Do you know who had a good 2024? Jonnu Smith. After seven years of kicking from team to team in relative mediocrity, Smith landed in Miami this season with Mike McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa and put up career-best numbers across the board. 88 catches for 884 yards, eight touchdowns, and 55 first downs. Pretty good. Not enough to make the Pro Bowl, what with Brock Bowers and Travis Kelce ahead of him. But still, easily within the top ten in the league.
The Seattle Seahawks got almost the same production from the tight end position. But you have to add up all three of the Hawks who played there this season. And you still don’t quite match what Smith did all by his lonesome. Noah Fant has always had mouth-watering potential. A.J. Barner looks like he could build on his rookie campaign. And Pharaoh Brown – well, we’ll refer to him as a “savvy vet.” Still, taken as a whole, they’re not the equal of Jonnu Smith.
Actually, Fant had his best yardage season with Seattle, hitting the 500-yard mark. He had never failed to gain less than 550 yards when he was with the Broncos, but in Seattle, his production has fallen off. He missed a handful of games in 2024 and only found the end zone once. Fant is signed through 2025 and carries a cap hit just north of 14 million next season.
Three free agent tight ends the Seattle Seahawks should look at signing
The truth is, Seattle has barely incorporated a pass-catching tight end into the offensive scheme in many years. Those 500 yards Fant gained in 2024? That’s the first time a Hawks tight end has reached 500 since the days of Jimmy Graham almost a decade ago. Tight ends became an increasingly significant part of NFL passing attacks during that time, but Seattle must have missed the memo.
Will John Schneider look to upgrade the position this off-season? Or will he ride another year with Fant and a hopefully improved Barner? Is there a role for Brady Russell going forward? Tight end isn’t exactly a priority position precisely because Seattle has not relied on it for pass-catching for such a long time. But perhaps Macdonald, who saw how valuable a genuine weapon like Mark Andrews could be in Baltimore, might want to look for another playmaker to add to the tight end room.
If so, I’m here to help. This year’s crop of free agents is not very exciting but there is still talent to be found. As with all our early free agent previews, we’ll look at one high-end, one mid-level, and one bargain bin option for the Hawks to consider.
High End - Mike Gesicki, Cincinnati Bengals
It wasn’t that long ago that Gesicki was considered one of the better young receiving tight ends in the league. In 2020, with Miami, he averaged better than 13 yards per catch and scored six touchdowns. He followed that up with another solid season in 2021. He was franchise-tagged after that season, but in Mike McDaniel’s new offense, Gesicki’s production began to dip.
He signed as a free agent with New England for 2023 but failed to do very much with a bad offense. Gesicki was approaching 30 and it was looking like he might be done.
But he bounced back with the Bengals in 2024. He has always had impressive physical skills – length, size, speed – and running patterns alongside dynamic receivers like Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, Gesicki found new life. He caught 65 passes for 665 yards and had a couple of touchdowns and 38 first downs. Those were his best numbers since 2021 and despite typically being the third or fourth option on most plays, he still managed to be far more productive than any Hawks tight end.
If Seattle is able to settle its issues with DK Metcalf, it is not hard to project Gesicki doing something similar with the Hawks, complementing Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Gesicki is 29. Based on this past season, he should have one more three-year contract in his grasp.
Mid-Level - Tommy Tremble, Carolina Panthers
This may seem like a stretch for a player with Tremble’s history. He has played four seasons. He has caught 85 passes. With numbers like that, you might think he should be in the bargain bin. And maybe he should. But I think Tremble has a world of talent waiting to be unlocked. It is easy to write off his first few years because he played on one of the league’s worst offenses.
In his rookie season, four different QBs started games for the Panthers. None achieved a QBR above 40. If you’re not familiar with the metric, suffice it to say that’s terrible. It didn’t get much better in subsequent years.
2024 was supposed to be a breakout season for Tremble. It wasn’t. He showed the same flashes he has always shown, and he went over 10 yards per catch for the first time in his career, but he could not consistently produce. Coming out of Notre Dame, Tremble was seen as a quality blocker with the speed and hands to develop into a plus receiver. I still think he has that potential. It simply wasn’t going to happen in Carolina.
Could it happen in Seattle? Tremble is still just 24 years old. Pairing him with Barner could give Seattle two young tight ends who can both catch and block. Neither is going to be a star, but together, they could form the best tight end combo Seattle has had in a decade.
Bargain Bin - Kenny Yeboah, Ney York Jets
Kenny Yeboah came into the league as an undrafted free agent. The fact that he has lasted on an NFL roster for four seasons is an indication of how hard a worker he has been. For the Jets, he has rarely taken the field as a tight end. He has primarily been a special teams player. That is his floor. Wherever he signs in 2025, he will look to contribute to special teams in a major way.
But I’ve always liked Yeboah's skills as a receiver and I think he could become a sneaky weapon in the right situation. He transferred from Temple for a fifth college season at Ole Miss where he averaged a spectacular 19.4 yards per catch on 27 receptions. He scored six touchdowns.
The fact that he has never really shown anything approaching that skill level in the pros may be a sign that he does not have much of a ceiling aside from special teams. Or it may mean that he hasn’t been in a good situation. Much like Tommy Tremble, Yeboah has never played on a good offense as a pro.
Should he come to Seattle, Yeboah is not supplanting anyone on the depth chart on Day One. He would be in a battle with Russell for the final spot on the depth chart.
But I can envision a tight end room with a rejuvenated Gesicki, an improving Barner, and two young, hungry players like Russell and Yeboah looking for a chance to break out. Would that be an improvement over the 2024 tight end room? I’m no Nostradamus but I think it would be. It might even be better than Jonnu Smith.