2022 State (Rank)
Points per game: 23.9 (9th)
Total yards per game: 351.5 (13th)
Plays per game: 61 (23rd)
Pass Attempts + Sacks per game: 34.9 (16th)
Dropback EPA per play: .060 (11th)
Rush attempts per game: 25 (22nd)
Rush EPA per play: -0.071 (19th)
Coaching Staff
Pete Carroll, at a spry 71 years old, still punishing chewing gum, enters his 14th season as Seattle’s head coach. Carroll is fresh off a season of vindication: The Seahawks chose him over Russell Wilson, who proved to be nothing more than a game manager in his first year away from Seattle. I was all wrong about Carroll. He didn’t let Russ cook because he knew Russ couldn’t cook. My analytics brain could not see that.
The Seahawks this offseason added two coaches to the defensive staff, hiring Roy Anderson as the team’s secondary coach and BT Jordan as pass rush specialist. Jordan will work with a defensive line graded by Pro Football Focus as 2022’s fifth worst pass-rushing unit.
On the offensive side, Greg Olson will take the place of Dave Canales — now the offensive coordinator for Tampa — as Seattle’s quarterbacks coach. Canales was a key in coaxing a superb 2022 campaign out of journeyman Geno Smith.
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Passing Offense
QB: Geno Smith, Drew Lock
WR: DK Metcalf, Dareke Young
WR: Tyler Lockett, Dee Eskridge
WR: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Cody Thompson
TE: Noah Fant, Will Dissly
Geno Smith proved the many haters and losers wrong in his first season as Seattle’s quarterback, leading the NFL (by a wide margin) in completion rate over expected and finishing seven in passing success rate, just behind Joe Burrow. Smith feasted on intermediate throws to his dominant wide receiver duo; he threw downfield on a meager 11 percent of his 2022 attempts, ranking 16th out of 24 qualifying QBs. Chucking it deep might be a good idea for Geno and the Seattle offense in 2023: Only Tua Tagovailoa had a better completion rate on attempts of more than 20 yards.
There’s some reason to suspect opposing defenses were figuring out Geno and the Seahawks passing attack in the second half of the 2022 season. Geno’s efficiency dropped off a bit and his raw numbers dropped through most of the season’s final two months. His unwillingness to challenge secondaries deep allowed defenses to crowd the line and stop the intermediate throws that had proven so effective in September and October. Still, Geno should be a useful superflex option with plenty of streaming appeal in good scoring environments. It’s good news for fantasy purposes that Geno’s numbers didn’t swing dramatically in wins and losses. He doesn’t shape up like a game script-sensitive fantasy option.
The Seahawks taking Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft has raised myriad questions about the team’s pass-catching pecking order, which, until now, was as clear as any in the NFL: Lockett and Metcalf dominated targets and no one else saw consistent looks. That all changes with Smith-Njigba, who missed all but three games last season at Ohio State due to nagging hamstring issues.
JSN ran almost exclusively from the slot during his three collegiate seasons. In 2021, he posted a ludicrous 3.56 yards per route run as Ohio State’s slot man. Should he take on the same role in Seattle’s offense, JSN would likely make Lockett a full-time boundary receiver. Lockett in 2022 ran 43 percent of his pass routes from the slot. He wasn’t particularly effective in the role, as he was 33rd in wideout yards per route run from the slot. Lockett, who was seventh in yards per route run on downfield targets last season, might be better utilized as a permanent outside receiver. Fantasy drafters should think about taking advantage of Lockett’s typically disrespectful redraft ADP this summer. You can get him as your WR3 or WR4 if you go heavy at receiver in the first couple rounds.
Smith-Njigba is bound to break up the death grip Lockett and Metcalf have had on the Seahawks’ targets in recent years. In 2022, Metcalf and Lockett took in 49 percent of the team’s targets. No one else saw more than 10 percent of the targets. JSN’s target share — whether it’s as low as 15 percent or as high as 20 percent — is going to take a chunk of opportunity from both Lockett and Metcalf.
And while Lockett is being drafted in the WR32-35 range — right around JSN — Metcalf is still going as WR15. I understand that Metcalf is a freakish athlete who makes opposing corners look silly. But math is math, and we could easily see his 141 targets from a year ago dip into the 120s — or lower, depending on how effective an intermediate target Smith-Njigba proves to be. That’s a wordy way of saying I would much rather draft Chris Olave, Tee Higgins, or Amari Cooper over Metcalf at similar ADPs. No offense to the man who somehow has 16-pack abs.
Fant and Dissly are only streaming options if one or the other misses time. For as promising as Fant’s profile was entering the NFL, he’s still not commanding targets. He saw more than four targets just four times in 2022. Both Seattle tight ends can be left on the waiver wire.
Rushing Offense
RB: Ken Walker, Zach Charbonnet, DeeJay Dallas
OL (L-R): Charles Cross, Damien Lewis, Evan Brown, Phil Haynes, Abraham Lucas
For as explosive as Ken Walker was in his rookie campaign — he led the league in breakaway rate, per PFF — he was a decidedly bad pass catcher out of the Seahawks backfield. That could be among the reasons Walker’s route running and targets dried up during the regular season’s final month and a half, amid a series of 100-yard rushing performances from the rookie.
Walker’s rushing prowess certainly makes him worthy of his RB14-16 average draft position, but I fear his fantasy ceiling could be firmly capped this year after the Seahawks took UCLA RB Zach Charbonnet with the 52nd pick in the 2023 draft. Seattle coaches, including Carroll, have made it perfectly clear that the team’s lead back role is up for grabs headed into the regular season.
“He’s so versatile. He just will fit in and be a great addition,” Carroll said of Charbonnet in May. “And really, we’re gonna find out how far he can take it in terms of the receiving part of it. We know he’s really good at it. But so is Kenneth, so those guys will be battling.” Carroll later described Charbonnet, who had 2,496 rushing yards and 27 rushing touchdowns in his final two years at UCLA, as a “complete ball player.”
Charbonnet, going off the draft board in the RB35-38 range, is my preferred Seattle back, mostly because he’s as likely as Walker to lead the backfield. Both running backs have tremendous contingency value: If either misses significant time in 2023, the other will be a locked-in top-12 fantasy play. My gut -- and years of moaning about Carroll’s love of establishing the run -- tells me the Seahawks will do anything and everything to return to a balanced if not run-first offense in 2023. While that would be disastrous for those taking Metcalf at WR15, it could be glorious for Walker or Charbonnet.
DeeJay Dallas could be a fantasy thorn in the side of both the Seahawks’ main backs this season. The pass-catching specialist could eat into third down snaps and the two-minute offense. Rookie Kenny McIntosh, who has drawn praise from Seahawks coaches this offseason, could figure into the team’s backfield plans if they see a rash of running back injuries in 2023.
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Win Total
Win Over/Under: 8.5
With the league’s tenth easiest schedule, per Sharp Football Analysis, the addition of JSN to an efficient, productive passing offense, and (hopefully for the team) a little more injury luck on the offensive line and on defense, I struggle to see how the Seahawks won’t go over their 8.5 win total in 2023. I like the Seahawks to once again reach the postseason.
