9, he has explosive traits to be a home run hitter on occasion. I wanted to place him at Seattle’s first pick, but then I started to think about how he split carries at Notre Dame with Jeremiyah Love, and wasn’t regarded as good of a player on third downs, and I found it very easy to talk myself out of choosing him.

I just couldn’t settle on him. My own principles pulled me towards wanting a guard instead, and I still felt that way last night when Seattle’s pick came in.

With the dust settled on day one of the draft, however, it does very much feel like when Seattle decided not to match Kansas City’s offer to K9 in free agency, they had a very specific plan in mind to replace him, and Price was likely that plan all along. While I may not like the idea of taking a running back in the first round, I do not get paid the big dollars that John Schneider earns as the GM, nor do I have any years under my belt of scouting and looking at players in college like he has.

I think it is clear that John saw a talented college running back who would likely be sitting at pick 32 surrounded by a board of players with similar grades, and it really just came down to Price fitting the team’s most pressing need. From this perspective, drafting Price makes sense.

Price is a high character kid who could have transferred out of Notre Dame when Love took the starting spot, but he wanted to stick it out, and try to get a title with the program he committed to. He stayed, played well for the Irish, giving them a top rushing attack in the country, and a chance at a National Title. That takes immense character in a world of college football dominated by huge NIL dollars to make this decision. Price could have probably transferred to another run centric program like Oregon, and made millions for himself, but he did not. That is some special stuff.

Price is no slouch as a runner, either. Daniel Jeremiah had him rated as a fringe first round talent, and felt very adamantly that he was be the perfect pick for Seattle at 32.

Price has many other fans, as well, in the world of NFL Draft talent evaluators. Lance Zierlein has described him as a more natural runner than his Notre Dame mate Jeremiyah Love on the NFL.com’s website, and had noted his instinctive running style find the lanes and cuts to get past tacklers, and his unique balance to stay moving. This stuff really shows up on tape.

If you really enjoyed watching K9’s patient running style through the playoffs, and in through the Super Bowl, you will enjoy the style of runner Price is. He does have some of those Le’Veon Bell like vibes.

When I watch through the highlights, I see Shaun Alexander qualities, as well. It is not like he is electrifyingly fast so much as he just has very natural instincts to run angles past people, and hit an extra gear in the open field. Alexander had those very unique traits, and to me, it is sign of elite vision, and instincts. Price is a bit more willing to run through contact than Alexander was known to be, as well. He is going to make plays on Sundays that will get you excited. He will be fun to watch, for sure.

He will also have to develop more as a third down back, and he will have to be more mindful about hanging onto the football. He also had a little bit of ball security issues in college that he will need to be coached up to fix at this level, but I feel like those are fixable things, and it feels like he is of the character who will take to the coaching required to develop more of a well roundedness to his game.

I get why they took him. I still would have preferred a guard (or a defensive lineman), but by letting Ken Walker leave to Kansas City, many felt that Seattle needed to find someone who would add an explosive dynamic of their offense, and Price is exactly that type of runner. He will also be on a cheap rookie contract for the next five years with the club control fifth year option the team has on him for drafting him in the first round.

With big contracts looming for Devon Witherspoon, Sam Darnold, Byron Murphy, and Derick Hall, Seattle did sort of need to make this notion of drafting Price a reality from a salary cap perspective. For them, all of his skillsets matched how they could cheaply fill a need. In the end, Price might even become a better fit in their zone blocking scheme that what K9 was, and at a quarter of the cost for five years. This is the calculated gamble that they are perfectly willing to make.

As for today, Seattle has two picks at 64 and 96 of this draft. There are a lot of talented defensive backs, and edge rushers left on the board. Even if Seattle trades back a bit from 64 into the third round, and collects a mid round pick, I suspect that they can still target these areas, and walk away from this draft finding suitable replacements for Boye Mafe, Riq Woolen or Coby Bryant. We will see.

Of the players still available who I think Seattle might have a reasonable chance to draft today, I really like Iowa guard Gennings Dunker, Indiana DB De’Angelo Ponds, Oklahoma edge rusher R Mason Thomas, Texas A&M edge Cassius Howell, Arizona DB Treydan Stukes, Missouri linebacker Josiah Trotter, NC DBs Brandon Cisse and Jalon Kilgore, LSU safety AJ Haulcy, Illinois edge Gabe Jacas, and there are a number of other players I like, as well. These guys feel like Mike Macdonald fellas, and I wouldn’t be shocked if one of these names mentioned is a Seahawk later on this evening. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Until then, go Hawks!

My Ideal Mock Draft For The Seattle Seahawks

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I want another big nasty

Last week, I wrote a long thought out blog post that served as a passion plea for the Seattle Seahawks to focus on the trenches in this coming draft either by taking a quality guard at pick 32, or drafting or trading for a badass defensive lineman. This remains my big hope, although I am losing faith in the idea the Cleveland would actually be dumb enough to trade away Myles Garrett, and ditto with Vegas trading away Maxx Crosby.

The said, it feels like this draft potentially sets up very well for Seattle to land a quality long term solution at right guard, and perhaps have one of the very best offensive lines in football. That prospect appeals to me greatly.

I can see logic in Seattle drafting a cornerback with their first pick. There are some really good ones in this draft, and because they will have to pay Devon Witherspoon a massive contract soon, it makes sense to have a quality corner to pair with him on a rookie contract. They did just pay Josh Jobe an affordable extension, however, and in this scheme, Jobe has proven to be a reliable CB2. Therefore, I don’t know how pressing of a need this actually is for this team. I think they will want to add one, but I don’t know at what point in this draft. The position is a deep one for this draft class, after all.

This all said, this mock draft isn’t me trying to make my best prediction for what the Seahawks do this week. Instead, I am using it as an attempt to thread the needle between what they might try to do, and where I personally see the best value for the team being.

For example, I don’t personally see an edge rusher in this draft that would realistically be available at pick 32 who would be worthy of that pick, but I do see edge rushers who could be available later that make sense. I suspect that the team might see it this way, as well. This draft is also deep at edge, but it does not feel top heavy at the position. It feels like a draft where you wait the position out into day two, and early day three to find some value.

Likewise, I am not convinced that they will draft a running back in the first round. This runs very counter to the popular view that Seattle is targeting Notre Dame’s Jadarian Price at pick 32, who is regarded as the second best running back in the draft. I just don’t see Price being a guy you take in round one.

He is naturally a very talented runner who would fit a zone blocking scheme very well, but he’s not regarded as a great third down player, and he has had issues of ball security in college. Even though he has a personality that is quite likable, and he has traits that suggest he would be an explosive runner, it is too much of a projection for my comfort level to take him with a high pick. At the end of round two, I would be more comfortable with drafting him, but not at the end of round one with other quality players available.

What I do feel like they will try to do is trade out of pick 32 to add at least one more pick to work with. In this mock draft, I have them doing exactly that with the Cleveland Browns, acquiring picks 39 and 107 for pick 32. Cleveland feels like the team that might try to jump the Jets and Cardinals at the top of round two to get back into the end of the first round in order to draft Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson. If they know that Seattle is a very willing trade partner, there is little reason for them to use the 24th pick of the draft on him. So, this is the scenario that I am working with.

With the 39th pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Keylon Rutledge, Guard, Georgia Tech

There have been some rumblings in recent weeks that Seattle might take a guard with their first pick, and I feel like this makes tons of sense. Anthony Bradford is in a contract year, and I don’t think anyone suspects that Seattle will shell out big dollars to retain his services on an extension. The team took Christian Haynes in round three two years ago, and Haynes hasn’t developed enough behind him to take his spot.

There are five guards in this draft projected to go late first into the second round who all appear promising. I have a feeling like we will see a run of them in the late first into the early second round, and I can see Seattle being a player.

Here, I have them take Rutledge who is a big athletic brawler that played right guard all four years in college, has proven to be an excellent run blocker in a zone blocking scheme, and is regarded as a reliable pass blocker, as well. He is Guard 3 for me in this draft class, and if the Seahawks do not see Anthony Bradford as a long term solution at right guard, it would make sense to draft his replacement now, if they can.

Rutledge is described as tough, strong, smart, and reliable. That sounds like a Mike Macdonald Seattle Seahawk, and he feels like the ideal candidate to pair with Grey Zabel, giving Seattle a legitimate chance at having a top five offensive line in the league for years to come. He would be a home run selection for me out of this class, if they landed him here.

With the 64th pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select R Mason Thomas, Edge Rusher, Oklahoma.

Thomas is regarded as an undersized speed rush specialist who can beat taller offensive tackles with unique speed and bend around the edge. I think this is the type of edge rusher Seattle is probably looking to add with the loss of Boye Mafe. At 6-2 248 pounds, I can see him being a bit like what Dee Ford once was for the Kansas City Chiefs, and what linebacker Chad Brown was with Seahawks in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.

There is a chance that he could be used as sort of an off ball SAM linebacker, if Seattle wanted to shift to more 4-3 under fronts on occasion, as well, and then used as the primary speed rusher on obvious pass downs. At this point in the late second round, even if all he is at this level is a quality pass rush specialist, that probably isn’t terrible. This would be fair value for Seattle at this stage of the draft.

With the 96th pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Jonah Coleman, Running Back, Washington

I do feel like Seattle has an intent desire to come out of this draft with a starting caliber running back. Again, I am just not convinced that it will involve taking Jaradian Price at the end of round one as it is popularly being projected.

Instead, I like them waiting out the position on day two. Here, I have them going with UW’s Jonah Coleman who I believe that they probably like a lot. Coleman is a bowling ball style of one cut runner who is hard to tackle, and can offer a bit of a Marshawn like physicality to their running attack. He is also a very good pass blocker. Being a local prospect, he knows players inside Seattle’s locker room, and would be an immediate culture fit. I can see them taking him in the second round, to be honest, but here I have them taking him late in round three.

With the 107th pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Daylen Everette, Cornerback, Georgia

Seattle has retained Josh Jobe as their number two receiver opposite or Devon Witherspoon, and I am not totally convinced they will look to draft another number two corner type high just for the sake of it. This draft is deep enough at the corner that I have them waiting out the position for a guy they brought in for an official visit with the team.

Everette is a well sized, fast cornerback who has played the position as a boundary player and inside. He started a lot of game for the Bulldogs and went against top competition. He is not a perfect player and that is why he lasts into this range, but he can offer press skills, and can make plays on the ball. I think he’s a guy that can come in and compete right away to be the third cornerback on the team, and he has an athletic profile feels like decent clay to mold further down the line.

With the 188th pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Skyler Thomas, Safety, Oregon State

With the last pick of their draft, Seattle simply goes best player available, and they take an long athletic college safety who they think fits Macdonald’s scheme in terms of being able to play split safety and be reliable as a run defender. They have met recently with Thomas twice, and that tells me that they are perhaps zeroing in on him as a late round pick because they might go different directions on the first couple days of the draft.

Final Thoughts

I have written this mock draft article out three different times over the past few days before I settled on this version. Finally, I landed on a mock that fully makes sense for this team based on their needs and where value lies in this particular draft class.

In the first version, I went along with the popular consensus, and I had them taking running back Jadarian Price at 32. I also had them take a safety at 64 to replace Coby Bryant, and it had them take an edge rusher at 96th to add more depth in that group. I then had them take a linebacker with their last pick because he felt like best player available who would add special teams value.

I will be honest. I hated that mock draft after I sat with it for a day. It felt too by the numbers to fill needs as opposed to seizing quality talents at each spot.

Jadarian Price feels like a very talented running back who would remind older Seahawk fans of Shaun Alexander. Like Shaun, he’s a smooth runner who isn’t much in pass protection, and isn’t a great receiver, as well. I just don’t think Mike Macdonald is the sorta coach who wants to spend a first round pick on a back who isn’t regarded as a complete every down player right now.

The next version of this mock draft, I had them staying at 32, but taking edge rusher Malachi Lawrence who probably has the best combination of length and speed to possibly develop as an every down defensive end who will generate sacks in this league. The problem with this idea was that it felt like too much of a projection. Lawrence wasn’t a great run defender in college. He has the arm length to potentially develop into one, if he were to vastly improve his lower body strength, but it is hard for me to trust he will. Therefore, this idea of taking him that high felt like the next coming or Darrell Taylor or Bruce Irvin, who were speed rushers that Seattle drafted high in the past, and then they moved on from after their rookie deals were up.

The rest of that mock had them taking the same safety at 64, and then taking Jonah Coleman at 96, and I think the same linebacker in the sixth round. I sat with it for a bit, and it still felt like another projection that did not feel like a Mike Macdonald style draft. I think Macdonald’s ideal starting edge rusher is stout against the run, and can beat offensive tackles to the quarterback by converting speed to power. Maxx Crosby would be this ideal edge. This draft does not have a Maxx Crosby player who would be at pick 32, so why force a projection here?

I then did a version the felt like a mock draft I wanted to do for the Seahawks. I took Keylan Rutledge at 32, R Mason Thomas at 64, and Coleman at 96, and safety Skyler Thomas at 188th. This felt more like a Mike Macdonald draft. Take another badass guard, take a speed rusher in a better range to grab one, add a dependable every down sorta running back (even if he’s not the flashiest), and take a safety who has traits that could fit the scheme. This version I really liked. It just left me wanting one other thing.

I wanted to trade down a bit from 32 to add an early fourth round pick to add one more player to fill out the roster a bit more. Then the John Schneider news conference happened yesterday, and the biggest thing to note out of it was his very outward desire to move down, and add more picks. It feels like a very understandable desire. Even in a draft that isn’t regarded as good as other ones in recent years, you’d like to have more than four picks.

By trading back seven spots with Cleveland, it can leave you thinking you don’t need to be so desperate to fill a need with the first selection. You can just take a really good player at 39, regardless of position, and feel like you acquired another pick spend at a more needier spot on your team later on.

Personally, I believe a player like Keylan Rutledge would be an ideal fit for what Seattle wants to do on offense. He’s a really good physical athlete for a guard, and he plays with an attitude that 49er players, and Ram players would absolutely find annoying. He won’t back down from a Fred Warner, or a Jared Verse. He’d look to punish as a run blocker, and he takes pass protecting very seriously. If you want to continue seeing Sam Darnold throw pretty passes downfield to JSN, adding a guy like Rutledge up front makes sense. If Seattle can muster a slight trade back to add this guy and still fill out needs at other spots, I think that would make this draft highly successful, in my opinion.

Anyhow, this mock draft feels right to me for the Seattle Seahawks as they sit right now. In each of the past two off-seasons under Mike Macdonald, the Seahawks have prioritized the trenches either by taking a defensive tackle or a guard with their first selection, and it has massively paid off, thus far. Why break away from this trend now?

I see no reason not to do so with the quality guards who could be available. Whether it plays out this way or not, we shall soon see, but this is a scenario that feels really good. Hope it works out something like this.

Go Hawks.