2026 Team Previews: Seattle Seahawks
Seattle Seahawks 2026 Preview
All ADP data is courtesy of Fantasy Pros.
** = target in drafts at this ADP
Drafted Everywhere
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR (ADP: 6, WR3): Smith-Njigba was clearly ascendant in 2024, and I really liked his chances to become a big time fantasy player. But even I did not expect him to basically become the best WR in football. He put up 119 catches, 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns on a Seahawks team that won the Super Bowl. The departures of D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett allowed him to branch out from the role he had been playing, mostly slot, and to damage defenses from all over the formation. That allowed Seattle to basically aim him like a heat-seeking missile wherever they felt a defense was vulnerable. JSN posted deep green success rates on every route except the flat, was dominant at every level of the field and posted 94th percentile success vs. man and 83rd percentile success against zone. There’s a great argument to draft JSN as the WR1 overall, and if you wanted to take him as the No. 1 pick I don’t think I’d be able to mount a strong argument against it.
Jadarian Price, RB (ADP: 62, RB26): Ken Walker is gone, and Price has seen his stock skyrocket due to the expected absence of Zach Charbonnet to start the season. Price doesn’t have insane college production – 113 carries, 674 yards, 13 total touchdowns – but that can be forgiven as he played behind Jeremiyah Love at Notre Dame. So without the gaudy college numbers, how do we know Price is the real deal?
Simply put…we don’t. We can only watch film of his work and guess. When I see Price, I see a player with above-average explosiveness who is also very shifty and capable of turning good plays into great ones. One thing that is yet to be seen though, is can he turn bad plays into neutral or good ones? We will only find that out when he plays, and if Charbonnet begins 2026 on the PUP then we’re probably going to get an extended look. I like the talent of Price for sure, but there’s a fair amount of risk to him that, in my opinion, isn’t being baked into this ADP. Even if Price performs in the early going, are we sure that Charbonnet doesn’t significantly eat into his workload upon his return? The Seahawks have already had a physically superior player in the backfield with Charbonnet who soaked up more work but ceded the truly valuable downs. If Charbonnet returns and is siphoning passing downs and goal line work, you’ll be left cold by Price at this ADP.
Interesting Players
**Zach Charbonnet, RB (ADP: 124, RB42): Speaking of Charbonnet, whether he’s healthy or not to start the season I think he’s value here. His physical tools don’t blow you away, but he’s consistently a very highly graded running back, and last season he drove Walker managers insane not only because he was stealing high-value touches, but he was succeeding. Charbonnet grinded out 730 yards on the ground and scored 12 times. You can argue those should’ve belonged to Walker, who graded out as PFF’s No. 1 RB, but Charbonnet was no slouch as he graded seventh. Price, like Walker, is going to look slicker on his runs. He’s more elusive and he’s faster, but Seattle trusts Charbonnet implicitly. Want a crazy stat? In 2025 Seattle ran the ball 48 times once they were inside the opponent’s 10-yard line. Charbonnet earned 31 of those carries, and 10 of his touchdowns came on those runs. The next highest was Walker who logged 10 such carries. I firmly believe that role belongs to Charbonnet when he returns, and if that’s his role this ADP is a slam dunk.
**Rashid Shaheed, WR (ADP: 141, WR53): Shaheed has the tools to be a big time player, and when he was traded to Seattle I had my antennae up for a massive breakout. And Shaheed did make a huge impact as a special teamer, but his receiving production was borderline useless for fantasy. Now, he will have a full training camp to integrate into Seattle’s scheme, and if he can emerge from the summer as the clear-cut WR2, he’ll be a fantasy regular. Shaheed’s not a big guy, but he handles press coverage well (70.7%, 64th percentile) and is credible vs. man (67.6%, 46th percentile). He looks like a slot guy, but he actually struggled vs. zone (24th percentile), and seems much more suitable as deep ball X receiver type or as an outside flanker. More importantly, he’s moveable which any No. 2 has to be when JSN is the WR1 and will be shifting all over the place.
Shaheed’s no volume hog, but he did win on over 60% of his go routes, which made up almost 19% of his routes run. That’s a recipe for fantasy volatility, but in a legit good offense where those deep shots are bankable, that’s a pretty good gamble to take each week as long as the snap counts are there. It may turn out that Shaheed’s route tree in Seattle is too heavily skewed toward the deep stuff and his floor could be too low, but at this ADP you’re not risking much. There’s definitely some Alec Pierce vibes emanating.
Deep Cuts
Sam Darnold, QB (ADP: 189, QB22): Do you believe yet? Darnold won 14 games in Minnesota and they dumped him for J.J. McCarthy. They missed the playoffs while Darnold won another 14 games and took home a Super Bowl. The jury’s no longer out, Darnold is a real-deal QB in this league, but is he a fantasy stud? Ehhh.
We saw him throw for 4,300+ yards and 35 touchdowns in Minnesota. He surpassed 4,000 yards again last season, which was great, but the touchdowns normalized to 25 and that’s probably closer to what you can expect most of the time. Those TD spike seasons will happen, but we can never really know when. Darnold is a high-end streaming QB, a very sturdy QB2 in SuperFlex or two-QB formats, and most importantly, someone who can feed many mouths in the Seahawks’ pass catching group.
**AJ Barner, TE (ADP: 161, TE24): This will sound blasphemous, but Barner gives off George Kittle vibes. In no way am I implying a Kittle ceiling, or a similar breakout story, but given the lack of established pass-catchers behind JSN in this offense, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Barner turn into a weekly starter. He certainly had some blowup games including a two-score outing vs. Tampa Bay in Week 5, and a 10-catch, 70-yard performance vs. the Rams in Week 11. If Barner were to go crazy in the first week or two of the season, he’d be a very hotly contested waiver pickup so drafting him at the end of your draft as a flier/backup TE is not a crazy concept.
Cooper Kupp, WR (ADP: 246, WR84): Kupp is one of my all time favorite receivers, so it’s really tough to accept that he’s fallen this far for fantasy. The former Triple Crown WR is a shell of himself these days; he hasn’t been past 812 yards in four years, and he hasn’t put up a full season’s worth of games since that glorious 2021 season. He’ll have some moments in 2026, he’ll catch some balls, and may even have a random week or two with big volume. He’s a major health risk and hasn’t performed in years…don’t get trapped by the name.
Emanuel Wilson, RB (ADP: 179, RB59): Wilson has consistently performed when given chances behind Josh Jacobs in Green Bay, and I fully expect him to perform in Seattle in limited opportunity. The question is whether he can either beat out Price in camp, or force a timeshare while Charbonnet recovers. I’m going to guess Price wins out based on the first round pick Seattle spent on him, but Wilson might make sense as a handcuff. He’s certainly being drafted at a point where he’s free of charge.
**Tory Horton, WR (ADP: 281, WR101): On a team with a slew of sleeper picks, Horton might be my favorite. He’s got more typical size for a WR2 opposite JSN than Shaheed, and while his numbers stink, injury robbed him of his development right as he was showing signs of taking off. I’m sure I sound insane talking about him this way when he posted 13 receptions and 161 yards, but he turned those meager opportunities into five touchdowns! Horton was a credible man-beater (52nd percentile), decent vs, zone (50th percentile, 78.7% success) and a press-killer (76%, 80th percentile).
Horton’s routes weren’t very diverse; nines, posts, digs and slants made up 63.1% of his routes, meaning he was the guy the Seahawks used to clear out space over the middle and deep. I know I noted that could potentially be Shaheed’s role, but healthy Horton can also do that too. We can’t know how these players will be deployed, but it seems like Horton and Shaheed can both be utilized as the sacrificial downfield guy, while the other thrives on more consistent work. If both players have similar chances of snagging the WR2 job behind JSN, then Horton is a crazy steal at this ADP.
Elijah Arroyo, TE (ADP: 319, TE40): Arroyo had a lot of hype as a high-upside pass-catching TE, and he didn’t really deliver much of anything (15 catches, 179 yards, one touchdown). He might just be a bit player, but he does have unusual speed and agility for a TE and if Seattle leans on a lot of two-TE sets Arroyo might wind up more relevant than this ADP indicates. He shouldn’t be drafted, but people should keep an eye on him.