Through most of the early 2010s, the Seattle Seahawks were a slightly top-heavy team as far as talent goes. There were a bunch of great players but once 2015 rolled around, the drafts were beginning to dry up a bit. By 2021, the team had started to lose some good, but aging, talent and there needed to be a bit of a rebuild.
While the rebuild is still underway some, Seattle appears to be getting good again fairly quickly. The 2022 draft produced some immediately productive players and we probably haven't seen how deep that draft actually goes. Players like Boye Mafe or Tyreke Smith could be in for breakout seasons this year.
The 2023 draft also appears to be a good one, but we won't truly know how good (or disappointing) the players the Seahawks picked up this offseason are until real games begin. But besides expecting players such as Jaxon Smith-Njigba to be on the roster, some other players could make the 53-man squad and be surprisingly impactful as well.
Mario Edwards, Jr. - Seahawks defensive end
Mario Edwards, Jr. might seem like a cheap free-agent pickup to try to help fill out the roster. But he could also end up being a starter in several games. I am not saying Edwards is a better defensive end than Jarran Reed or Dre'Mont Jones but Edwards might do one thing better than either Reed or Jones and that is stop the run. Edwards is an early down player who can set a hard edge playing the run.
Every year since Edwards' rookie season of 2015 that he has played at least 50 percent of his teams' snaps, he has had a plus-run defense grade, per Pro Football Reference (subscription required). This includes 2022 when Edwards was with the Tennessee Titans when he had a good grade of 72.7 Edwards also had 34 total quarterback pressures, so just in case an opposing team does drop back tp pass on first down, Edwards can help a bit there.
The majority of snaps will likely go to Reed or Jones. If Edwards does take reps away from someone it will probably be Reed. But Edwards should be a valuable part of a defense end rotation that helps Seattle be much better against the run this season.
Jake Bobo - Seahawks wide receiver
The Seattle Seahawks seem to have fixed their WR3 issue for now. Choosing Jaxon Smith-Njigba not only should help immediately but long-term, especially if and when Tyler Lockett (he will be 31 years old during the 2023 season) begins to slow down. Eventually, the Seattle wide receiver duo will be Metcalf and Smith-Njigba. But Jake Bobo could supply depth to the Seattle receiving room for quite some time.
Bobo is 6'4" and 210 pounds so he has good height. He also can catch well. According to his UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, Bobo is a fantastic route-runner who works his tail off in practice to try to get even better. What Bobo doesn't have is elite speed which is probably why he went undrafted this year.
But Bobo can do two things well to make the Seattle roster. One is to prove he can be a red zone threat. He has the size to do and the hands, but can he go up and get contested catches because he doesn't likely have the speed to break away from corners in short-yardage situations.
Bobo started his college career at Duke and played four years there. A coaching change led him to enter the transfer portal and he went to UCLA for the 2022 season. In his years at Duke, he had only 3 touchdown receptions, but in 2022 with the Bruins, he had 7. So the scheme or quarterback talent at Duke didn't allow him to be his best, while Kelly seemed to use him better. Now maybe going to an NFL team with a quarterback like Geno Smith, Bobo can be one of the few players that is much more productive as a pro than in college.
Jerrick Reed II - Seahawks safety
Jerrick Reed has a lot in common with Quandre Diggs. Both are about the same size - 5'9" and around 200 pounds - and both have good quickness if not outright Olympic speed. Both players in college played cornerback and some safety. Of course, the main difference now is that Diggs has made himself from a player without a true home coming into the NFL into one of the better safeties in the league.
Reed, however and like Digs, will not back down when challenged. He plays bigger than he is and isn't afraid to stick his nose in and make a tackle. He had 182 combined tackles in his final two years. And there's something about his tenacity that the Seahawks brass absolutely loved in pre-draft interviews. So much so that a player that could have been undrafted Seattle chose to take in the sixth round as they didn't want another team sneaking in and taking him.
Reed is going to first half to make his name on special teams. There's no place for him right now at safety or at cornerback. But that doesn't mean he will come into training camp acting like he doesn't deserve to start somewhere.
If Reed can, and he likely will, prove his worth on special teams, he's going to get a chance to have a few reps at safety or slot corner. He can force turnovers, so as long as he doesn't try to do too much on a play so that he gets out of position, he should be solid. Heck, as injured as Seattle's safeties get during the season (see: Jamal Adams), Reed could even end up being a spot starter at times.
Austin Faoliu - Seahawks nose tackle
Seattle, as everyone likely knows, needs to find the guy who is going to play in between Dre'Mont Jones and Jarran Reed (or possibly Mario Edwards is playing end sometimes). The Seahawks did choose Cameron Young out of Mississippi State in the 2023 draft and Young has already bulked up some in anticipation of fighting for the starting nose tackle job. But Austin Faoliu is going to want to stake claim to that spot as well.
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Faoliu has a tiny bit of time in the NFL. He played in one game for the Dallas Cowboys in 2021 and made two tackles. He didn't play in the league last year and most recently played with the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL. With the Sea Dragons, Faoliu was named to the All-XFL team after playing 10 games, getting one sack, and making 24 tackles.
The key to being a successful nose tackle for the Seahawks is to eat up blockers and letting the linebackers clean up the running backs. Faoliu won't need to have 50 tackles and 5 sacks. He likely isn't capable of that anyway, but he does have the size - he is 6'3" and 290 pounds - to battle on the inside of the defensive line.
Seattle probably won't keep more than two nose tackles on the 53-man roster. Cam Young is almost a sure-thing to make the team. The Seahawks currently have six nose tackles on the 90-man roster trying to make the team. Faoliu could be one of the two on the final roster and has a decent chance of being the Week 1 sta