The Seattle Seahawks may have won 10 games last season, but they don’t seem to have a lot of believers heading into the 2025 NFL campaign.
Take Thomas Valentine of Pro Football Focus, for example, who has placed the Seahawks 20th in his power rankings going into Week 1.
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“The Seahawks made the tough decision to part ways with Geno Smith in the offseason, trading him to the Raiders and replacing him with Sam Darnold,” Valentine wrote. “That move likely makes Seattle worse at quarterback, but the team appears content after securing a better offensive line, a new weapon in Cooper Kupp and a new play-caller in Klint Kubiak.”
Are the Seahawks really worse at quarterback? Smith threw for 4,320 yards, 21 touchdowns and 15 interceptions in 2024. He wasn’t great. Meanwhile, Darnold finished with 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns and 12 picks with the Minnesota Vikings.
“The offense will teeter on a knife-edge weekly with Darnold, but the defense has the potential to be the best in the league in 2025,” Valentine added. “The Mike Macdonald plan is coming into effect, and the floor feels considerably higher for this team.”
Either Smith is being heavily overrated or Darnold is being significantly underrated here. It seems like the former, as there probably isn’t that much of a difference between the two quarterbacks. In fact, one can argue that Darnold is actually better at this stage.
Seattle did lose wide receiver D.K. Metcalf, but it swung a trade for Cooper Kupp and drafted Tory Horton. Plus, Jaxon Smith-Njigba could take a big step forward this fall.
As for the Seahawks’ defense, the unit finished 14th in 2024, but it’s a young and improving group that certainly could be elite this season, especially considering how terrific Seattle’s secondary is.
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On top of that, the NFC West is not an intensely challenging division. The teams are all fairly evenly matched, and the Seahawks finished with the same record as the division champion Los Angeles Rams last season.
Seattle might not be a Super Bowl contender, but ranking the Seahawks 20th — three spots behind the last-place Arizona Cardinals, mind you — definitely feels pretty disrespectful.
For more on the Seahawks and NFL, head to Newsweek Sports.
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