The Seattle Seahawks are just days away from the 2025 NFL draft, and the team has one glaring need. That would be the offensive line, of course. This is the same issue Seattle has had for over a decade. Expecting it to be suddenly fixed in this year's draft is probably hoping for too much.
The team might have created another need this offseason, one it has not had in years. Before this offseason, the Seahawks' wide receiver corps was one of the team's strengths and arguably one of the best units in the league. This offseason, however, the team traded DK Metcalf and released Tyler Lockett.
In their place, Seattle signed free agents Cooper Kupp and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Both Kupp and MVS are over 30 years old so that they won't be long-time players in a Seattle uniform. If the team can get three good seasons out of both, that would be a huge win.
Are the Seahawks wide receiver group going to turn from strength into weakness in 2025?
This might mean that the Seahawks need to take a wide receiver with one of their three draft picks in the first two rounds. Unfortunately, the receiver class is not particularly deep in 2025 and doesn't seem to have many, if any, receivers who are sure to be impactful players.
Seattle better hope that the 2025 signees are productive because the team might not be able to find a high-end young receiver until 2026. Maybe that was all part of the plan, of course. Kupp and MVS are bridge receivers, while Jaxon Smith-Njigba is a true WR1.
NFL analyst Chris Simms almost seemed a bit angry with what the Seahawks need to do in the draft when he addressed the situation on Pro Football Talk. Sure, like everyone else who has ever seen a football game, Simms knows Seattle needs to try to fix the offensive line, but he isn't high on the Seattle wide receiver corps either.
Simms said, "I know Marquez Valdez-Scantling had a good end of the year with the Saints last year and all that. But (the Seahawks shouldn't) be like, 'Oh, we're good. We got Valdez-Scantling, who's been on six different teams'...I'm embellishing a little bit in the last three or four years, and he had a good five or six game run (in 2024)...nor would I want to hang my hat on Cooper Kupp and where he is at in his career, that would scare me a little bit."
Of course, there could be a relatively secret weapon for the Seahawks beginning this season. Klint Kubiak is the new offensive coordinator, and he likes to get his tight ends involved. This might mean that Noah Fant, who appears capable of goodness when catching the ball, moves up to what is WR3.
AJ Barner also might be ready to break out as a receiver. As former OCs Ryan Grubb and Shane Waldron seemed to forget about tight ends at times, Kubiak using the group better might mean Seattle has a deeper receiving group instead of a thinner one.