Seattle Seahawks 2026 Outlook: The Champs Nobody Wants to Talk About Below the Skill Positions

Seattle went 14-3 in 2025 and won the Super Bowl. That is the fact everything else in this preview hangs off. It is also the fact that makes the site's Seahawks archive so lopsided: 97 receiver takes, 95 running back takes, 43 quarterback takes — and four takes, total, about the center position.

Here is what pundits are actually on record saying about the defending champions, unit by unit, and how the people saying it have scored before.

Quarterbacks

Nobody thinks there is a starting competition. Every graded and pending take on the site treats Sam Darnold as the starter — Jeremy Brener puts it in four words: "Sam Darnold is the starter."

The interesting fight is behind him, and it has already been called. Brener wrote on August 16 that after the preseason opener, Jalen Milroe "has dug himself a big hole in the backup quarterback contest," with Drew Lock leading "an opening drive touchdown, showcasing a lot of poise as an eight-year veteran." By August 24 he had Milroe "firmly third on the quarterback depth chart." Shannon Sharpe agrees: "I think Drew Locket is clearly the number two quarterback," with Milroe kept and Mitchell Trubisky released. Brendon Nelson and Randy Gurzi land the same way.

Worth flagging: Depth Chart Calls on Seattle grade at 98.5 average accuracy across 11 settled takes but an average skill delta of −2.11. In plain terms, everyone gets these right, and getting them right is worth almost nothing against the naive guess. Calling Lock QB2 is not a limb.

The disagreement is about how good Darnold is. Colin Cowherd cites him as "the fifth best quarterback in the NFL by players in the top one hundred"; Nick Wright has him among "clearly top-10 quarterbacks." Fantasy is unimpressed — FantasyPros calls him "a real-life success who remains a fantasy avoid," while Pat Fitzmaurice and Jason Kamlowsky both name him a late-round target. Walter Football projects 4,100 passing yards, 27 touchdowns and 14 interceptions.

The receiver room

The deepest file on the roster: 97 takes, 27 graded, 60.8 average accuracy and a healthy +46.84 skill delta. Jared Dubin's line is the high end — "Jaxon Smith-Njigba is arguably the best receiver in football" — while FantasyPros runs the counterargument: "Jaxon Smith-Njigba had a career year in 2025, and historically those do not repeat."

On the WR2, the field has converged. Andrew Erickson and FantasyPros both write that "Shaheed should enter 2026 as Seattle's clear WR2 behind Jaxon Smith-Njigba," and Douglas Clawson goes further: "Rashid Shaheed will have 1,000 receiving yards." Nelson puts Shaheed and Tory Horton as "the second and third options." Dubin's read on Cooper Kupp is blunt: "isn't what he once was but can be a reliable tertiary option."

Erickson's overall record — 143 graded takes, 57.03 accuracy, a MissedTakes Score of 22.08 — puts him tenth on the leaderboard. On Seahawks subjects specifically he's at 81.5 accuracy over nine graded calls, which is a small sample and should be read as one.

The running backs

Ninety-five takes, and effectively one subject: rookie first-rounder Jadarian Price. Josh Alper: with Kenneth Walker gone and Zach Charbonnet recovering from a torn ACL, "Price figures to be playing a major role right out of the gate." Michael David Smith: "Price is the clear-cut No. 1 running back in Seattle." FOX Sports calls him "the clear primary back." Josh Edwards expects him to be "the feature back, at least in Charbonnet's absence."

Fantasy has piled in behind that: Steve Krebs says he'll be "the bell-cow back for one of the top offensive teams in the league," Mike Fanelli sees "a massive second-half breakout and push for a top-12 finish," and Kyle Zeigler, Richard Janvrin and Erickson all list him as a value at an RB25-ish cost. Damon Bruce and Matt Severance both take him for Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Set against the site's aggregate that is an aggressive room: Seattle running back takes grade at 57.1 accuracy over 28 settled calls. And Award Picks on Seattle are the weakest team-level category we hold — 41.2 average accuracy over 17 graded picks. The offensive rookie award is a wide field; last year's ballot in our records had 12 different names collecting picks.

Only real dissent: Ralph Vacchiano notes the pressure on "first-round pick Jadarian Price, who was a backup himself at Notre Dame," and Derek Brown is off Charbonnet entirely — "this unknown/moving timeline has me shying away from Charbonnet for 2026."

No fullback takes are on file.

Tight ends

Thirty-four takes, exactly one of them graded — so treat everything here as unsettled opinion, not a record. The consensus is that AJ Barner holds the job: Nathan Jahnke writes that Barner "won the starting tight end job last season and remains firmly atop the depth chart," Matt Bowen calls him "the No. 1 tight end in Seattle," and Dan Beyer says he's "still tight in number one there."

Fitzmaurice has repeated the same valuation at least four times since August 8: "Consider Barner a midrange to low-end TE2 for 2026 fantasy drafts," on the theory that "the Seahawks didn't add any pass catchers of note in the offseason." Lawrence Iacona is bolder — increased red-zone tight end usage "could push him into top-10 territory."

Elijah Arroyo is the hedge. Jahnke: he "ultimately lost the starting job to AJ Barner" and "it's unlikely that Arroyo has another path to fantasy value this season." Bowen disagrees: Arroyo "has the receiving skills to elevate to the top spot if Barner were to miss significant time."

The offensive line

Thin, and mostly old. The site holds eight guard takes (six graded, 92.8 accuracy) and just four center takes and seven tackle takes — and most of those are mock-draft picks from 2023 and 2025, not 2026 season punditry.

What exists for this year: PFF tags Grey Zabel as "a prime breakout candidate for 2026," and Zachary Pereles reports Zabel took five votes on a 13-writer CBS Sports All-Breakout Team panel, noting he "started all 17 games (and all three playoff games) for the Super Bowl champs last year as a rookie." Michael Hanich says Charles Cross "is capable of a couple of individual achievements, like a Pro Bowl bid, as long as he remains healthy."

One cautionary note on that last kind of claim: Pro Bowl and All-Pro Calls involving Seattle players are 0-for-2 in our graded records, average accuracy 0. Pat Gustavson picked Cross for a positional award in January and scored 0, skill −100.

The defensive line

Nine defensive end takes and seven defensive tackle takes on file, and most of the recent ones are 2027 mock drafts, not 2026 projections. The genuine season calls are two: Edwards names Byron Murphy II an interior defensive line first-time All-Pro candidate, and Rob Rang expects a second-year jump from Rylie Mills with "30 tackles and five sacks being realistic goals." PFF's team preview picks edge defender Derick Hall as Seattle's breakout, arguing that "with Boye Mafe departing this offseason, Hall is in line for an even larger role in 2026" and that 60 pressures is within reach.

The one graded defensive-line accolade call we hold went badly: JP Acosta named Leonard Williams a first-team All-Pro defensive tackle in January and scored 0, skill −100.

The secondary

Better covered than the front, mostly because of roster churn. Forty-two cornerback takes (14 graded, 59.0 accuracy) and 17 safety takes (only two graded, 24.3 accuracy — a sample too small to draw from).

The settled part: Hanich writes there "are no questions about the starting boundary corners in Devon Witherspoon and Josh Jobe," and Pereles calls Witherspoon "a top-five cornerback." The unsettled part is everything behind them. Trevon Diggs signed a one-year deal; Hanich sees him "filling the No. 3 cornerback" role, Brener thinks "it's hard to imagine this being anything more than a simple depth signing." Mike Florio says Terrion Arnold "will land on the Commissioner Exempt list when he's signed" and floats that Seattle "may never complete" the deal.

At safety, Hanich has Julian Love and Ty Okada as the starters with rookie Bud Clark hurt, and Cowherd is very high on Nick Emmanwori: "that kid could be an All Pro guy for most of the next decade." Edwards has him as a first-time All-Pro pick too. Same warning as above about how those grade.

Special teams

Three takes on the entire unit — all about kicker Jason Myers, none about the punter or long snapper, and none graded. Andrew Swanson expects regression: "if history proves predictive this season, Myers is likely to regress" from a No. 1 fantasy finish. Nelson expects the team to stay patient: "this team will live with Myers." Evan Tarracciano likes him because Seattle's "willingness to 'take the points' whenever possible puts Myers in a good position for relevance." The only return-game item on file is Randy Gurzi arguing Seattle should retain returner Rashad Rochelle on the practice squad. That's the whole file. No punter takes exist.

The rookie class

Ground truth first. Seattle's 2026 picks: RB Jadarian Price (1-32, Notre Dame), S Bud Clark (2-64, TCU), CB Julian Neal (3-99, Arkansas), G Beau Stephens (5-148, Iowa), WR Emmanuel Henderson Jr. (6-199, Kansas), CB Andre Fuller (7-236, Toledo), DT Deven Eastern (7-242, Minnesota), DB Michael Dansby (7-255, Arizona).

The Price pick was well forecast. Keith Sanchez had him to Seattle at 32 exactly — accuracy 100. Daniel Jeremiah also called 32 on the nose in Mock Draft 3.0, accuracy 100, skill +41.47, after spending February insisting "he's a second round pick all day every day" (95.76 on the band). Rich Eisen had him in the first round, 100. The misses came from pundits mocking him elsewhere: Ross Jackson at 73 to New Orleans (16.93) and Ryan Tracy at 74 to Kansas City (16.21).

Clark was the harder call. Jackson's "probably second, third round players" band scored 100; Chris Clark and Tracy both had him at 109 and scored 14.23. Seattle-specific mock drafts missed the team's board badly — Jaime Eisner's seven-round Seahawks mock projected CB Colton Hood at 32 and EDGE Malachi Lawrence at 64, and its best score came on a sixth-round guess: Pat Coogan at 188 against an actual 194, accuracy 77.11.

Overall, mock-draft picks tied to Seattle grade at 58.1 accuracy over 47 settled calls. Of the later rookies, all we hold are practice-squad projections — Gurzi listing Henderson, Fuller, Eastern and Dansby among rookies to keep around, and Jahnke noting Henderson "remains eighth on the wide receiver depth chart," leaving "his roster spot in question."

The overall outlook

There is no 2026 win-total consensus in the database yet — the season hasn't produced a result to grade against — but the individual numbers are on file, and they're bunched high.

Gregg Rosenthal took the over: "I felt that was disrespectful... I'm going Seattle over 10 and a half." Nick Wright is the most bullish: "they're gonna go fourteen and three," up from the eleven wins he projected back in March. Cowherd says twelve. Moe Moton has 11-6. The public skeptics are Chad Millman, who leaned under 10.5 in March, and Warren Sharp, who argues Seattle is "far from a lock for double-digit wins" and could be "battling for a Wild Card berth late in the season."

Division: the field is nearly unanimous. Richard Sherman ("to be the champs, you got to beat the champs. I got Seattle winning it again"), Danny Parkins ("the forgotten champions and running it back"), Wright, Cowherd and Adam Ray all have Seattle first in the NFC West. Chris Broussard is the notable dissent — Rams first, "I still have them making the playoffs. I just think they're not going to be quite as good as last year."

Two things temper the unanimity. First, this is the same crowd that got 2025 wrong in the other direction: the field's collective win-total miss on Seattle in 2025 was 5.0 games low across seven calls, the third-worst collective miss in our records. Geoff Schwartz projected 10-7 and scored 20; Brady Quinn had them 5-12 and scored 0. Second, Division Winners is where these particular pundits are historically weakest — Cowherd is at 5.88 accuracy over 53 graded division calls, Wright at 12.5 over 14. Picking the reigning champion in a division they just won is scored against a naive baseline that already says the same thing, so a correct pick here is worth very little.

Conference and title: JP Acosta has Seattle in his top tier of Super Bowl favorites alongside the Rams and Broncos. Eisen picks a Steelers–Seahawks final. Ray says back-to-back. Carter Bahns floats a third Rams–Seahawks meeting in January. Worth noting that the site's Seattle Super Bowl file grades at 100 average accuracy over 29 calls — because almost all of those calls were made in the two weeks before a game Seattle won. Picking the champion in early February is not the same skill as picking one in September.

Bottom line: the punditry on this team is a mile deep at three positions and an inch deep everywhere else. The confident calls — Darnold starts, Lock backs up, Price leads the backfield, Seattle wins the West — are also the cheapest calls, the ones a naive baseline gets right too. The genuinely exposed positions are Wright's 14-3, Clawson's 1,000 yards for Shaheed, and the pile of Offensive Rookie of the Year tickets on a first-round back with a torn-ACL veteran behind him. Those are the ones we'll be grading in January.