Five Seahawks training camp stories to watch in 2025
Published 10:01 am Tuesday, July 22, 2025
The Seattle Seahawks had their rookies report to training camp on July 15. The veterans will join them at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Tuesday. The first practice of training camp will be Wednesday, one of several dates open to the public at the team’s headquarters.
Ahead of Mike Macdonald’s second training camp as head coach of the Seahawks, let’s preview some of the most intriguing storylines, starting with a void at tight end that was created by a major roster move over the weekend.
Establishing TE1
Seattle released veteran tight end Noah Fant on Sunday afternoon. Fant, 27, was due $8.4 million in non-guaranteed base salary with a cap number of $13.4 million, which accounted for 4.7 percent of the salary cap (all salary data according to Over the Cap unless stated otherwise). Releasing Fant saved Seattle $8.9 million. The Seahawks have $34.9 million in salary cap space, which is the sixth-most in the league.
Fant was a good, though underutilized, tight end in Seattle. He went the entire 2023 season without scoring a touchdown and didn’t find the end zone in 2024 until the regular season finale. Seattle was not strapped for cash prior to the release of Fant, which suggests that the move was less about money and more about the team’s vision for his role in the offense, and its belief in young players such as 2024 fourth-round pick AJ Barner, veteran free agent signee Eric Saubert and second-round rookie Elijah Arroyo (along with undrafted rookies Nick Kallerup, Marshall Lang and former tight-end-turned-fullback Brady Russell).
Barner had a good rookie season, catching 30 of his 38 targets for 245 yards and four scores. Saubert, 31, signed a $1.2 million deal this offseason and has just 47 career regular-season catches for 389 yards and three touchdowns. The rest of the unit is unproven, though Seattle thinks highly of Arroyo, who was selected with the 50th pick in the 2025 draft.
Seattle’s new offense under coordinator Klint Kubiak will play with a fullback and use heavy personnel groupings with multiple tight ends. The entire tight end depth chart will be important, but there’s value in establishing a legitimate head of the snake in that position group, particularly one who can be a difference maker in the passing game. An offense built around heavy personnel is tough to maximize without a tight end who consistently creates mismatches as a pass catcher. Ideally, that would be Arroyo given his draft status, athletic profile and skill set, but rookies at any position are far from a sure thing. And now there’s even more pressure for Arroyo to be immediately impactful. Camp will be important in terms of finding out whether Arroyo or Barner is ready to be the star of that group.
Potential paydays on the way
The Seahawks’ 2022 draft class features multiple extension-eligible players at premium positions: Offensive tackles Charles Cross and Abe Lucas, cornerback Riq Woolen and edge rusher Boye Mafe. All those markets have been active this offseason as the elite players at those positions have agreed to lucrative multiyear extensions. This is relevant to the Seahawks even if none of their players are the types of Pro Bowl or All-Pro talents worthy of a market-resetting deal.
For example, the 10th-highest paid cornerback in the league by average annual salary makes roughly $19.4 million per year. The same salary ranking at edge rusher is about $23 million, not including potential new deals for Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson and Dallas’ Micah Parsons. Competent left tackles make more than $20 million per year. Green Bay just signed right tackle Zach Tom, a fourth-round pick in the 2022 draft, to a four-year, $88 million extension.
Seattle has the financial flexibility to extend its young studs at those prices and retain members of that draft class at non-premium positions, such as safety Coby Bryant and running back Ken Walker III (extensions typically make a player more expensive in future years, so releasing Fant wasn’t necessary to pay anyone this offseason). Deadlines spur deals, so if the Seahawks are engaged in discussions with representatives for any of these players, the start of training camp is likely acting as an unofficial deadline to finalize the terms (Seattle has operated this way for years under general manager John Schneider).
Of the young core players up for new deals, Cross would appear to be the most important. I dove into his situation (as well as Lucas’) earlier this summer. Cross is an above-average left tackle who will be just 25 years old when the 2025 season ends. He’s under contract through 2026 because of his fifth-year option, but the price to retain a player of his caliber will only rise the longer Seattle waits.
Finding a front five
Seattle knows its starters at left tackle, left guard, and right tackle will be Cross, Grey Zabel and Lucas. Training camp practices and preseason games will be used to decide the starters at center and right guard. Seattle entered camp in 2024 uncertain about its starting center, eventually handing the job to veteran free agent signee Connor Williams. That experiment didn’t end well. The 2024 right guard battle began in training camp and continued into the regular season. That experiment also didn’t end well.
Macdonald would like this year’s offensive line starters to be settled “sooner rather than later.”
“But we’re going to let the play speak for itself,” Macdonald said after minicamp. “We’re not going to force the decision. We’re going to be intentional in what happens probably within the first two weeks.”
Players need to step up and take those jobs, and it will be beneficial to Seattle for that to happen as soon as possible. The Seahawks have had offensive line issues for years, but it’s probably not a coincidence that handing the center job to Williams coming off an ACL tear and taking the right guard competition into the season led to problems at both positions. Continuity matters.
As Macdonald said, there’s no need to force anyone into those positions. But the Seahawks should come out of the first preseason game with a good idea about the starting rotation up front. And if those battles continue beyond the second preseason game, that’s probably cause for concern.
As always, the fate of the Seahawks will be determined by the offensive line. The Seahawks can have all the talent in the world at the skill positions, but they won’t reach the promised land if the offensive line isn’t dominant.
The over-30 club
Cooper Kupp turned 32 in June. Marquez Valdes-Scantling turns 31 in October. DeMarcus Lawrence is 33. Leonard Williams is 31. Jarran Reed is 32 (he’ll be 33 in December). Turning 30 is often seen as the beginning of the end for players in the NFL world, which is unfair to apply broadly due to other factors such as injury history, role, salary and position. That said, all those players will be key cogs in the machine this year. Their ability to be available, perform at a high level, and, in some cases, lead their position groups will play a role in determining whether the Seahawks have a successful season.
The most notable names in that group are Kupp and Lawrence. The former hasn’t played more than 12 games or eclipsed 1,000 yards since his triple crown season in 2021. Kupp’s film suggests he has some juice left in the tank as an underneath threat over the middle, but it’s fair to wonder whether he’s still capable of being the No. 2 option in a championship-caliber offense. The Rams, who know Kupp’s strengths and weaknesses as well as anyone, didn’t think so and chose to replace him with Davante Adams. The Seahawks, on the other hand, are comfortable swapping DK Metcalf for Kupp. The next five weeks will provide clarity on Seattle’s roll of the dice. As for Lawrence, he missed nearly all of last season with a foot injury. If healthy, he could end up being Seattle’s outside linebacker this season.
Healthy returns
Uchenna Nwosu is one of Schneider’s best unrestricted free agent signings. However, since signing Nwosu to a three-year extension in July 2023, the edge rusher has played only 12 games due to multiple injuries, and he’s currently on the physically unable to perform list because of offseason knee surgery. Nwosu is a veteran leader and effective pass rusher whose presence has been missed the last two years. It’s unclear when he’ll be given the thumbs up to get back on the field, but when that day comes, it’ll provide a much-needed lift to the edge group. Seattle hasn’t had an edge rusher reach 10 sacks since 2018, and a healthy Nwosu is the type of guy who can end that drought.
Lucas has appeared in just 13 games over the last two seasons. Finding a competent replacement in his absence has been difficult, to put it lightly. Lucas can be the best player on Seattle’s offensive line if his knee holds up through training camp, the preseason games and the regular season. That’s a big if, though. Lucas’ health is quietly one of the most critical factors on the team’s most important position group.
