RENTON, Wash. — It is common for rookies to receive praise from veterans in their position group or on their side of the ball, as Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Tory Horton has.
“He can play,” Jaxon Smith-Njigba said of Horton on Tuesday. “He’s a baller.”
One way to tell that a rookie is really making an impression is when guys on the other side of the ball single him out or go out of their way to mention his performance. During Horton’s news conference on Aug. 4, cornerback Riq Woolen crashed the party to reveal that his nickname for the fifth-round rookie is “Jerry Rice Jr.” On Monday, veteran cornerback Shaquill Griffin was asked to assess the receivers he’s been facing in practice.
“I feel like I’ve been seeing the rookie show up a lot lately,” Griffin said. “There’s a lot of plays where you don’t see a lot of rookies move the way he moves, make the plays he makes. It just shows the type of room that we have back there to get a chance to have the rookie being on the same level as some of these older guys.”
Griffin clarified that “the rookie” he was referring to is Horton. Griffin spent time away from the team dealing with a personal matter, so he hasn’t had time to learn everyone’s name. But you don’t have to be around a Seahawks practice very long to notice the guy in the No. 15 jersey making plays.
“(He) can go up and get a ball,” said quarterback Drew Lock, who threw Horton a 10-yard touchdown pass against the Las Vegas Raiders in the preseason opener Thursday night. “At the same time, you talk about receivers being able to go up and get balls, and low footballs get looked over. Balls at the knees, balls at the shins. When you’re ripping an out cut at 100 mph, and I leave it a little low and you can go down and get it and keep your feet in bounds — really everywhere you can throw it to him.”
Fifth-round pick Tory Horton extends the @Seahawks‘ lead!
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— NFL (@NFL) August 8, 2025
Horton, who had his final college season cut short due to multiple injuries in his leg, has played as well as any of the young guys through three weeks of camp. He’s earned many reps with the first-team offense beside Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp. Because of his shiftiness, soft hands, athleticism, catch radius and speed, Horton is in the mix to be the punt returner and one of the receivers in the rotation when the regular season begins. His stock is up, and it will only continue trending in that direction if he puts more quality reps on tape against the Chiefs on Friday night at Lumen Field.
Here are other players whose stock has been impacted by their performance in training camp and the preseason game.
Stock upG Anthony Bradford
Bradford has been taking the majority of first-team reps at right guard, and he was the starter against the Raiders. The competition for the starting job is ongoing, according to coach Mike Macdonald, but it seems obvious that the third-year guard is in the lead.
Bradford battled with rookie Christian Haynes for the starting spot at right guard last year in a competition that carried into the regular season. This time, he might have the job locked up by the second preseason game, as long as he continues to play well in the run game and keeps the quarterbacks clean (and avoids penalties, which were a huge issue last year).
DTs Quinton Bohanna and Brandon Pili
A sixth-round pick of the Dallas Cowboys in 2021, Bohanna bounced around a bit before spending most of 2024 on Seattle’s practice squad. Pili was originally a rookie free-agent signee in Miami in 2023. He joined the Seahawks in November.
Bohanna and Pili started the preseason opener and were part of the reason Las Vegas’ run game was nonexistent, particularly in the first half. Both have also been on the field a bunch in practice due to rest days for veterans like Leonard Williams and Jarran Reed, and the absence of nose tackle Johnathan Hankins, who’s on the non-football injury list with a back injury.
Macdonald said it’s not clear when Hankins will be cleared to play. In the meantime, Bohanna and Pili have been playing well in the middle of Seattle’s defensive line, and there seems to be a good chance that at least one (if not both) will make the team.
“Those are two guys that went into the offseason with something to prove,” Macdonald said. “Both guys have really taken ownership of the trajectory of their career. Taking care of their bodies, taking a ton of reps. Doing a great job, great attitude, positive, just really attacked the whole offseason program. They’ve really backed it up with some great practices, and I thought they played well in the game. Excited about both those guys.”
DL Mike Morris
Morris joined the team as a fifth-round pick in 2023 and missed nearly all of his rookie year with a shoulder injury. He didn’t have much of a role last year, playing only 66 defensive snaps in the regular season. Most of his action came on special teams, where he played 286 snaps. Morris said he went through “growing pains” last year, trying to find a role under a new coaching staff.
“I never played special teams, never did those things that I was required to do,” Morris said. “I had to step up and grow up and fill those roles, and it made me a better player.”
The 6-foot-6, 306-pound Morris is a unique player in that he is built like a defensive tackle (Williams is 6-5 and 310 pounds, for example) but spends a lot of time as a stand-up edge defender, which was the case in the preseason game. With his length and strength, Morris is ideal for that backup “big end” role that is essential for defending the run on early downs.
A good example came on second-and-5 in the first quarter against Las Vegas. Morris was lined up on the edge in a two-point stance against the left tackle. Running back Ashton Jeanty evaded linebacker Drake Thomas in the backfield and was dropped for a loss of 4 yards by Morris, who got off his block against Thayer Munford Jr.
“Mike played well,” Reed said. “It’s time for him to take the next step, being in his third year in the league. It’s what we asked him to do, play some physical football, play our style of football we’re expecting everybody to play when they hit the field.”
Although he plays on edge, Morris is more similar to Williams than someone like Boye Mafe in terms of his role in the defense. Seattle released Roy Robertson-Harris this offseason and drafted a potential replacement in Rylie Mills, who is still recovering from a torn ACL suffered in college and probably won’t play much this season. Morris entered training camp with an opportunity to prove his value to the team, and he’s taken advantage of it.
“It’s gradual, little goals that he just keeps hitting, that he’s determined to make,” Macdonald said of Morris. “We’ve got to move him all over the place — he’s playing anywhere from a three-technique, out to a nine(-technique). That’s important for us to be able to play those different positions. On pass downs, being able to move inside and out, he’s a really good game runner. I think that showed up in the game.”
Stock downG Christian Haynes
Bradford winning the right guard job would be bad news for Haynes, who has been playing backup left guard, backup right guard and third-string center at different points in training camp. Haynes was selected in the third round of the 2024 draft with the thought that he could be a plug-and-play guard. But he appears headed for a second consecutive season as a reserve.
WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling
On Monday, Macdonald was asked what it would take for the receivers behind Kupp and Smith-Njigba to stand out and earn opportunities to contribute.
“Take advantage of their opportunities, one,” Macdonald said. “We’re going to be in a lot of 21 personnel (two backs), 12 (two tight ends), 13 (three tight ends), 22 (two backs, two tight ends), so special teams is going to be a big part of it as well, on who ends up grabbing their helmets on Sundays for us.”
Macdonald’s response is notable in the context of someone like Valdes-Scantling, who turns 31 in October and isn’t a special teams player. In theory, WR3 on the depth chart — which Valdes-Scantling was listed as for the Raiders game — doesn’t have to play on special teams. But Valdes-Scantling could end up in a tricky spot when factoring in Horton’s ascension and the fact that all the other receivers in the mix, like Jake Bobo, Dareke Young and Cody White, play on special teams.
Valdes-Scantling has also taken reps with Lock and the second-string offense in the last week or so of practice, which is another indication he might be trending the wrong direction. He hasn’t played poorly, and he had several good reps in one-on-one action in Sunday’s practice, but the downfield playmaking hasn’t really shown up during team periods.
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)