The Seattle Seahawks got real mileage out of their 2025 draft class during last season’s Super Bowl run. Grey Zabel was in the lineup every week at left guard, Nick Emmanwori ended up second in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting, Robbie Ouzts logged plenty of snaps as a big fullback, Tory Horton found the end zone five times before landing on season-ending injured reserve, and Rylie Mills even capped his quasi-redshirt year with a sack of Drake Maye in the Super Bowl.
That kind of rookie impact made it easy to believe Seattle would lean on that group even more in 2026, especially after the team kept most of its free agents and largely stayed out of the middle of free agency.
That hasn’t happened. At least not yet.
Zabel is still holding down a starting job, though the level of play doesn’t sound quite as strong as it was a year ago. Emmanwori, meanwhile, is back from ankle surgery and looks like himself again as a SINO (Safety In Name Only). After that, the returns get thin fast.
Elijah Arroyo has barely shown up on offense. He has one catch, one personal foul penalty on an interception where he was the target, and that’s basically the entire 2026 line so far.
Since last season, Sam Darnold has thrown four interceptions when targeting Arroyo and only one touchdown. Arroyo didn’t have a flashy 2025 and missed time down the stretch last year, but a strong preseason hasn’t carried over into the regular season.
The usage has only made it more puzzling, especially after he got so much work in the final preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs when most likely starters and key depth pieces barely played.
The depth chart placement is just as strange. Arroyo is listed as TE3, and he’s not outsnapping Eric Saubert, a veteran blocking tight end who brings little as a receiver.
A look at the All-22 suggests Arroyo isn’t trusted much in the run game. When he’s asked to block, it often amounts to lining up away from the actual action rather than handling a meaningful assignment, to the point that he can almost disappear from the play even if he misses backside duties.
Brian Fleury even flipped the tendencies entirely against the San Francisco 49ers, and the results were mixed.
As a route runner, Arroyo has had chances left on the table, though Sam Darnold deserves some of the blame there too. Still, the Los Angeles Chargers game summed up the situation pretty cleanly: Arroyo is being sent very far downfield.
That creates a simple problem. If he isn’t trusted to block and is mostly used on vertical concepts, opponents can see what’s coming.
His blocking was always the shaky part of his draft profile, and the bet was that the Seahawks would clean that up while turning him into a mismatch in space. That hasn’t really happened yet. Right now, Arroyo doesn’t look like a great fit for an offense that leans so heavily on 12 and 13 personnel but needs its tight ends to hold up as blockers.
Tory Horton’s role is just as hard to explain. On Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, he played 11 snaps, which is roughly his usual workload this season. But only three of those were passing snaps, and one of those was a screen to Emanuel Wilson, meaning Horton effectively ran two routes all game.
Even more surprising, Horton lost kickoff return work to Velus Jones Jr. He played no special teams snaps, while Jones handled return duties alongside Rashid Shaheed. Jones has return experience going back to college, but he also has a history of fumbling.
It’s not easy to make sense of Horton’s usage, especially with Rashid Shaheed doing very little on offense.
That said, Horton’s overall production needs a little context. Half of his career receptions have come in just two games against the Washington Commanders.
In the two games before that Commanders stretch last year, he was shut out entirely. He wasn’t getting a huge target share before the Rashid Shaheed trade, and he’s getting even less now.
Still, when the ball does come his way, he’s been efficient, with six touchdowns on only 17 catches.
Mills, for his part, is more of a rotational piece right now, and the run defense has been a problem. The pass-rush flashes that stood out in camp and the preseason were real enough to get attention, and his teammates praised his strength and effort.
But that hasn’t carried over cleanly into games. His pressure rate is under 10%, which puts him at the bottom of Seattle’s defensive line rotation, and until the run defense improves, he’s not going to get a bigger slice of the snaps.
Then there’s Jalen Milroe. No package for him this season. The writer doesn’t sound all that bothered by it, either, noting that Year 3 will say more and that Milroe has already taken a meaningful step since last preseason.
Bad luck has piled on top of the uneven production. Ouzts’ neck issue, which ended last season early, resurfaced in training camp.
The good news is that it apparently is not career ending. Mason Richman’s preseason ACL tear mattered too, since he could have served as a backup guard and even worked across the line while Anthony Bradford remains out.
He was Grey Zabel’s backup, but his versatility would have given the Seahawks another option over Christian Haynes and Beau Stephens.
The larger point is that the 2025 draft class is not being written off entirely. Zabel and Emmanwori still look like real hits. But the group as a whole has not given Seattle the second-year jump many expected, and with the team’s top three picks from this year’s class all on injured reserve, plus Bud Clark not expected back until 2027, the depth chart has thinned out quickly.
That helps explain why Seattle’s 3-2 start feels a little flat compared with last year’s 3-2 beginning. The Seahawks aren’t getting enough from their last two draft classes, even if Nehemiah Pritchett is stepping up for the 2024 group, and that leaves this roster looking more top-heavy than it did a year ago.
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