The Seattle Seahawks have always been a bit of an odd team under head coach Pete Carroll, right? Even in the years the team was great - the mid-2010s - the team still had games where they would snatch victory from the jaws of death. Sure, Seattle blew out several teams, but sometimes they just played down to their competition.
But as the seasons since 2010 have passed and Seattle has remained a pretty decent team for the most part, forgiving Carroll for some of his coaching sins - bad timeouts, poor defensive trends that have not changed - has been easy to do. 12s could assume Seattle would win the majority of its games and the world would be right.
But slowly, Seattle began to drift away from being a championship contender and then the team beached in 2021 at 7-10. 2022 provided a band-aid as the Seahawks were far better than many expected. But 2023 has been closer to 2021 and maybe simply who the Seahawks are under Pete Carroll at this point. More on that in a minute.
DK Metcalf is truly Seattle's WR1 for better or worse
I recently wrote about the Seahawks maybe needing to move on from Tyler Lockett after 2023 because Lockett is an aging receiver whose cap hit explodes in 2024. A lot of 12s were upset by my saying that and I understand that. Lockett is a great person and has been a very good receiver for Seattle. I do not want to see him go, either, but Seattle would save $7 million next year by removing Lockett's contract.
Lockett will be 32 years old early in 2024 and in 2023 he is tied for his career-low in yards per catch (10.5), is on pace to have his fewest touchdown catches since 2017, has his lowest catch rate since 2017 (67.8 percent), and is averaging the fewest yards per target (7.1) of his career. And in many ways, DK Metcalf has overtaken him as the clear WR1 on Seattle's team (while Jaxon Smith-Njigba could replace Lockett's production).
Metcalf, while very inconsistent, trails Lockett in receptions this year (59 to 49), but Metcalf has nearly 200 more receiving yards (812 to 622) than Lockett, more touchdowns (6 to 4), and more yards per target (9.2 to 7.1). Metcalf does a lot more with what he gets than Lockett does. Metcalf also is having his best season in yards per catch (16.6).
Does DK Metcalf need to learn to use his size even more to get open? Yes. But Metcalf is going to be a Seahawk much longer than Lockett will and 12s just need to hope Metcalf gets even better.