@tompage asks, “Considering the free agent losses, who are players on the roster that are poised to take advantage of additional opportunities?”
A: Let’s start with the starters who are leaving, because that creates the most obvious opportunities for someone to step into a bigger role. On defense, the Seahawks lost only one every-down player, safety Coby Bryant, but they also lost two other key contributors in Riq Woolen, who split time with Josh Jobe, and Boye Mafe, who was part of a deep outside linebacker rotation.
When it comes to safety, the most obvious candidate to step up is Ty Okada, who played well in 11 starts last season, filling in for an injured Julian Love for nine games, and for Bryant for two more. Okada wasn’t just a capable fill-in option, he proved himself to be a real playmaker, so while the Seahawks certainly can still add to that group, Okada’s play last year shows they still have two starting-caliber safeties in Love and Okada, even with Bryant gone. And that doesn’t even include Nick Emmanwori, who had a standout rookie season playing primarily as a nickel defensive back. The Seahawks may very well just keep him in that role given how well he played, but Emmanwori played as more of a true safety in college, so the Seahawks could find more ways to use him in that role as well. The Seahawks also added Rodney Thomas II in free agency, so he too could be in the mix.
With Josh Jobe re-signing, the Seahawks still have their two starters from last season in Jobe and Devon Witherspoon, but Woolen also played a lot of snaps and at the very least the Seahawks will need to add more depth behind Witherspoon and Jobe. For starters, injuries are always an unfortunate reality of the sport, and they’ll also need another player to step up in dime packages (six defensive backs) which the Seahawks used quite frequently last year with Witherspoon, Jobe and Woolen all on the field at the same time. Newcomer Noah Igbinoghene, a free-agent signing and former first-round pick, will definitely factor into the competition, as will Nehemiah Pritchett, who didn’t play a lot of defense, but had a big role on special teams.
With Mafe leaving, the Seahawks still have a strong trio in DeMarcus Lawrence, Uchenna Nwosu and Derick Hall, so they’re hardly desperate there, but they will want to add to that group, be it through free agency, the draft or a trade. The Seahawks have a couple of young edge players who could step up into a bigger role in Jared Ivey and Connor O’Toole, who both made the team as undrafted rookies, but with the versatility a lot of Seahawks linemen have, some of those snaps could also go to non-edge players. For example, if Rylie Mills, who capped an injury-shortened rookie year with a really impressive sack in the Super Bowl, is ready for a bigger role as an interior lineman, that could allow Leonard Williams, who has had a lot of success rushing off the edge in addition to being a menace as in interior lineman, to line up out wide more often.
Then there’s running back, which we’ll get more into in questions below, but the obvious answer to replace Kenneth Walker III, who signed with Kansas City, is Zach Charbonnet, who split time pretty evenly with Walker for most of the season. The complication there, of course, is Charbonnet’s knee injury, which happened in the divisional round of the playoffs, and could very well affect his availability for the start of the season. The Seahawks really liked what they saw out of George Holani in the No. 2 role during the postseason, and Kenny McIntosh showed promise late in the 2024 season, then again in camp last year before suffering a season-ending injury, so he could also be a factor. The Seahawks also recently signed Emanuel Wilson, who showed plenty of flashes during his time with the Packers, including a couple of big games as a starter last year, so in that trio, the Seahawks have some very capable options. That being said, I think running back is a spot at which the Seahawks are not done adding in some form.