The Cleveland Browns fly to Seattle to play the Seahawks in Week 8. The Seattle Seahawks will be wearing throwback jerseys and bringing back the glory years of the 1990s. Oh, wait. That was probably Seattle's worst decade. Oh, well, 1990s throwbacks it is.
Seattle also announced on Friday that the throwback jerseys will be worn in Week 13 as well. That game, however, will be on the road against the Dallas Cowboys. Let's hope Seattle wins in Week 8 or they might not want to be wear the throwbacks again.
Throwing it to the future a bit, CBS Sports has put out its latest mock draft and Seattle gets an interesting player. More on that in just a second. But of note from the mock draft, CBS Sports has four quarterbacks going in the first round overall, but three of them will go in the first six picks. Seattle won't have a top six pick.
CB Sports mocks Michael Penix, Jr. to the Seattle Seahawks in the 2024 NFL draft
The fourth quarterback that CBS Sports has going in the first round, however, is University of Washington quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. and the network mocks Penix to the Seahawks. In seven games this year for the Huskies, Penix has thrown 20 touchdown passes against 5 interceptions and has a quarterback rating of 176.6. He also averages a ridiculous 10.0 yards per pass attempt. Basically, Penix isn't afraid to go deep often and he throws an excellent deep ball.
Penix is coming off his worst game of the season, however. Against a not-great Arizona State team, Penix completed 27 of 42 passes but no touchdowns and 2 interceptions.
While Penix puts excellent rotation on his passes and there is no question to his arm strength, he has a few things going against him. One is that he will turn 24 years old just after the 2024 NFL draft and that's on the older side for a drafted quarterback. He's also left-handed which changes the way an offense operates a bit. Lastly, while Penix has been relatively healthy since leaving Indiana for Washington in 2022, he does have a fairly long injury history.
CBS Sports thinks Penix gets taken by the Seahawks and learns from Geno Smith for a year. That would mean by the time he starts in 2025, Penix will be 25. Again, not old for a human, but for a quarterback just beginning his NFL career the age might factor into some teams not taking him.
PFF doesn't like the Seattle safeties
The Seahawks' defense overall seems much better than in several years past. Before the season, many talked about how deep Seattle's secondary would be with the addition of rookie cornerback Devon Witherspoon and Jamal Adams coming back. In the past three games, Seattle hasn't allowed more than 168 yards through the air in any single game. The argument could be made that Seattle has faced a few bad quarterbacks, but then that wouldn't be true because Seattle played Joe Burrow of the Bengals in Week 6.
In the first three games of the season, Seattle allowed at least 316 passing yards in each contest. It should be noted, however, that Jamal Adams did not return fully until Week 6. Plus, Witherspoon missed the first game of the year and Riq Woolen was still working his way back from a knee injury he suffered in minicamp. Also, Quandre Diggs and Julian Love didn't start the season playing very well.
This has factored into Pro Football Focus's (subscription required) grading of Seattle's safeties. Adams has a grade of 64.9 and that would rank 42nd in the NFL had he played enough snaps to qualify. The issue is that Adams' grade is almost 5 points higher than Seattle's second-highest-graded safety, Julian Love. Love is 60th overall in the league. Quandre Diggs is worse at 72.
The weird part is we can see with our own eyes and tell from the statistics that opposing offenses have put up for at least half the season so far that Seattle's safeties are not as bad as PFF's grades. Adams coming back has helped a bunch, but Diggs and Love are also playing better than they were in the first couple of games.
National media makes its picks (and so do I) for Week 8
Seattle and Cleveland's Week 8 matchup is an interesting one for many reasons. For instance, the Browns won't have QB1 Deshaun Watson and might not have running back Jerome Ford. But Watson hasn't been good this year and Cleveland is still 4-2. That's because the Browns have a fantastic and well-rounded defense that doesn't appear to have any obvious weakness.
The Seahawks are also 4-2 but they haven't had a consistent set of pieces for their offensive line all season. Also, Geno Smith has turned the ball over a couple more times this year than he did at the same time last year. At least Seattle's defense has been better than expected and that has allowed Seattle to be a couple of backup quarterbacks and a bad Giants team while also defeating for good Lions team in Detroit.
So Week 8 could simply come down to which defense is better and which quarterback turns the ball over less. I think Geno Smith does just enough and Seattle runs the ball fairly well while the Seahawks defense limits the Browns offense and Seattle wins 16-12. Here are some other thoughts from national and Seattle media.
- Bob Condotta (Seattle Times): Seattle 20 Cleveland 13
- Larry Stone (Seattle Times): Seattle 24 Cleveland 17
- Pete Prisco (CBS Sports): Cleveland (no score given)
- Will Brinson (CBS Sports): Seattle (no score given)
- Brooke Cersosimo (NFL.com): Seattle 24 Cleveland 16
- Ali Bhanpuri (NFL.com): Seattle 23 Cleveland 18
- Mike Florio (NBC Sports): Seattle 23 Cleveland 20
- Chris Simms (NBC Sports): Seattle 20 Cleveland 17