5 Seattle Seahawks players entering the last chance saloon in 2024
By Lee Vowell
The Seattle Seahawks are only a summer away from beginning the 2024 season. That won't be too long for 12s to wait, though it might seem like an eternity. This season's team might be more exciting at the beginning simply because of all the offseason changes.
In other words, we cannot be too sure what the team will look like. 12s have gotten used to the same bad linebacker coverage and excellent receiver play, but Seattle will have new schemes that could fix the linebacker issue and use the receivers in different ways.
Even a little improvement should get the Seahawks back to the playoffs. The team barely missed making the postseason again in 2023. To help make the team better, the following five players need to have good seasons.
Darrell Taylor - Seattle Seahawks edge rusher
There is a decent chance that Taylor does not even make the Seahawks roster in 2024, of course, but after Seattle did not choose an edge rusher in the 2024 draft Taylor appears destined to be on the team. This must partly be due to new head coach Mike Macdonald seeing something in Taylor he can mold. Otherwise, Taylor has been wretched against the run in his career and an inconsistent pass-rusher.
Taylor is going to need to prove to Macdonald and general manager John Schneider that he will be better this season under new direction. While he seems incapable of truly being good in run support and gets pushed back and run over a lot, maybe this is simply because he has not understood exactly what was needed from him. Taylor lacks the upper-body strength to hold his own against offensive linemen, but maybe coaches will tell him to get stronger this offseason.
But Taylor also needs to prove he can translate the new coaching into more consistent play. He has 21.5 sacks in his career in 49 games but he only has sacks in 20 of those games. He tends to get pressure on opposing quarterbacks in spurts and then has stretches of games where he cannot do anything. Taylor has yet to show he can be counted on to be a foundational piece of Seattle's defense.