The moves that general manager John Schneider made during the 2025 offseason might have seemed self-defeating at the time, but the Seattle Seahawks GM always knows more than the average fan and fellow NFL executive. His trade of DK Metcalf to the Pittsburgh Steelers, for instance, helped allow Jaxon Smith-Njigba to be his best.
Maybe Seattle only received a second-round choice back for Metcalf (Seattle also received a seventh-round selection but traded a sixth-round choice along with the receiver so that's a breakeven), but that second-rounder was packaged to move up in the 2025 draft to take a transformative player. More on that in a minute.
As for Metcalf, he was astonishingly underwhelming for the Steelers in 2025. He had 59 catches for 850 yards (the latter a career low) and six touchdowns. He received a huge extension after being dealt to Pittsburgh, and then immediately let his team down.
Seattle Seahawks are still far better off without DK Metcalf
He was also suspended late in the season for getting into an altercation with a Detroit Lions fan. The lead-up to that is somewhat murky, but the bottom line is that an NFL player hitting a fan is a very bad mark for the league. Metcalf is lucky he wasn't suspended for longer.
So far in 2026, Metcalf has continued on his trek to be nowhere near as good as the Steelers hoped. He had a good game in Week 4 with 115 yards receiving, but he still caught just five of his nine targets and didn't score a touchdown in a 27-24 loss to the Cleveland Browns.
Those 115 yards were more than his first three games combined. He has caught just 48 percent of his targets, has one touchdown, and is currently on pace to finish the season with 68 catches, 905 yards receiving, and four touchdowns. Solid numbers normally, but relatively little for a player getting paid $33 million a season.
The second-round choice that the Seattle Seahawks got back for Metcalf ended up being Nick Emmanwori. Seattle moved up to pick 35 to grab the defensive back, but couldn't have done so had they not traded Metcalf. 12s don't need to be asked who they would rather have: Metcalf or Emmanwori. The answer is clearly the latter.
Plus, Metcalf not needing his pass target with Seattle (if he didn't get them, he often sulked) meant Jaxon Smith-Njigba was going to get even more. JSN became the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year the season after Metcalf was dealt, and that isn't a coincidence.
Could DK Metcalf tick up quite a bit in production? Of course, but he is limited by an old quarterback and Metcalf's own limited route tree. His team probably won't make the playoffs this year or next, and that's fine. He might feel bad knowing that Seattle was good enough to win a Super Bowl the season following his departure.
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