Seahawks Jordyn Brooks appears ready for breakout season

Jordyn Brooks will start at linebacker for the Seahawks in 2021. Based on how he has looked in the preseason, he seems ready to be a star. Not only that but Brooks like the perfect kind of linebacker because he doesn’t seem to care if it’s a preseason game, backyard game or week one of the NFL season; Brooks goes all out all the time.

On Saturday versus the Broncos, Brooks was one of the lone bright spots for the Seahawks early in the game. Brooks had five tackles in the first quarter and showed speed and very good tackling ability. At one point in the game, Brooks made three straight tackles and not because the Broncos kept running the same play at him but because Brooks was able to sniff out where the play was going.

Jordyn Brooks is a lot more like Bobby Wagner than K.J. Wright was when Wright was in Seattle and Brooks will likely move into Wagner’s spot whenever Wagner does leave the Seahawks but in 2021 Brooks is going to do Wright things more than Wagner things.

This means Wagner will still be calling out the defensive alignment and Brooks will be in coverage more. Brooks is decent in coverage but he isn’t Wright. Not yet anyway. K.J. Wright was probably the best player I have ever seen at breaking up screen passes. Brooks might never ever do that.

So what does Brooks bring to Seattle that Wright didn’t? Speed and tackling ability. Wright was a good tackler but missed 14.8 percent of his attempted tackles in 2018 and 10.4 percent in 2020. As a rookie in 2020, Brooks missed just 5 percent of his tackles. Once Brooks is near a runner that runner is going to go down. Limiting yards and yards after a catch is extremely important and this is something that Brooks probably has the capability of doing even better than Wright ever could.

Wright is outgoing and a good person. Brooks might also be a good person but he is much more business-like when it comes to his approach to football. Brooks is going to produce big tackling numbers and probably more in 2022 than in 2021 and could be a Pro Bowler starting in 2023 for many years.

At some point, the Brooks to Wright comparison won’t matter because it will become a Brooks to Wagner comparison. Jordyn Brooks is going to be a very good player in Seattle for many years and starting in 2021 he will have a massive and positive impact for the Seahawks on the field.