Young Seahawks that could make huge impact in 2021

Future Seahawks defensive stars

Jordyn Brooks – linebacker – 23 years old

How can a first round draft pick be flying under the radar? Well, go ask fans of other NFL teams about Brooks and they will not be able to tell you much if anything. Having been thrust into a starting role earlier than planned, due to the Bruce Irvin injury, Brooks just got better and better as his rookie season progressed.

Brooks goes under the radar as he is a tackling machine rather than a sack master. As a result, he tends not to appear on highlight reels, but just does his job really well. He only had 6.5 sacks in 46 games at Texas Tech but amassed 360 tackles in those games, and 32 tackles for a loss.

With K.J.Wright, Bobby Wagner and Carlos Dunlap around, he went relatively un-noticed outside of Seattle last season, they certainly will notice him in 2021.

Darrell Taylor – defensive end – 24 years old

Taylor was the second round pick of the Seahawks last year, but missed the whole of his rookie season due to injury, having missed the combine prior to the draft, again due to injury. As a result, the rest of the league and most of the media outlets have already written Taylor off as a draft bust.

Big mistake, prior to his selection in the draft, NFL.com commented that he was a developmental player that was likely to be a starter in his second season. All of that is still true, just delayed by a year.

In his second season, and hopefully his first healthy season, he will be allowed to develop as part of a deep rotation including Dunlap, Hyder, Smith, Mayowa and fellow 2020 draft selection Alton Robinson. I would not expect many sightings of Taylor until the latter half of the forthcoming season, but he has the potential to develop into a starting defensive end for the 2022 season.