Seattle Seahawks Hidden Gems: 3 Secret Superstars on the 2026 roster

Seattle Seahawks' safety Julian Love holds the Vince Lombardi trophy during the Seattle Seahawks' Superbowl LX victory parade in Seattle, Washington, on February 11, 2026. (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP via Getty Images) | AFP via Getty Images

Some organizations prefer to keep things relatively under the radar.

The Seattle Seahawks are not one of those organizations.

Soon after the Super Bowl LX win, it was announced that the Seahawks would participate in HBO's Hard Knocks" franchise, which could be a recipe for distraction for most people. But general manager John Schneider and head coach Mike Macdonald have built this particular team on the notion that the people on this roster, and in the building overall, are not most people." Certainly since the Legion of Boom, the Seahawks have had no issue talking loud and saying everything.

Still, there are differences between the LOB and the new M.O.B. - as Richard Sherman learned in a recent conversation with Macdonald that was captured for HBO's interests.

Mike Macdonald kept it real with Richard Sherman about the Seahawks' hunger level @RSherman_25

New Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the @seahawks Tuesday at 9pm ET on @hbomaxpic.twitter.com/DumH5hRtpe

- NFL (@NFL) August 17, 2026

When I interviewed Macdonald for the Athlon Sports NFL preview magazine this offseason, he went a bit deeper into the mentality that allows the Seahawks to maintain that ultimate competitive edge without getting too... well, edgy in the wrong direction. Especially now that the Seahawks have the opportunity to become the ninth franchise and the 10th team in NFL history to repeat as Super Bowl champs.

I have reached out to some people who have won back-to-back championships," he told me. And it's been great advice, but I think the thing that we learned last year is like, look, we want to do it our way with how we go about our business every day, and what's best for the Seahawks. It's great to learn from other people, but by no means are we trying to copy other people's style or trying to do it that way. The overarching thing is, it's the same destination, but the journey is completely different with a completely different set of people.

Even for the people that were here last year ... I mean, it's different viewpoints, and it's different experiences that are under their belts. We're going to have a lot of new people joining us from other teams who lost some great players. So to me, we're saying that instead of running it back or defending anything, we want to run our process forward. How do we be us and take the next version of us as a team forward, and do that every day? I don't think that our process or our viewpoint about who we want to become, or how we get there, changes because of the Super Bowl or what we evolved to in terms of what we did every day and what our mentality was because it was the end of the season. I think you keep that same mentality of what we're trying to achieve every day. Even though now it's the 2026 season, it's all the same thought process about how we want to be us as Seahawks. And there are going to be different challenges that we're going to face along the road. We know that going in, but in no way are we saying that we're defending anything.

Let's just try to nail being us as well as we can, and stack those days. And then once we get to the season, we'll go from there."

So, the hay is just about in the barn for a team that returns 21 of its 22 starters from last season's championship team, with Kenneth Walker as the obvious defector and first-round pick Jadarian Price as his ostensibly able replacement.

Still, Super Bowl teams require a perfect storm of guys you expect to be great, and guys who pop up out of nowhere to be great when it's needed the most. To that end, I've identified three Hidden Gems for the 2026 Seahawks - one underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent signing, and one underrated draft pick.

Now... time to run it forward. Loudly.

Underrated veteran: Safety Julian Love

There's always a lot of talk about the Seahawks' secondary, but most of it (at least on a national scale) tends to overlook the guy who was the most effective in that secondary when healthy last season. Last season in 11 games (he missed multiple games with a hamstring injury), Love allowed nine catches on 21 targets for 83 yards, 39 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, two interceptions, five pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 17.7 - by far the lowest of any safety who played at least 50% of his team's snaps in 2025 - Cole Bishop of the Buffalo Bills finished second at 45.7.

Love can play all over the field, and he proved that when Nick Emmanwori was dealing with an ankle injury in the days before the Super Bowl. Love told anybody who would listen that if Emmanwori couldn't go, he'd play nickel, or wherever he was most needed. Turned out that Emmanwori did go, and that allowed Love to not only play his usual (primarily deep-third) roles, but also to nab a game-sealing interception, and explain after the game why the Seahawks were able to play dime defense with six defensive backs on the field on 40 of their 72 defensive snaps - an insane rate for any NFL game, much less the most important game of the year.

Postgame, I asked Seahawks safety Julian Love to explain to me how it is that Mike Macdonald is able to call defenses that other teams only wish they could. pic.twitter.com/7xA04xd5sf

- Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) February 9, 2026

That's Julian, he's the Mayor, man," Macdonald said in June when asked about Love saying he'll play wherever is best for the defense. One of our leaders on our team, and that exemplifies the mentality we're looking for out of all of our guys. It's never really a question with Julian, you just assume he's going to feel that way, and that's a testament to who he is every day. We're never trying to take away from his ability to make plays or get him away from the action. We're always thinking about, How do we get him closer to the action?' Sometimes, because he is so talented and so versatile, you do have to put him in other situations to round out the 11 and make sure we're the best 11 out there, but the fact that that's not an issue just makes us a better team, so that's just a testament to him."

As the NFL has turned to the two-high revolution, with subtle and not-so-subtle coverage switches out of that, Love has become the best option on the team who does it better than anybody else. The 2019 fourth-round pick of the New York Giants, who signed a two-year, $12 million contract with the Seahawks in 2023, and then a three-year, $33 million extension in 2024, is the very model of the modern deep-third defender.

Was Julian Love of the @Seahawks the NFL's best coverage safety in 2025?

The answer lies somewhere between "yes" and "yes." pic.twitter.com/zZclsvXCJ8

- Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) August 23, 2026

Leonard Williams, whose time with Love goes back to the Giants from 2019-2022, is well-versed in his friend's leadership, and what it means.

To me he's always been that guy, which is so special," Williams recently said. I got to the Giants his rookie year, and he's been the same guy. He's one of those guys that... he has a process. He's going to show up to work with enthusiasm every day. To me over time, the biggest growth I've seen is everyone else noticing it. That's what is so cool; he's finally getting his flowers - he has been for a few years now, I know that, but it's cool for me to see someone that I've seen at a young age grow into a respected player in the league. We were just sharing about that the other day at practice, that we've played with each other for eight years now. That's the longest I've ever played with anybody."

Everybody who knows about Julian Love on and off the field respects him. It's time that more people knew about the best coverage safety in the business.

Underrated free agent: EDGE Dante Fowler Jr.

So, the Seahawks are set at safety and interior defensive line, due in large part to those two former Giants. The whole edge-rusher thing is a bit less defined. Boye Mafe signed with the Cincinnati Bengals. Demarcus Lawrence has said that 2026 will be his final season. Derick Hall could be ready to build off his dominant Super Bowl performance, but that's as much a projection as a definition. Uchenna Nwosu is valuable in his own right, but if you're looking for one alpha dog in the group... that may be a bit much. It's more about the effect of the collective than one disruptor putting his stamp on everything.

It went very much under the radar when it happened, but when Lawrence talked veteran Dante Fowler Jr. into signing with the Seahawks after spending 2025 with the Dallas Cowboys' league-worst defense, Tank made it clear what the message was.

If you want to win a Super Bowl, you should come here."

And that was that. Fowler signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract worth up to $5 million that could be an epic bargain if everything goes the right way. Last season for the Cowboys, the 31-year-old Fowler had three sacks and 30 pressures in just 248 pass-rushing snaps, dealing with shoulder issues throughout.

The strengthening team here is probably like the best strengthening team I've ever been a part of," Fowler said in July once he landed in Seattle. Usually in OTAs, guys want to go and do their own thing. I wanted to be here. I was looking forward to being with the strength coaches. They get me in really great shape. I feel like how I played when I was in Washington with the Commanders. Like I knew I was going to have a great season, just because of the work that I put in, in the offseason, how good of shape I was. I feel like that."

Fowler being healthy is one thing. Deploying him at his best with all that interior talent is the next level.

We have really good interior guys, great edge rush guys that can get after the quarterback," Fowler said. I love playing with a group of guys, especially like with Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed and Byron Murphy II and guys like that, that can make my job a lot more easier in the inside, so I can just get a lot of good one on ones with the tackles and get there pretty fast.

They're bringing all the new guys and the young guys along really well. I just fall in line and do what I'm supposed to do. They already had a great defense before I got here, and they won a Super Bowl. It was the best defense in the world last year. So my job is to just fall in line and do whatever I gotta do to make this defense upgrade a little bit more."

If Fowler can regain the touch he had in Dan Quinn's Commanders defense back in 2024 - when he had 11 sacks, 50 pressures, and became a royal pain for every opposing offense in a stunt-heavy, relatively blitz-light defense that's not unlike Macdonald's from that perspective - he'll take a defense that is already amazing, and have people reaching for a thesaurus.

Dan Quinn and Dante Fowler Jr. were together in Dallas in 2022-2023. Then, they both went to Washington in 2024, and Fowler's production nearly doubled. The difference? Quinn used Fowler more as a gap-shooting stunt weapon, and it paid off. Time for Matt Eberflus to stunt-fu. pic.twitter.com/cfsNYHfCIS

- Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 1, 2025

Well, Eberflus' stunt-fu turned into more of an F You," but it didn't minimize Fowler's production when he was healthy.

Ernest Jones, who does as much to lead this defense as anyone, is already psyched to see what Fowler will bring to the pass rush.

From a football aspect, what he's going to bring to that room, past-rush-wise, Lord, he's able to get off the rock. He has so many moves in his bag, and it's only going to make the guys around him better."

You think that Dante Fowler Jr. is happy about going from the NFL's worst defense to the NFL's best? pic.twitter.com/zovUJ96kdt

- Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) August 24, 2026

Underrated draft pick: OG Beau Stephens

And now, we move on to the Anthony Bradford portion of our program. Last season, the right guard position was the most obvious liability, and that was on Bradford to transcend. Which he really didn't. And that is one reason why Seattle took Iowa guard Beau Stephens with the 148th overall pick in the fifth round.

Based on Stephens' college tape, that looked like another big bargain. He allowed no sacks and just four pressures in 304 pass-blocking snaps for the Hawkeyes last season - in fact, he hasn't allowed a sack since 2022 - and he's proven the ability to splatter dudes in the run game when it's time to get nasty.

New @Seahawks guard Beau Stephens.

Imagining a front five of Charles Cross/Grey Zabel/Jalen Sundell/Stephens/Abe Lucas. Just for hypotheticals and all. pic.twitter.com/cjPadBGSaL

- Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 17, 2026

You're going to get a mauler in the run game; technical in the pass game," Stephens said just after he was drafted. Love to go hit. I'm not one to shy away from contact, for sure. More overall, just a professional-type-person, a person that takes things seriously and a guy that's from Iowa, who was always considered an underdog, always has that chip on his shoulder. The hay is never in the barn is what Coach (Kirk) Ferentz says. That's just the kind of mentality Iowa culture has, and what I've embodied."

So, what does being a mauler mean to Stephens?

Breaking an opponent's will to play. He doesn't want to stay in his gap. Make the linebackers have to make a play. It's making it so that a guy wants to put his eyes down and not care where the ball is at. It's just, I don't want to get killed by this person across from me.'"

Results were somewhat mixed as Stephens was getting the hang of things against the Cowboys in the preseason opener, but there's enough to like to make him someone to watch. Whether he gets that starting juice sooner or later is based on factors beyond his control, but you can see how it could happen over time.

The good and bad of @Seahawks rookie RG Beau Stephens' NFL debut.

The good: Dude was out there delivering pancakes and body blows!

The bad: Don't get beaten off the LOS and then block your teammate. pic.twitter.com/PtGxUhQXr1

- Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) August 21, 2026