TOP STORIES
Oh No (For Everyone Else)
The Best Interior D-Line in Football Played Most of the Season Without Rylie Mills. Mills Is Now Healthy. Good Luck Out There.
Let’s set the scene. In 2025, Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy II were the most destructive defensive tackle duo in football — 14.0 combined sacks, 108 quarterback pressures, league-low 3.7 yards per carry allowed, and enough double teams to make opposing offensive coordinators drink before noon. They won the Super Bowl. They were extraordinary. They are also, as of next season, apparently going to have help.
Enter Rylie Mills. The fifth-round pick out of Notre Dame (who NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah called a top-50 talent who fell due to a torn ACL) spent most of 2025 rehabbing on the sideline. He made his NFL debut in Week 15. He played five total defensive snaps in the Super Bowl. In those five snaps, he recorded one sack, a bull rush where he pushed Patriots rookie guard Jared Wilson backward six yards and deposited him directly into Drake Maye, plus two additional pressures, one of which sprang a Murphy sack. Five snaps. One sack. Two pressures. Then he went back to the sideline.
In 2026, Rylie Mills will be fully healthy for a full season. He will line up next to Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy II. If you are a guard in the NFC West who has been sleeping well at night, we’d like to gently suggest reconsidering your evening routine.
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The Edge Rusher Situation Is a Lot
Boye Mafe Is Probably Leaving, D-Law Might Retire, and the Name Being Floated Is Jaelan Phillips at $17M a Year. Deep Breath.
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Seahawks Radio analyst Michael Bumpus floated the most likely replacement option on air: Jaelan Phillips, 26, late of the Dolphins and Eagles, who posted 5.0 sacks and 73 quarterback pressures last season, ninth among edge rushers per Pro Football Focus. Spotrac projects Phillips at $17.3 million per year on a three-year deal, which is a meaningful upgrade from Mafe’s projected $12.2 million. Bumpus’s actual preferred outcome, in his own words: “In a perfect world, Boye Mafe and D-Law both come back.” Which is true. The perfect world is great. We do not currently live there.
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Mock Draft Chaos
Ten Draft Experts Were Asked Who Seattle Takes at 30. Ten Draft Experts Gave Ten Different Answers. Very Helpful, Everyone.
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What everyone broadly agrees on: Seattle wants corner depth and edge competition. What nobody agrees on is who will actually be available and worth it at 30. John Schneider has historically treated the position of need as a suggestion and drafts the best player available, which has worked out rather well, all things considered. The Combine runs through March 2. The draft is April 23. Enjoy two months of people being confidently wrong on your behalf.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
The Seahawks plan to extend both JSN and Devon Witherspoon this offseason, per Field Gulls citing ESPN. The fifth-year option deadline is May 1. For context: John Schneider never exercised a fifth-year option in his entire tenure, until Charles Cross last season broke that streak. Now he’s apparently doing two at once. Growth. Field Gulls Field Gulls
The franchise tag deadline is March 3 — seven days from today. The Seahawks are not expected to use it on KW3. The new league year opens March 12. Anyone who tells you they know exactly how the KW3 situation resolves is lying to you, including KW3. Seahawks.com Seahawks.com
The Los Angeles Rams finalized their coaching staff, officially naming Kliff Kingsbury as assistant head coach. Kingsbury’s head coaching record across Texas Tech and Arizona was 84-107-1. The Rams looked at that resume and said: yes, this is the energy we want in our building. Sean McVay’s 10th season is going to be fascinating. Seattle Sports / AP Seattle Sports / AP
Depth players Ty Okada and George Holani are described by Field Gulls as easy re-sign decisions, low-cost depth the team controls and has no reason to let walk. Not everything in a Super Bowl offseason is a billion-dollar negotiation. Some of it is just housekeeping. This is the housekeeping. Field Gulls Field Gulls
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Rams have formally hired Kliff Kingsbury — a man with a 84-107-1 coaching record — as their assistant head coach. They also hired recently retired receiver Robert Woods to the staff, because why not. Meanwhile, their formally proposed rule change to outlaw “The Zachwards Pass” is still sitting in the NFL’s suggestion box like a passive-aggressive note from someone who lost a game and then went home and wrote about it. Sean McVay is a brilliant coach. This offseason is not his best work.
NINERS
The 49ers lost OC Brian Fleury to the Super Bowl champions, are now reportedly shopping for “value” receivers, and have spent the last two weeks reading think pieces about their own team. The 49ers are very good at football, and also not currently the Super Bowl champions. These two facts are coexisting right now, loudly, in San Francisco.
CARDINALS
Kliff Kingsbury spent four seasons as Arizona’s head coach. He finished 58-71-1 and missed the playoffs in three of those four years. The Cardinals let him go. The Rams immediately hired him. Somewhere in Glendale, a Cardinals fan is staring at the wall trying to feel something. We understand. We’ve been there. (We haven’t. We won the Super Bowl. But we understand in theory.)
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
Rylie Mills was a 2025 fifth-round pick. But what game was he playing in when he suffered the ACL injury that tanked his draft stock in the first place?
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A College Football Playoff game with Notre Dame in December 2024. Mills was considered a potential first-round pick before the injury. He fell all the way to the fifth round, where the Seahawks grabbed him — and NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah immediately went on Seattle Sports and called him a late-round steal. Jeremiah was, as it turns out, correct.
THE MAILBAG
Is D-Law really going to retire? He just won his ring. Surely he plays on.
— Optimistic in Olympia
Dear Optimistic: Here is what we know. DeMarcus Lawrence, per Seattle Sports, came to Seattle specifically to win a Super Bowl. He accomplished that. He is 34 next season and has two years left on his contract. Whether he plays those two years is genuinely unclear, as retirement-after-the-ring is one of the great NFL traditions, right up there with “the franchise tag is a negotiating tool” and “the new OC will fix everything.” Lawrence may come back. He probably should, because he is still good at football and apparently enjoys it. But if he decides that riding off into the sunset with a Lombardi Trophy is the right ending, nobody in Seattle is going to argue with him. The concern is losing both Mafe AND Lawrence in the same offseason, which would mean the edge rusher room goes from “very good” to “Derick Hall and some questions.” That is a real scenario. Schneider is aware. Sleep lightly, but sleep.
Got opinions? Draft takes? A spirited defense of Kliff Kingsbury?
Send us your mailbag questions, edge rusher hot takes, or any thoughts on how a 84-107-1 coaching record becomes “assistant head coach” material. We genuinely want to understand.
See you tomorrow. — The Rooster