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Offseason Program
The VMAC Doors Open. The Draft Is Three Days Away. Year Two Starts Now.
The Seahawks’ voluntary offseason program officially begins today. Young players, injured players, and guys who didn’t carry heavy minutes during the championship run will be the first ones through the doors in Renton. The veterans won’t be asked back in person until May. Macdonald is tiering the workload, and he explained why at the league meeting: the guys needed a standard amount of time away after playing into February.
This is the same program that produced near-perfect attendance last year and, by every account inside the building, helped win a Super Bowl. Macdonald told Seahawks.com that the buy-in from players made the difference. The culture worked. The question now is whether it holds when the trophy is already in the case and the urgency has to be manufactured instead of discovered.
Three days from now, the draft starts in Pittsburgh. Schneider told Seattle Sports the board is almost locked, with one final medical review remaining. The Seahawks have four picks. The fewest in the league. Edge rushers and cornerbacks account for the bulk of their 20-plus confirmed pre-draft meetings. And the phone lines are still hot: Schneider called Cleveland about Myles Garrett, called the Giants about Kayvon Thibodeaux, and hosted Dante Fowler at the VMAC last week.
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Total Seahawks draft picks in the 2026 NFL Draft. League-low.
DeMarcus Lawrence is coming back. Uchenna Nwosu is staying at his $20M cap hit. Zach Charbonnet is rehabbing. The construction cranes for the VMAC expansion will start moving this summer, right around the time HBO’s Hard Knocks cameras show up. There is a lot happening in Renton. Starting today.
SOURCES →
Draft Intel
Even the Skeptics Are Converting on Jadarian Price at 32
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He’s not alone. Mel Kiper flipped to Price in his penultimate mock. SI on Seahawks called Price the consensus wishlist target. Daniel Jeremiah said on the Joel Klatt Show that Price’s range is “Seattle 32, floor Seattle 32.” Albert Breer noted there’s a massive dropoff after the two Notre Dame backs, meaning Price might be the last chance to get a ready-made starter.
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Salk has never liked first-round running backs. Now he’s telling you to draft one. When the skeptic converts, it’s time to listen.
But there’s a wrinkle: SI on Seahawks also flagged that the Seahawks could trade pick 32 to a team wanting to jump ahead of the Jets for Alabama QB Ty Simpson. The Arizona Cardinals have been heavily linked to Simpson, and Bill Barnwell’s all-trades mock has Seattle dealing the pick to Cleveland for a second, a third, and a fifth. Schneider has never drafted in the first round in back-to-back years, and he traded out of pick 32 the only other time he held it. The math says trade down. The backfield says Price. Thursday is going to be something.
SOURCES →
AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Seahawks.com’s RB draft preview names Jadarian Price and Jeremiyah Love as future NFL standouts and notes Seattle has used a first- or second-round pick on a running back in three of the last eight drafts. The Rashaad Penny ghost haunts every conversation. Seahawks.com
Dane Brugler called pick 32 “a prime candidate to be dealt” in the latest mock tracker update. Brugler also floated Arizona trading up for Simpson, which would hand Seattle the extra picks it desperately needs. Schneider playing kingmaker in his own division would be peak NFC West chaos. Seahawks.com
The NFL’s official pick tracker confirms the Giants now hold picks No. 5 and No. 10 after the Dexter Lawrence trade. New York is hoarding assets, which could make the Thibodeaux asking price more flexible. Or more stubborn. With the Giants, you never know. NFL.com
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Rams have four draft picks. All in the sixth and seventh rounds. Turf Show Times is scouting special teams prospects because that’s all LA can afford after trading pick 29 for Trent McDuffie. Their right tackle Rob Havenstein retired, Stafford turns 39 in February, Nacua’s extension remains unsigned, and ESPN’s Ben Solak is publicly telling them to ignore wide receiver at 13 and draft a tackle instead. The Rams’ entire offseason strategy is “win now and worry about the wreckage later,” which is just Sean McVay’s coaching philosophy applied to the cap sheet.
NINERS
An anonymous NFL executive told The Athletic’s Mike Sando that the 49ers keep getting hurt because they “sign hurt players.” The exec predicted Mike Evans will miss 4-6 games and Dre Greenlaw will miss eight. Evans and Greenlaw missed a combined 18 games last season. Another exec questioned whether Evans even fits Shanahan’s offense, noting he “runs 19 mph” and isn’t a run-after-catch guy. The 49ers’ entire 2026 plan is built on two players whose medical files are thicker than their highlight reels. San Francisco’s offseason program also starts today, if anyone cares.
CARDINALS
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reports that Arizona and Tennessee are both “open to moving back” from the top of the draft, but the problem is nobody wants to move up. The Cardinals are trying to sell the No. 3 pick in a market where the only buyer might be Dallas, whose organizational decision-making has been… uneven. Their QBs are Jacoby Brissett and Gardner Minshew, and the big dream is to trade back into the first round for a quarterback who started 15 college games. New head coach Mike LaFleur inherited a 3-14 team and a GM who might need to win to keep his job. Good luck.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
The Seahawks have drafted a running back in the first round only three times in franchise history: Curt Warner (3rd overall, 1983), Shaun Alexander (19th overall, 2000), and one other player under the Pete Carroll era. Who was that running back, what pick was he taken with, and from what school?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Rashaad Penny was selected 27th overall in the 2018 NFL Draft out of San Diego State. Penny led the nation in rushing his senior year with 2,248 yards but was derailed by a series of injuries in Seattle, including a torn ACL in 2019 and a broken fibula in 2022. He retired in 2024 at age 28 after six NFL seasons. His 5.7 career yards per carry is still the best in Seahawks history.
THIS DAY IN SEAHAWKS HISTORY
1996
April 20, 1996
Paul Allen Announces Tentative Purchase of the Seahawks
On this date in 1996, Paul Allen and Ken Behring announced a tentative deal for Allen to purchase the Seattle Seahawks. Allen already owned the Portland Trail Blazers. His representative, Bob Whitsitt, handled the negotiations. The purchase would eventually secure the franchise’s future in the Pacific Northwest after Behring’s attempted relocation to Los Angeles. Allen’s ownership era produced the move to what is now Lumen Field, the Mike Holmgren hire, and a franchise that would eventually win two Super Bowls. Thirty years later, the Allen Trust is selling the team again.
THE GOLDEN EGG
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This isn’t about a player. It’s about a program. Last year, the Seahawks’ voluntary offseason workouts had near-perfect attendance, and Macdonald and his players have repeatedly pointed to that buy-in as a major reason they won a championship. The culture that was built in the weight room and meeting rooms of the VMAC during Phase One and Phase Two carried into September and then into February.
Now comes the harder part. The program opens today for Year Two. The trophy is in the building. The hunger has to be manufactured. The young guys and the rehabbing players go first, with the veterans filtering back in May. It’s the same program, but the context is different. Championships are won in April and May, in the voluntary moments when nobody’s watching. The Seahawks proved that last year. Now they have to prove it again.
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Voluntary Attendance in 2025
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Days Until the Draft
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Super Bowl Trophy in the Building
Got a question for The Rooster?
Send your draft predictions, cap space math, and emotional support requests to the mailbag. I read every one. I answer the good ones. I mock the bad ones lovingly.
Three days to Pittsburgh. Today in Renton. The doors are open, the board is locked, and Paul Allen bought this team exactly 30 years ago today. History has a sense of humor. Go Hawks. — The Rooster