The Seattle Seahawks have drafted well in the last two years. Well, we at least assume the 2023 class will be close to how good the 2022 version was. If that happens, Seattle is once again going to be a playoff team.
But whether the team makes a deep run in the postseason or not might be dependant on how well a few veterans play. And I'm not talking about the three guys Seattle took in 2021. It's almost difficult to believe that after what Seattle has done in the draft the last couple of years that they basically took a pass three drafts ago.
The four players that follow will hit free agency after the 2023 season. They have a lot riding on how well they do this season, but so does the team. If all play well, Seattle is going to win a lot of football games. If even two of them fail this year, the team will be held back some.
Seattle Seahawks left guard Damien Lewis
Lewis is an underrated left guard. He was graded as the 11th-best guard in the NFL in 2022, per Pro Football Focus (they require you to subscribe). While the Seattle offensive line had lots of issues at some spots in 2022, left guard wasn't one of them. In fact, Lewis probably made rookie left tackle better by next to him. Lewis allowed just 3 sacks and 19 total pressures in 634 pass-block snaps last year.
But Lewis needs to be just as good for Seattle's offensive line to be better this year (assuming whoever plays center and right guard are upgrades over 2022), and he needs to be great to help himself next offseason in free agency. The highest-paid 13 guards in the NFL this year will all make at least $10,132,000. The highest-paid guard overall is Kansas City's Joe Thuney who will make a whopping $22,116,250 in 2023.
I think that the Seahawks need to find a way to extend Lewis for a few years beyond the coming season. But it is going to cost the team a lot of money if Lewis is just as good in 2023 as 2022. Maybe Seattle will wait to see if Lewis can be very good again, and hopefully he is. But if he performs well, his asking price is going to be a lot but it also means he made the Seahawks better.
Seattle Seahawks running back DeeJay Dallas
All cards on the table, I'm a big fan of DeeJay Dallas. That's partly due to him being a bit of an underdog and him always having to work his way into the running back rotation. He's unlikely to ever be an RB1 in the NFL and the Seahawks certainly don't see him that way, but when asked to take on more reps than expected, Dallas puts 100 percent into trying to help the team win games.
Dallas was taken by Seattle in the fourth round of the 2020 draft. That's not overly low for a running back in today's NFL so he wasn't simply expected to come in and ride the bench. Seattle has asked Dallas to return kicks and punts, and he even started two games in 2020 after the rest of the Seahawks' main running backs were hurt.
That's part of the thing in Seattle, though, isn't it? The Seahawks have a recent unfortunate history of having RB1 or RB2 get hurt. Sometimes that's even RB3 as well. Heck, in 2022 little-known and midseason pickup Tony Jones had to take valuable reps for Seattle as Rashaad Penny, Kenneth Walker III, and Dallas all missed at least some amount of time while hurt.
But in the last two years, Dallas has missed two games and he's been one of the luckier Seattle RBs as he hasn't been injured much. But in his first three seasons, his carries per season go in this order: 34, 33, and 35. At some point this season, Seattle is likely going to need Dallas to take on more carries and he has shown in spurts that he can be a productive receiver out of the backfield and also run between the tackles.
Seattle Seahawks tight end Colby Parkinson
There hasn't been any question since the 2022 offseason who would fill the Seattle tight end room this year and, as expected, Parkinson, along with Will Dissly and Noah Fant, are the guys. Parkinson is more like Fant than Dissly, though Parkinson doesn't have the breakaway speed that Fant has flashed. Still, Parkinson can catch and in 2023 he could have a much better-than-expected season simply because opposing defenses are going to have to focus on lots of other things other than Parkinson.
Parkinson was banged-up to begin his career in 2020 and only played in six games. But in the last two seasons, he has missed a total of three and has actually started three games. His production took a big jump in 2022 as well. In 2021, he was only targeted 8 times and caught 5 of those targets for just 33 yards. But in 2022, he was targeted 34 times, just four fewer targets than Dissly, and had 25 catches for 322 yards (just 27 fewer yards than Dissly).
Parkinson is 6'7" so he is a big target. Once he catches the ball, he has a bit of elusiveness as well. He's also a better than expected blocker, especially in pass protection. He played at Stanford so he had to learn to run block there and just hasn't been asked to run block all that much in the NFL.
Both Parkinson and Noah Fant are in the walk years of their current contracts. Both are going to want to showcase what they can do to earn their next contracts. But if Parkinson continues his upswing from last year, he could get to 50 catches and 700 yards and 6 touchdowns in 2023. That would make the rest of the offense better, too.
Seattle Seahawks linebacker Jordyn Brooks
Jordyn Brooks was a first-round draft pick in 2020 and in his first couple of seasons, he proved to be a great tackler with excellent speed who could chase down ball carriers from sideline to sideline. But he wasn't overly productive in pass rush, however, and he only has 6 quarterback hits in his career - 3 in each of the last two seasons. And Brooks was pretty horrible in coverage.
In fact, in 2021, Brooks allowed 77 receptions when he was targeted 96 times in coverage for a ridiculous 865 yards. Last year, he allowed 54 catches on 75 targets which was a slightly better completion percentage against (though a still bad 72.0 percent), but he allowed more yards per completion (12.8), and more touchdowns (5).
Brooks simply seems like a one-note linebacker at this point: He can tackle well. But he can't cover receivers and hasn't shown the versatility to pressure opposing quarterbacks. He is also injured, of course, to begin the season as he suffered a knee injury late in the 2022 season. He might be ready sooner than expected, but how much of his speed returns right away remains to be seen.
The positive is that if Brooks is ready to play at some point in 2023, he won't have the duty of setting the defensive alignments as Bobby Wagner has returned after a one year absence and Wagner will take on the responsibility of giving out the defensive play-calls. Maybe this will free Brooks to do what he does best, but he also needs to be a lot more versatile to earn a huge next contract.