3 Seattle Seahawks players facing an uphill battle at 2024 training camp

The Seattle Seahawks begin training camp on July 17. That is, at least, when rookies report. Veterans will not have to show up until July 23. There are no players expected to hold out.

The fun for 12s will be in watching the position battles develop over the course of camp plus in the preseason. The team must cut the active roster down from 90 to 53 by the start of the season. This means almost half the players on the team currently will need to go. Some, of course, will catch on with the practice squad.

Three players that need to have great training camps are as follows. All have been with Seattle for a couple of years, but with the new coaching staff, they need to prove themselves worthy of a roster spot all over again. All three could be released before the season with bad camps.

Three Seahawks who might have tough times staying on Seattle's roster

Safety Coby Bryant

Bryant's real strength is his versatility, but the issue is that he isn't good enough to hold down any one spot. He began his career as a slot corner, and he wasn't awful, but there did not seem much upside in leaving him long-term at the position either. This was made moot when Seattle chose Devon Witherspoon in the 2023 draft and Bryant had no home.

Seattle moved Bryant to safety in last year's training camp and he showed enough to be a backup but with the hopes he would never actually take on meaningful snaps. Should that happen, the Seahawks would likely have not only tried to find a replacement for the starter who had gotten injured but for Bryant as well.

If Bryant is going to make the team, he probably will be a safety. He certainly has no chance at cornerback anymore after Seattle took D.J. James and Nehemiah Pritchett in the 2024 draft. Seattle's starters at safety will be Rayshawn Jenkins and Julian Love, while K'Von Wallace will probably be the backup at either spot. Bryant's main competition to stay on the roster is likely Jerrick Reed II.

Defensive tackle Myles Adams

Seattle has several players who are certain to make the team along the defensive line. This includes Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Jarran Reed, and Dre'Mont Jones. Everyone else is hoping to prove they are worthy of a backup spot. Veteran Johnathan Hankins will likely make the team to help on early downs. This likely only leaves one or two more spots.

The positive part for Adams is that no one he might battle with to make the active roster has proven to be a good NFL player yet. Mike Morris was a rookie last year and missed most of the season with an injury. He did play under Mike Macdonald for a year at Michigan, however, so Macdonald would know Morris's strengths and weaknesses.

Cam Young was a rookie last year as well, but he didn't get many reps. He appears to be more of a true nose tackle, while Adams is more of a defensive tackle. The strange thing is that while Adams is 6'2" and 285 pounds, and one might assume he would be good against the run, he has been atrocious in that regard but decent in getting pressure on quarterbacks. In just 61 pass rush snaps in 2023, he got six pressures.

Cornerback Artie Burns

Burns is an odd player. It is also easy to forget he was a former first-round draft pick for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2016 and after washing out with the Steelers in 2019, Burns has been a bit of a football nomad. In the last two years, he has played for the Seahawks but only got one start and rarely saw the field otherwise. Still, he does nothing terribly including being decent in run support.

Of course, that is the best of what can be said about Burns. There is no, "He is terrific at this!" Simply more of, "Well, he's not bad enough to not keep around." According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Burns has solid-to-good grades in nearly every category - run defense, tackling, pass coverage, pass rush - since 2019 but he does nothing special enough to warrant getting more playing time.

Burns, like Bryant if Bryant had stuck at cornerback, is likely the odd-man-out at cornerback. He is 29 years old, which is not ancient but he is the oldest player in his position group. Even sometime starters Tre Brown and Mike Jackson will be working hard to keep their jobs with the team adding James and Pritchett. Burns simply might be pushed out due to the glut of players at his position.

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