Coming off a dominant performance against last year’s conference runner-up, the Seattle Seahawks are entering some rarefied air, at least amongst NFL talking heads. Mike Macdonald’s club is now routinely being cited as one of the best in the league – a strong Super Bowl contender.
There are no questions about the defense. Macdonald still has some kinks to work out, but that unit is flying. Aside from a shootout against Tampa Bay, no team has put up more than 20 points against the Hawks this season.
If any questions remain at this point, they concern the offense. Sam Darnold is going to face questions until he has playoff success. Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet need to show they can crank out yards week in and week out. The offensive line is certainly better than it was last year, but is it capable of playing at a championship level?
And the receiving corps? Well, a different type of question hangs over that unit.
Which Seahawks’ receiving option will provide support against the Cardinals?
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the unquestioned alpha amongst all Seahawks’ pass catchers. Indeed, he may be on his way to a first team All Pro season. But it has become clear that in order for the Seahawks’ offense to flourish, he needs support.
Seattle’s most moribund offensive performance of 2025 came in Week 1 when JSN out-targeted and outgained every other pass catcher combined. Seattle managed just 13 points in one of their two losses this year.
Things have been a lot better since then. One of the most encouraging things about the emergence of other pass catchers is that production has not all come from one or two players. Cooper Kupp might be the second leading receiver one week, and AJ Barner the next.
Rookies Tory Horton and Elijah Arroyo have both occupied the second-leading receiver slot in games this season. And last week, against the Washington Commanders, with Kupp unable to go, Cody White actually finished second to JSN. That was the result of one huge play – so if you prefer, you can point to Horton as being the true WR2 for the game.
Any way you slice it, Seattle’s “other” receivers are getting more involved in the offense. And we haven’t even seen what new big play threat Rashid Shaheed will contribute.
Against the Falcons this week, I’m looking for Arroyo to come up big. He still has yet to get more than five targets in a game this season. He got five – and caught four of them – two weeks ago against Houston. Before that, his best game had come the first time Seattle played Arizona back in Week 4.
Arroyo caught two passes on four targets for 44 yards in that game. I expect he will surpass those numbers this week and perhaps build on his first career touchdown, which came last week against Washington.
The Cardinals do a decent job of defending opposing receivers and running backs in the passing game. But against tight ends, they are in the bottom quarter of the league. They are surrendering the sixth most receptions and the fifth most total yards to tight ends in the NFL.
And I suspect that, after designing coverage schemes to somehow slow down JSN, deal with the emerging Barner and Horton, and figure out how to treat Shaheed, Arroyo will be something of an afterthought.
Budda Baker has been one of the NFL’s premier safeties for the better part of the past decade. But he is pushing thirty and may have lost a step. Whatever the reason, his Pro Football Focus grade (subscription required) has plummeted this season – especially when it comes to coverage. In the first game against Seattle, he registered a very poor 34.3 overall coverage grade.
At 6’5” and 254 pounds, Arroyo has an enormous size advantage on Baker. That is nothing new to the Cardinals’ safety. He has dealt with the size issue throughout his career. But he seems less able to overcome it as years go by, and I would expect Klint Kubiak and pass game coordinator Jake Peetz to do all they can to get their young, fast tight end matched up with the aging vet on the other side.
There’s no telling which of Seattle’s supporting cast will step up behind Smith-Njigba in a given week. That is one of the things that makes this offense so difficult to defend. But my money is on a breakout game from Elijah Arroyo this week.
