Likely finishing my “Cleaning Up Messy Position Groups'' series for this offseason, we’ll look at the Seattle Seahawks’ rushers and receivers. I’ll be shifting my focus to summer scouting the 2025 draft prospects, so I likely won’t have future installments of this series for this year. Also, this primarily looks at the players in 1QB, redraft, PPR, not best ball formats. If you want to check out my previous articles on the Houston Texans receivers, Green Bay Packers receivers, and Buffalo Bills, you can check them out with the links below:
Houston Texans Receivers:
Green Bay Packers Receivers:
Buffalo Bills:
The Seattle Seahawks have a lot of familiar faces on the field but new faces on the sidelines. The team brought in Mike Macdonald as their new head coach to replace Pete Carroll after Carroll retired. Also, the team brought in Ryan Grubb from the Washington Huskies with Shane Waldron leaving the team for the Chicago Bears. With all of these changes, I think it would be interesting to take a look to see how different this Seattle offense could be in 2024.
The Ryan Grubb Offense and Expectations
To set the stage, I think it’s important to take a look at what the offense with Ryan Grubb could look like in 2024. As I mentioned earlier, Grubb comes from Washington where he helped lead one of the most explosive passing offenses in college football for the past two years as their coordinator. With the recent performance of Washington’s offense, there is an expectation of Seattle becoming a pass-heavy team that consistently pushes the ball downfield. However, I don’t believe this is a fully accurate expectation.
With all the talk of Washington’s extremely high volume passing offense last year, Washington finished 2023 with a pass rate of 62%. Now, that is certainly a high mark, but the problem where it kind of hurts the argument for people expecting the Seattle Seahawks offense to shift to a pass-heavy offense is that the Seahawks had a pass rate of 61.61% last year. So, not much of a difference.
A fair argument could be that Washington didn’t need to pass all game every game with the nature of blowouts in college. While that’s fair, that really only came up in their games against Michigan State and Cal, as the Huskies were either in close games for the rest of their season or kept Michael Penix Jr. in for the majority of the game to score more points and boost their ranking. So, Washington was running their typical offense for the majority of nearly all games and still finished with a pass rate that is basically the same as the Seattle Seahawks did last year.
What is even more interesting is if we go back to Ryan Grubb’s time as offensive coordinator at Fresno State, Grubb’s offense had a pass rate of 56.7% in 2021, 58.1% in 2020, and 52.7% in 2019. Something that I think gets overlooked when people discuss Grubb is that he actually has a background in the run game as a former running back coach and run game coordinator. As for why Grubb made the shift to a more pass-heavy scheme at Washington, I believe some of that could have been Kalen DeBoer’s influence but also had to do with the personnel they had.
Something that I think Ryan Grubb does that more offensive coordinators and coaches need to do is adjust their scheme to the players on their team. I feel he recognized that the combination of Michael Penix Jr., Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk, and Jalen McMillan was significantly more talented and potent than Dillon Johnson. Due to that, he adjusted to their skill sets and talent rather than trying to force the offense into his usual scheme and waste the opportunity he had.
One area in which I think we could see a shift with the addition of Ryan Grubb is in their personnel packages. I, unfortunately, couldn’t find anything to confirm the exact rate, but based on my film study and reviewing snap counts for all the Washington receivers and Fresno State receivers during Grubb’s tenures, he has a high tendency to use three wide receiver sets. While you could make the argument Grubb did this in Washington thanks to the receiver talent, he had a much less talented group at Fresno State.
Another area in which we could see a big shift, which will be very important when considering Geno Smith and the Seattle Seahawks receivers, is ADOT and the frequency of deep shots. Last year, Geno Smith and the offense were about middle of the pack, finishing tied for 11th in the ADOT among passers who attempted at least 300 passes and was tied for 13th for pass attempts 20 yards or further from the line of scrimmage. Meanwhile, Michael Penix Jr. finished with the 4th most attempts, 20 yards or further, in 2022 and had the most in all of college football in 2023 and cleared the number two quarterback by 20 attempts.
Since Geno Smith has been with the Seattle Seahawks, he hasn’t been known for driving the ball downfield on a consistent basis. However, this especially wasn’t part of his game last year due to the numerous offensive line injuries the team experienced. Using the same cutoff of 300 pass attempts, Geno Smith ranked 14th in average time to throw. 14th might sound like a good rank, but it is on the lower side of where I would expect him to be, as the stat favors mobile quarterbacks like Geno Smith, who can more easily escape pressure and give themselves more time.
With a healthier offensive line and new additions to the interior of their line, the Seattle Seahawks should have more of a chance at protecting Geno Smith this season. Between having more time to throw and a likelihood that the team has more of a shift to downfield passing, Geno Smith and the receivers could really benefit from this for the upcoming season. So, while I think it might be a bit short-sighted to assume that Seattle is shifting to an offense that will have a significantly higher pass rate, it’s not unreasonable to expect an offense with more of an emphasis on explosive, downfield throws.
The Running Backs
So, we just talked a lot about the passing game, but let’s shift gears to the run game. As I mentioned earlier, Ryan Grubb has a background as a running back coach and run game coordinator so the run game is important to him. Plus, his run rates at Fresno State indicate that he isn’t afraid to go to a more run-heavy scheme, depending on his personnel.
I was a bit intrigued when I took a look at Ryan Grubb’s selection of zone vs gap runs for the past few years. Last year, Grub ran slightly more gap runs than zone runs, but nothing that I would consider overly significant. So, with a more balanced approach or potentially slightly leaning towards more gap runs, that could suggest that a player who can be a bowling ball like Zach Charbonnet could be a great fit for the offense and is even stylistically similar to Dillon Johnson.
However, looking back at 2022 and Ryan Grubb’s tenure at Fresno State prior to that paints a different picture. In 2022, Washington ran zone run plays for slightly over two-thirds of their run plays. This was a similar trend for his years as the offensive coordinator at Fresno State and seems to show that his typical offense has more of an emphasis on zone runs.
So why did Ryan Grubb lean more towards gap runs in 2023? Part of why, I think, is to play to Dillon Johnson’s strength, similar to how I previously mentioned that he typically tries to adjust the offense to his players. Dillon Johnson isn’t the most explosive athlete, but he did a good job following his blocks in gap schemes and could help overcome his lack of acceleration when he was given a cleared path. So, I think he prioritized gap plays more than usual to lean into Johnson’s strengths and avoid his weaknesses.
Higher doses of zone runs are very favorable for Kenneth Walker who is a better fit for zone runs than Charbonnet. Now, I’m on record stating that I have questions on Walker’s value and upside. However, I have to admit that going through my initial research for this article made me a bit more optimistic for Walker.
That being said, what still scares me about trusting Kenneth Walker is the number of weeks he needed a touchdown for solid finishes. In the seven weeks where Walker scored a touchdown, he had an average finish of RB10 in PPR leagues. In the weeks he didn’t score, he had an average finish of RB37. Now, of course, running backs and players in general will have worse finishes when they don’t score. However, that’s a pretty significant swing.
The other thing that makes me really concerned about this big disparity when Kenneth Walker scores is the high pass rate in the red zone Washington had under Ryan Grubb. Last year, Washington had the third most pass attempts in the red zone in all of college football. If the team leans more towards passing in these high-scoring opportunities, this would be a huge hit for Walker.
Another major reason why Kenneth Walker struggled to have good finishes without touchdowns, which could continue to be an issue for him, is his lack of involvement in the passing game. Walker hasn’t finished with 30 or more receptions in either of the past two seasons despite having minimal to no competition in 2022 once Rashaad Penny was injured and having the leg up on Zach Charbonnet in 2023. Meanwhile, Charbonnet put up 33 receptions in his rookie season. Also, while I couldn’t find a weekly breakdown to see how much the two games Walker missed may have affected this number, Charbonnet ran 294 routes last year compared to Walker’s 181 routes run.
I mentioned it in my article discussing players that could fall in value in dynasty (you can check out that article here: Six Players Who Will Fall in Value During the 2024 Season (Dynasty Fantasy Football), but the lack of involvement in the passing game makes it really difficult for a back to be great. This lack of use in the passing game has held Walker back, finishing as the RB20 in points/game in PPR in 2023 and RB16 in 2022. It just takes a lot of efficiency and use in the red zone to be able to finish as an RB1 if you aren’t being used frequently enough in the passing game.
On top of that, Kenneth Walker started to have his snap counts challenged by Zach Charbonnet as the season went on. Walker only played on more than 50% of snaps in three of his final eight games that he was healthy for while Charbonnet played on over 50% of snaps in five of those eight games. Walker missed two games, but the season snap count difference wasn’t overly significant between them, with Walker playing 502 snaps and Charbonnet on 478 snaps last year.
A big reason why Kenneth Walker has been losing snaps and receiving opportunities is due to his deficiencies in pass blocking situations. As I mentioned, the Seattle Seahawks had a lot of offensive line injuries making it more necessary for the backs to help keep Geno Smith on his feet. Unfortunately, Walker continued to struggle with this while Charbonnet showed that he could be a quality protector like he was in college.
While Zach Charbonnet is clearly the better pass blocker and likely the more trusted receiving option, let’s not pretend that Charbonnet is going to completely overtake Kenneth Walker. Walker is a very talented runner and a more talented runner than Charbonnet, with great vision and elusiveness that are just as, if not more, valuable than size and power when it comes to short yardage and red zone opportunities. If Walker continues to get red zone opportunities and Charbonnet is more or less limited to just receiving opportunities and third downs, it may be difficult for either to really come through as consistent options this season. Also, a decrease in red zone opportunities for the running backs as a whole could limit either of their upside.
In summary, I find it hard to trust Kenneth Walker as an RB1 this coming season, and he has the risk of not being a consistently reliable RB2. I think Walker is a good fit for the offense, but his ceiling is too limited if he continues to lose receiving work and if his opportunities in the red zone decrease. Zach Charbonnet would likely benefit from taking that receiving work and could become a nice flex option late in drafts if he gets the majority of goalline work and if there is enough volume for him. However, just because Charbonnet’s bigger doesn’t mean he will automatically get those opportunities, as we saw with Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon and the volume situation scares me into thinking this could still salvage him as a weekly flex player.
DK Metcalf
Just as Kenneth Walker seems like a good fit for Ryan Grubb’s offense, I feel DK Metcalf also easily fits into the offense as well. Rome Odunze saw a lot of success in Grubb’s offense these past two years playing as their X receiver, running a high rate of post, dig, curl, and vertical routes with good rates of success on all of these per Reception Perception. Do you know who else runs high rates of these routes and has good success with all of the mentioned routes? You guessed it, DK Metcalf.
Now, Rome Odunze didn’t just succeed last year because of Ryan Grubb’s offense. He’s a great player and had good chemistry with Michael Penix Jr. That being said, DK Metcalf is a great player in his own right and has shown a lot of chemistry, with Geno Smith leading the team in targets per game in the past two seasons and total targets in games that Geno Smith has played.
In terms of performance last year, DK Metcalf had a career-high in yards per reception and yards after catch while nearly tying his career highs in yards per route run and ADOT. Metcalf’s season felt like a disappointment last year due to his lowest reception total since his rookie season. However, this was tied to fewer opportunities and targets, with Geno Smith not having the time to load up and fling the ball downfield and Drew Lock favoring Tyler Lockett in his two starts.
With the transition to Ryan Grubb’s vertical offense and the easy vision of DK Metcalf fitting into Rome Odunze’s role, Metcalf is probably one of the easiest options on this option to see a vision of him panning out. As I mentioned earlier, there likely won’t be an uptick in passing volume, and Metcalf has to compete with two other very good receivers for targets, which I pointed out in my Houston Texans article. It is a tall task to guarantee strong finishes for him and the other receivers. However, his skill set being a good match, the chemistry he has with the quarterback, and his talent all give him some sneaky WR1 upside if the volume is there for him this year.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba +
Tyler Lockett
Now things get really interesting with Jaxon Smith-Njiba and Tyler Lockett. Smith-Njiba was drafted in the first round in 2023 with the expectation that he would take over Lockett’s role on the offense. While that may still be in the cards, Lockett continued to play as the team’s Z receiver, while Smith-Njigba primarily played as the team’s slot receiver.
What was interesting to look back at was in the Seattle Seahawks’ week seven matchup against the Arizona Cardinals when DK Metcalf missed the game due to injury; Jaxon Smith-Njiba did see an increase in outside snaps but didn’t see an increase in total snaps. Instead, it was undrafted rookie free agent Jake Bobo who took the majority of outside snaps. As the season went on, Smith-Njigba saw a slight increase in snaps played in general and snaps played outside. However, it seems the 2023 coaching regime saw him more as a slot receiver.
Playing primarily from the slot isn’t unordinary for Jaxon Smith-Njigba, as he primarily did this in college at Ohio State. Despite the heavy usage in the slot, he has very good success against man, zone, and press coverage and is a complete route runner in both college and the NFL, both from my own viewing and from Reception Perception’s charting. While his ADOT and yards per route run were both poor, there is room to believe in the talent. Also, he only played on 70% of snaps or more in four games last season, so the increase in three-receiver sets should help increase his opportunities.
As I mentioned, Jaxon Smith-Njigba primarily played out of the slot last year, and between his skills being translatable to the outside and a new coaching regime, he could move into the Z role. This would push Lockett to the slot, which is possible to potentially compensate for Lockett’s lack of long speed at his age, like we’ve seen with some other receivers as they get older, like Keenan Allen. However, even if Smith-Njigba stays in the slot, I don’t think it would actually be that dire of a situation for him.
First, Ryan Grubb will be using three wide receiver sets more often than Shane Waldron, which will allow Jaxon Smith-Njigba to be on the field more than 70% of snaps on a more consistent basis. Also, while Rome Odunze and Ja’Lynn Polk understandably got most of the attention this past season, Jalen McMillan was the biggest beneficiary of the offense for many of the weeks. McMillan actually outproduced Polk in most games McMillan was healthy for in 2023 and was neck and neck with Rome Odunze statistically over the course of the 2022 season while playing nearly exclusively out of the slot.
As I mentioned, there is a vertical emphasis in Ryan Grubb’s offense, and by proxy, this opens up a lot of space underneath for the slot receiver. Jalen McMillan is a very good route runner, so this helped him be successful in these situations, but Jaxon Smith-Njigba is an even better route runner and overall player, making it easy to see him having the same statistical success. So, while I think there is a lot of expectation for Smith-Njigba to get more time on the outside, playing the slot could actually work out better for his fantasy performances and could help him become a reliable WR2.
So, I just went over a lot of ways in which Jaxon Smith-Njigba may break out, which would likely mean that Tyler Lockett will be phased out. However, I think it’s a bit too early to count Lockett out. Lockett did see a decrease in yards per game, yards per route run, and touchdowns last year, but I attribute a lot of this more to needing to be more of a safety valve with the type of pressure Geno Smith had to deal with, given the Seattle Seahawks offensive line struggles. Also, while those areas regressed, his targets per game, routes run, and ADOT were all similar to his career averages despite the addition of Smith-Njigba.
Where there is less of an excuse for the offensive line struggles is Tyler Lockett’s decrease in touchdowns. Lockett had his lowest touchdown total since 2017, which was a major reason for his lower fantasy finish last year. However, from week 1 to week 10, when he did receive touchdowns, he was WR27 in points/game in PPR, which is closer to some of his finishes in the past few years. That is still a step-down, but it doesn’t suggest that he is on this severe decline like I’ve seen others suggest.
Also, I think this decrease in scoring was more due to Geno Smith struggling as a red zone passer which he has struggled with during his time in Seattle. In 2022, Geno Smith completed only 53.9% of his passes in the red zone which was 17th in the NFL for passers that had at least 35 attempts in the red zone. This dropped even further in 2023 to 43.1% which was 26th in the NFL using that same pass attempts minimum.
There is some hope of possible improvement, though, with the shift to Ryan Grubb’s offense, which saw success with Michael Penix Jr. completing 63.2% of his throws in the red zone while having the third most red zone attempts in college football last year, as previously mentioned. If there is a lot of improvement in Geno Smith’s red zone efficiency, all the receivers could benefit from this. This would raise a lot of their floors and especially would help Lockett go back to his usual touchdown totals after his scoring drought, which significantly impacted his fantasy finish.
Finally, just from an eye test, I didn’t see Tyler Lockett as a declining player last year. From the games I watched, he was still consistently getting open and was the usual reliable target for his quarterback. Plus, if he was actually regressing to a significant degree, it would have made a lot more sense for Seattle to cut him instead of restructuring his deal and target a receiver in the deep 2024 draft class. Even if they didn’t want to cut him, I think it would have been reasonable for him to see a decrease in playing time in favor of Jaxon Smith-Njigba if he was declining in the team’s eyes.
I think we should also be a bit cautious with underestimating aging players, as a lot of people got bit by not trusting Keenan Allen and Adam Thielen last year. Their situations are different from Tyler Lockett’s, but both were quality players who showed that good route running and hands can age well. Also, both primarily played from the slot, which isn’t out of the question for Lockett to move to if Jaxon Smith-Njigba moves to the Z. If that happens, Lockett could be a bigger producer than expected with how productive slot receivers are under Ryan Grubb as previously mentioned.
Personally, whoever takes over the slot role will be one of the more underrated storylines I’ll be following during training camp and preseason. I think whether it’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba or Tyler Lockett will determine how either of them should be viewed. If Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the primary slot receiver again, then I think he could be in for a quality season as a WR2 but could be a bit of a streaky player if he is the Z receiver this year. If Tyler Lockett is the slot receiver, he should be a safe flex play and have some WR2 upside as the slot, but he could be more of a flex play if he is the Z receiver again.
Noah Fant
I’ve seen a few articles that have mentioned that Noah Fant could be in for a big year or at least a very serviceable year. I will be honest in my possible bias that I wasn’t overly impressed with Fant coming out of college and wasn’t overly impressed with his play in Denver. Even if I ignore my bias, I have a hard time seeing Fant as much of a reliable tight-end option.
My first reason is due to the fact that Ryan Grubb’s offense minimally involves tight ends as there was more of an emphasis on getting the ball to their receivers. Now, it could be argued this was due to poor tight end play and wanting to focus the offense’s attention on the more talented receivers. While I can see this argument for Washington, Fresno State didn’t have substantially greater receivers than tight ends, while Grubb was there with Jalen Cropper, who was likely the best receiver during his tenure.
Also, it’s been quite some time since Noah Fant was last fantasy-relevant and all of those unproductive seasons have come while in Seattle finishing no better than TE22 in points per game in PPR for 2022. When Fant was last relevant for fantasy purposes, he was fairly productive, finishing as the TE12 in points per game in PPR in 2020 and 2021. So, what’s the difference from Denver to Seattle?
Starting with 2020, Noah Fant benefited from a lack of competition for targets. Courtland Sutton was out for the majority of the year with a torn ACL, and KJ Hamler was the only other relevant receiver threat for targets but was still just a rookie and a rather unproductive one. This left Jerry Jeudy, who was also a rookie, and Tim Patrick, who is an okay but not great receiver, as Fant’s biggest competition for targets that year, opening the opportunity for good volume.
In 2021, Courtland Sutton returned from his torn ACL but was eased back into his role. Also, KJ Hamler missed the majority of the season with a torn ACL, and Jerry Jeudy missed six games with an ankle injury. Again, Noah Fant had a good opportunity for volume between players either missing time with injury or recovering from injury.
So for those two productive years, Noah Fant only had to compete with Jeudy in his rookie season and injured for nearly half of his second season,Tim Patrick who is a good, not great, receiver, and Courtland Sutton who was either out with an ACL tear or working his way back from the injury. So, it starts to become more clear why he was productive in Denver.
Comparing that to Noah Fant’s current competition with DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba suddenly, it makes a lot of sense as to why Fant has been struggling in Seattle. Also, I think Fant’s 2022 season and poor finish are even more of a red flag for me, as Smith-Njigba wasn’t there yet, and Fant still couldn’t establish himself. So, it’s hard for me to believe that he is all of a sudden going to establish a presence in the receiving game.
Another thing that slowed Noah Fant down in Seattle is how Pete Carroll rotated tight ends at a high rate, depending on formation and situation. Last year, Fant was out-snapped by Colby Parkinson in 6 games and was out-snapped by Will Dissly in 4 games. With the drafting of a blocking specialist like AJ Barner, I would think the trend of rotating tight ends will continue this coming season, as this was also something Ryan Grubb would do with Washington. Given all of this, it’s hard to ignore the past two years of Fant’s poor production and suddenly expect the change to occur with a coordinator who hasn’t been shown to prioritize tight ends.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Kenneth Walker will fit well into the new offense, but his ceiling could continue to be capped by his lack of receiving involvement, and he could be in real trouble if he sees decreased use in the red zone as his touchdowns have held some of his finishes afloat. Zach Charbonnet is likely just a handcuff but could become a nice flex option if he continues to earn a role on passing down and gets some goalline opportunities. However, like Walker, if the Seattle Seahawks have more of an emphasis on passing while in the red zone, it will be very hard to trust Charbonnet, even as a flex option in PPR leagues.
Geno Smith and the receivers could all be beneficiaries of the change in offense and the improved offensive line play, both from a higher efficiency per reception and touchdown scoring upside. DK Metcalf is likely the safest option with a clear role and fit with Ryan Grubb’s offense. As of right now, Jaxon Smith-Njigba would be my pick to finish as the WR2 for the team and could finish as a WR2 this year, but Lockett could have some sneaky value if Lockett slides into the slot role. Noah Fant should be the unquestioned receiving tight end for the team, but opportunities will continue to be limited, and the likelihood of a continued rotation will likely continue to limit his reliability.
