Summer series: Seattle Seahawks

By: Josh Frey-Sam

There’s an unreleased book that Mike Dugar proudly displays in his Seattle home office: The Franchise, which is a series of essays about the Seahawks’ Legion of Boom era collected and curated into a 256-page read.

The book, Dugar explains, is filled with different perspectives from players and coaches about important moments throughout one of the most thrilling eras in the franchise’s history.

One is about Malcom Butler’s goal-line interception thrown by Russell Wilson in Super Bowl XLIX.

“There were different perspectives on it — both good and bad. I asked someone like Doug Baldwin, ‘What did you think of the play call?’ and he’s like, ‘Man, I heard that, I’m like, What the hell are we doing?’ And then I asked Ricardo Lockette, and he’s like, ‘Mike, that was a great call. I was about to get the game-winning catch in the Super Bowl!’

Dugar — whose book releases August 12, by the way — suggested that the differing views from that inflection point in the franchise can be applied to the 2025 Seahawks, a team that, depending on who you ask, can elicit different perspectives on what this season holds.

Welcome to the Back Bacon Brief summer series, where I talk to a local media member from all 32 NFL teams to get an all-encompassing preview about each club heading into the 2025-26 season.

Today, we look at the Seattle Seahawks, and I spoke with beat writer Mike Dugar (@MikeDugar on X) to find out everything going on in the Emerald City.

You can listen to the full interview here.

Here’s what Mike means when he talks about the different sentiments around the Seahawks:

“These guys on the defence believe they have the capability of being the best defence in the league,” he said.

Seattle was a top-five defence in opponent points per drive in 2024 and appears to have only gotten better this year. They return most of last year’s starters and bolstered some positions through free agency and the draft.

Veteran defensive end Demarcus Lawrence provides a steady presence along the front-four deployed by head coach Mike McDonald, while rookie safety Nick Emmanwori, selected in the second round, looks like he could develop into the Seahawks’ version of Kyle Hamilton.

“The defence’s perspective is, ‘We’re championship calibre. We were good last year. We had some momentum toward the end of the year. We’re bringing everyone back. We upgraded a few spots. This is Year 2 in our play-callers scheme. Let’s rock and roll,’” Dugar said.

“The offence, understandably, can’t be as openly optimistic.”

That is where the change lies on this team.

McDonald fired offensive co-ordinator Ryan Grubb after one season and replaced him with Klint Kubiak, who brings a more proven system to the team.

Pillars of the offence are also gone. Geno Smith is in Las Vegas. DK Metcalf was shipped to Pittsburgh. Tyler Lockett was released.

There are questions marks replacing them. Sure, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is still there and now the clear-cut WR1, but now he’s joined by Cooper Kupp. They will be catching passes from Sam Darnold.

Not to mention, the jury is still out on this offensive line, which was horrific in 2024 and only received an upgrade at left guard with the addition of first-round draft pick Grey Zabel.

“The offence in terms of sentiment is far more curious and blindly optimistic,” Dugar said. “Everything is still in flux. They’re confident, but there’s a difference between being confident because it looks good on paper versus where the defence is confident because they’ve been out there and went to war together.”

The Seahawks’ success, as it does with every team, depends on their quarterback. Darnold is coming off a career year with the Vikings and secured a major three-year, $100.5 million bag because of it.

However, Dugar and I agree that Darnold is a downgrade from Geno.

“I think Sam Darnold has been better than I would’ve thought. I’m one of those people who still believe Geno to Sam is a downgrade in talent,” he said.

Dugar, who attended Washington State, played against Darnold and USC during their college days, so he believes he’s got a pretty good bead on the Seahawks quarterback.

“He’s not forcing anything. He’s making generally good decisions. because the thing with Sam is — and I’m curious to see this when the pads come on — when things start to go south, we’ve seen in his career that his low is real low,” he said.

I wondered how long the leash for Darnold would be this year. Keep in mind, the Hawks also drafted Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe in the third round. Milroe certainly has a long way to go before being a viable starter, but he’s still made some waves in training camp based on his raw talent.

“I think he has a decently long leash. Anything can happen because, like I said, his floor is pretty low,” said Dugar, who referenced the Atlanta Falcons situation with Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr. last season.

“If Sam plays like (Cousins did), then yeah, I think they could give Milroe a shot,” he said.

“I think that Jalen has to develop his arm and his processing a lot more to get that shot,” he added. “Sam has a decent leash, but again, it really just depends on how bad it gets. If it’s just not outstanding, I think he stays in there. If he’s the reason they’re losing games, then yeah, I think the noise will be loud, not only for Jalen, but maybe even Drew Lock.”

We went a few different routes for the fantasy-related question. I started with whether Cooper Kupp is someone people are sleeping on this season.

“I’m not drafting Cooper, and it’s not because I don’t think Cooper is good… he’s a good player for the Seahawks, but fantasy, you want consistency,” Dugar said.

“I could see Cooper being very similar (to Tyler Lockett). I don’t think he’ll be a high-volume target guy, which is obviously an issue in fantasy.”

Then I asked about rookie tight end Elijah Arroyo, who appears to have a chance to assume a large role in the Hawks’ offence after Noah Fant’s release.

“I think it really depends on Sam… but right now I wouldn’t roll the dice on Arroyo,” he said. “Honestly, if I were going to go with a Seahawks tight end, I would probably go with AJ Barner.”

Here’s another one for you on the way out: keep an eye on rookie fifth-round pick Tory Horton. Daniel Jeremiah recently marked him as one of his rookie picks to be an immediate contributor this year, and I couldn’t agree more. He was one of my favourite Day 3 picks this year, and I can see a real path to him assuming the WR2 role over Kupp by the end of the season.

Dugar likes over 7.5 wins for the Hawks this season, and I agree. I think this team is, quite frankly, too talented to go under this number.

Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Josh