Racing for Records: Seahawks wide receivers

Welcome back everyone!

No wait, it’s me that’s been gone. Well it certainly is good to be back behind the keys, thinking about something other than the inevitable collapse of both the Seattle Mariners and the housing market.

Let’s talk records!

We’ll walk through some of the different franchise leaderboards this summer, and what’s up for grabs in the 2024 season.

First up: the wide receivers.

The Wide Receivers

This is a particularly unique place to start because it’s clearly one of the strengths of this roster, however Steve Largent exists.

Tyler Lockett already surpassed the rest of the receivers for second in everything, and he ain’t never going to be first in anything related to volume, but there are still a few Records At Risk (R).

One that Lockett currently has that he just needs to hold onto is career Yards Per Target (YPG). This comes with the one caveat that they didn’t track targets back in Largent’s day, but from the modern era he leads everyone with at least 20 career targets at 9.3 YPG. Right behind him is Doug Baldwin with 9.1. Another successful season from Lockett - assuming this is his final season, which, who knows - would keep him atop the franchise leaderboard for that average.

Receptions

An even 100 receptions would put DK Metcalf into the top-5 all time for Seahawks receivers. He’s behind Bobby Engram, Darrell Jackson, and John Williams, who played from 1986 to 1993 after a successful music producing career.

Metcalf has never actually had 100 receptions in a season, but 2022 hit him with 90. This offense promises to be more prolific...how much more?

Fumbles

With great power comes irresponsibility with the football.

Lockett is currently at 5th all-time with eight, and Metcalf at 6th with seven in his early career. Again, it seems unlikely that they will catch the...um....17 fumbles from Steve Largent.

What a stat hog, that guy.

Total yards

As I said, Lockett will not catch Largent’s 13,089 career yards, but Metcalf already would need only 1,114 yards to pass Darrell Jackson, in one fewer season.

I am not making this up raise your hand if you know how many receiving yards Metcalf had last year?

1,114.

Let’s go.

Touchdowns

If Metcalf gets seven he’ll join Lockett as the two guys ahead of Baldwin and behind Largent. That’s both super cool and won’t be caught for a while.

Rookie Sensation

Lest we forget Jaxon Smith-Njigba. If he gets 800 yards he’ll pass Will Dissly for 34th all-time. If he gets 1,000, he’ll pass Shaun Alexander for 25th all-time. Smith-Njigba is especially fascinating this year, as he turned in 628 yards and 4 TD in a rookie season that just felt about as underwhelming as it gets most of the time. Early reports from minicamp are that he really is as sensational as we thought and that Shane Waldron did him no favors last season. There’s two elite receivers and a first-round tight end to share the ball with, so it’s fascinating to consider how this offense is going to unfold this year.