Seattle is always stunning this time of year, and I’m starting the West Coast swing of my camp tour. Here are five takeaways from Seahawks camp …
- The team’s sophomore class has hit the ground running. They’re playing faster than they were a year ago. The corners. The tackles. And one guy in particular that’s worth watching is former second-round pick Boye Mafe, who looks ready to take a nice step in his second NFL season. Mafe’s tough, and came back stronger and more confident, and is drawing comparison internally to Cliff Avril, who was an integral part of the Seahawks’ championship teams. With similarly tough, strong rookie Derick Hall also in the mix, the team’s gotten younger on the edges of the front seven, and deeper, too, which seemed more important Thursday with fourth-year pro Darrell Taylor showing up to practice in a sling.
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- Another area of depth for the Seahawks, clearly, is running back. And that’s been tested early in camp, with Kenneth Walker III, another member of last year’s banner rookie class, and rookie Zach Charbonnet nicked up. Charbonnet returned to practice Thursday, Walker’s still out and that opened an opportunity for seventh-round pick Kenny McIntosh, who’s already turning heads. The Georgia product’s got real juice and pass-catching ability for a rocked-up 215-pound back, and fell in the draft in April because of shaky pro day and combine performances. The Seahawks took him—a second back in their draft class—when they heard where bidding on him as a potential undrafted free agent was going. They may wind up looking pretty smart for it.
- Both first-round picks have come as advertised. No. 5 pick Devon Witherspoon’s everything teams loved about him predraft—feisty, tough and competitive, with his only drawback being that he’s a little shorter (which is where Seattle made an exception for him that they usually wouldn’t). Meanwhile, the 20th pick, Jaxon Smith-Njigba came in with the approach and savvy of a seasoned pro, and has given Seattle the route-running weapon it was looking for out of the slot. And one pretty cool aspect of it is how the two have been matched up with each other pretty consistently in camp, and have brought the best out of each other competitively.
- If there’s an area the Seahawks have some level of concern, it’d probably be on the interior of the defensive line. The team does have capable vets there, in big-ticket free agent Dre’Mont Jones and returning vet Jarran Reed, but could certainly use more depth. And I wouldn’t rule out Seattle going and finding some on the trade market or the waiver wire in the coming weeks.
