Jacob Martin has spent most of his NFL career as the kind of pass rusher teams plug in, rotate through, and sometimes overlook. Now, in Tennessee, the former Seahawks draft pick is suddenly sitting near the top of the league’s sack chart.
Martin, a 2018 sixth-round pick and a key piece in the Jadeveon Clowney trade before the 2019 regular season, has carved out a long run in the NFL with the Seahawks, Texans, Jets, Broncos, Colts, Commanders and now the Titans. This is his ninth season, and it’s also the best one he’s put together.
That jump showed up in a big way in Tennessee’s wild 43-36 overtime loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, when Martin got to Joe Burrow three times. Those three sacks pushed him to 6.5 on the year through eight games, a career high.
Only T.J. Watt, Will Anderson, Chase Young and Greg Rousseau have more.
At 30, Martin looks like the rare late bloomer who is finally putting everything together. He had 5.5 sacks last season with Washington, and in his first year as a starter for the Titans under Robert Saleh, the production has taken another step.
Martin leads Tennessee with 21 pressures, and his 7 quick pressures - defined as a pressure within 2.5 seconds - put him on track to match or top his previous best of 16. He already has 14 QB hits, just four shy of his total from all of last season, and his tackles for loss are already at a career high.
The one number that doesn’t jump off the page is his 11.4% pressure rate, which is modest. But Martin has been turning those pressures into sacks, and his one-year, $9 million deal is setting him up for a bigger payday next offseason. That could matter for Seattle, too, with the Seahawks likely to be overhauling their edge rush unit.
There was another former Seahawk making noise in that same game. Boye Mafe logged a strip-sack of Cam Ward and is now up to 5.5 sacks on the season for the Bengals. His first year in Cincinnati is shaping up as one of the best of his career, and with the schedule ahead, the Bengals look positioned to make a playoff push.
In Other News...
Seahawks May Not Be Done After Their Biggest Trade Yet
The Seahawks already made the kind of move that can reshape a season, landing six-time All-Pro guard Quenton Nelson from the Colts before the NFL trade deadline. For a team trying to keep building around its roster in the middle of the year, it was the sort of aggressive swing that signaled Seattle was not content to stand pat.
John Schneider has since made it clear the work may not be finished, with Seattle still in trade conversations as the deadline approaches. Running back, wide receiver and edge rusher remain the most obvious areas to watch, and ESPN has already pointed to several candidates who could fit what the Seahawks are looking for if they decide to keep adding. [Read more 🡒]
DeForest Buckners Colts Exit Just Took On A New Twist
The Colts decision to bring in Quenton Nelson has already started to reshape the conversation around their offensive line, and it has a ripple effect that reaches well beyond Indianapolis. For Seattle, it is another reminder of how quickly roster moves can change a players role, especially for someone like Anthony Bradford, who had been in the starting mix before the upgrade at guard altered the depth chart.
Mike Macdonald addressed Bradfords situation with the kind of measured tone teams usually reserve for a player they still value. He made clear that Bradford remains important to the Seahawks and expected him to handle the shift professionally, even as the competition in front of him tightened. In a league where starting jobs can disappear fast, the real test now is how Bradford responds to the change. [Read more 🡒]
Russell Wilsons Next Career Move Will Catch Seahawks Fans Off Guard
Russell Wilsons post-playing career already has taken him into the broadcast booth, but his name has now surfaced in a far different kind of football conversation. The former Seahawks quarterback interviewed for the North Carolina State head coaching job after Dave Doeren was fired, a development that ties Wilson back to the school where he once starred before his NFL rise.
Wilson is currently working as a CBS Sports analyst, so a move into college coaching would be a major pivot from the role fans have seen him in most recently. He is not the only former quarterback linked to the opening, either, with Philip Rivers also having engaged in discussions about coaching at NC State, adding another layer to an already intriguing search. [Read more 🡒]