3 Seattle Seahawks players who must step up in the 2024 NFL season

Training camp for the Seattle Seahawks begins in full on Tuesday. This is when veterans report. Rookies are already getting some work in camp.

Unlike the previous 13 training camps (the year after Pete Carroll became head coach), the team will be implementing completely new plans offensively and defensively. Players will need to show up, work hard, and, well...learn hard. Every player has a chance to prove to the new staff what they can do.

However, the three players that follow definitely need to keep proving themselves during the season. They need to show they can be important cogs in the Seahawks' machine not just this year but well beyond. If they fail, especially two of them, Seattle will be in a bad place next season, too.

3 Seattle Seahawks players who must step up in the 2024 NFL Season

Defensive lineman Dre'Mont Jones

There is no way around the fact that Jones was a failure in his first season with the team after being signed as a free agent last offseason. His sacks and tackles for loss dipped to their lowest since his rookie year in 2019. According to Pro Football Focus (paywall alert), his pass rush grade in 2023 was the worst of his career.

The question is whether he was the problem or the scheme. Jones wasn't the only defensive player to not meet expectations last year; most of the entire defense did. That includes defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt who appeared incapable of adjusting to what opposing offenses were wanting to do against Seattle's D. Hurtt also did not try to move Jones to the outside more until late in the season when Jones seemed to improve.

The lineman has reportedly been getting a few snaps at edge rusher this offseason, and the way Mike Macdonald will use him will certainly be different than Hurtt and Pete Carroll. Jones has the fourth-highest cap number on the team in 2024 and 2025. He needs to earn his contract this year - better against the pass and the run with a big increase in sacks - or he might not be back next season.

Center Olu Oluwatimi

The center position needs to belong to Oluwatimi and needs to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Last year's offensive coaching staff did the team nor the player any favors by not playing him more when starting center Evan Brown was playing poorly. Plus, in limited reps, Oluwatimi appeared to do decently and he only gave up one pressure in 70 pass-block snaps.

Still, he is basically a rookie all over again as he only appeared in four games and played just 128 snaps. He was chosen last year to be the offensive line's anchor for the foreseeable future and then Carroll and former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron wasted a season. Had Evan Brown been good then fine, but he wasn't and Seattle should made a change to see if that helped last year.

Oluwatimi seems to be the clear favorite in training camp to earn the starting gig in 2024 as his competition is Nick Harris who didn't play much in previous seasons with the Cleveland Browns. If the second-year player can't beat out Harris then Oluwatimi would seem to be a wasted draft pick. Or, he could be a Pro Bowler in a couple of years...he was that good in college.

Wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba

At the beginning of JSN's rookie season, he was coming off a broken bone in his wrist that he suffered in a preseason game and this appeared to set him back some. He certainly was not used correctly by Waldron as he wasn't sent down the field much until midway through the year. Waldron must have thought Smith-Njigba was the second coming of Dee Eskridge.

Thankfully, JSN's role changed a bit as the season wore on and he became a more versatile threat. He still dropped too many passes - 10, which was the fourth-highest in the league - but again, he was a rookie. He should improve in that facet as his career continues.

The Seahawks should hope that JSN begins to grow into the WR2 role this year as Tyler Lockett is probably close to the end of his career. The future top duo will be DK Metcalf and JSN. Luckily, Smith-Njigba should be a perfect fit in new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb's system.

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