ClutchPoints
With their 11 picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks tied for the most rookies selected at the event. Coming off an impressive first season under head coach Mike Macdonald, the Seahawks have a lot of roster changes forthcoming in the offseason.
Despite coming off their best season since 2020, the Seahawks remain committed to retooling their entire roster. After emotionally releasing 10-year veteran Tyler Lockett, Seattle traded its other star wideout, DK Metcalf, to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
While somewhat expected, the moves were still impactful. However, nobody predicted the team would trade Geno Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders. The successive offensive overhaul resulted in the Seahawks signing Sam Darnold, Cooper Kupp and Marquez Valdes-Scantling in free agency.
Needless to say, Macdonald entered OTAs with a lot of reconstructive work ahead of him. Seattle replaced its departing veterans with new ones in free agency, but the front office seemingly remains focused on a youth movement. The Seahawks spent nine of their 11 draft picks on offensive talent, making a clear statement with their incoming rookies.
Regardless of how the offseason unfolds, the Seahawks will be a brand-new team in 2025. However, given the vast landscape of their rookie class, they are clearly determined to have a significant portion of them make an immediate impact.
The Seahawks entered Day Two of the 2025 NFL Draft with three picks and used one of their two second-round selections on Miami tight end Elijah Arroyo. The pick came one year after they took AJ Barner in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Considering the potential Barner showed in his limited action as a rookie, veteran Noah Fant now seems like the odd man out.
Fant is coming off a 500-yard campaign in 2024, his most since joining the Seahawks as a part of the Russell Wilson trade in 2022. However, he played just 51.73 percent of the team’s offensive snaps, as opposed to Barner’s 45.55 percent. Fant ceded most of the goal-line work to Barner and Pharaoh Brown, logging just four red zone targets all season and one touchdown.
Despite being the group veteran, Fant enters the offseason in the same position as Barner and Arroyo. With Smith gone, the rapport he developed with him in 2023 goes out the window. Fant is now in a position where he will compete with Arroyo in training camp to be the team’s top pass-catching tight end. Neither Fant nor Arroyo will threaten Barner’s role as the preferred red zone target, leaving them competing for snaps between the 20s.
As the incumbent starter, Fant entered the offseason with the high ground. But with Macdonald slowly taking over the team and deploying “his” guys, his leash is shorter than most. Barner is not going anywhere, and Arroyo is clearly a part of the team’s vision moving forward. Depending on how quickly Arroyo picks up on the offense over the summer, Fant could quickly find himself in no man’s land....
