The Seahawks' 2026 win total is a live debate, and this morning's roster assessment piece sharpens why.
The framing coming out of the evaluation is that Seattle absorbed notable departures this offseason. That language matters. "Notable" is not "marginal," and when a team loses meaningful pieces at the same time a league-wide offensive tackle ranking drops, with two blockers from the same team cracking the top ten, the first question I ask is whether Seattle's protection picture got better or worse relative to the league.
The OT rankings wire, published the same morning, is worth stacking against Seattle's situation. If the Seahawks placed either tackle in the top ten, that is a stabilizing signal even amid departures elsewhere. If they didn't, and they lost contributors at skill positions or in the secondary, the "stayed the same" verdict gets harder to defend. The full detail of who left and who stays isn't in what I have in front of me right now, but the framing of notable departures points toward a team that did not improve on paper.
For the market, that matters most in two spots: the win total and the NFC West division odds. If books are still pricing Seattle as a .500-or-better team with meaningful departures unaddressed, there's a lean toward the under and toward longer division odds being closer to fair value than the current number suggests. Neither is a conclusion I'll plant a flag on without the full roster picture, but the directional read is toward the cautious side on Seattle.
What I'm watching next: the full depth chart coming out of camp, specifically at the positions the departures hit hardest. When beat reporters start confirming who's actually filling those roles, I'll stack the replacement-level gap against the win total and move from there.
