Where do the Seahawks find snaps for Jake Bobo in 2024?

The end of the offseason program is quickly approaching for the Seattle Seahawks in their first offseason under new head coach Mike Macdonald, and that means the slowest of slow seasons of June is just around the corner. Luckily for Hawks fans, with the coaching overhaul comes new coaches, new systems and a lot of new players, meaning there will be plenty to discuss and debate in the coming weeks and months before the start of the regular season in September.

In the comments section of the recent roster projection for the offensive side of the ball of the Seahawks 53 man roster, there was no shortage of outrage that receiver Jake Bobo was predicted to fail to make the roster. There’s no doubt that Bobo is a fan favorite, and there’s no doubt he brings something to the team, but the question is whether he brings enough to the table to warrant keeping around.

Specifically, here are the top ten leading receivers for Seattle in 2023:

• DK Metcalf: 1,114 yards
• Tyler Lockett: 894 yards
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba: 628 yards
• Noah Fant: 414 yards
• Ken Walker: 259 yards
• Colby Parkinson: 247 yards
• Zach Charbonnet: 209 yards
• Jake Bobo: 196 yards
• Will Dissly: 172 yards
• DeeJay Dallas: 26 yards

Of the names on that list, the only ones who left the Seahawks in the offseason were Parkinson, Dissly and Dallas, which means six of the seven members of the team who had more receiving yards than Bobo are set to reprise the role in which they generated more production. The only member of the team who had more receiving yards than Bobo who left in the offseason is Parkinson, and the addition of Laviska Shenault likely more than offsets the production Parkinson lost.

Which brings the discussion to the simple question of whose production does Bobo take? Is he good enough to take targets away from Lockett or Smith-Njigba? In Week 1 Fant, Metcalf and Bobo will all be 26 years old in Week 1 when the Seahawks face the Broncos, and Bobo (196 career receiving yards) has a fraction of the career production of either Fant (2,805 career receiving yards) or Metcalf (5,332 career receiving yards), so displacing either of those two seems unlikely.

Bobo isn’t a running back, though he did line up in the backfield for all of 10 offensive snaps during the 2023 season, as well as a pair of snaps as an inline tight end. Perhaps that sets him up for a role similar to what Ben Skowronek filled for the Los Angeles Rams as a receiver/special teamer/fullback who didn’t really have a defined position and is now a member of the Houston Texans after being traded in a pick swap earlier this offseason.

There are certainly examples of wide receivers entering the NFL as 25 year old rookies and going on to have successful careers, including Anthony Carter, Rod Smith, Patrick Crayton, John Taylor, Don Beebe and others. However, there are far more like Kevin Norwood, Tony Hargain, Brittan Golden, Carl Aikens, Kevin Bowman and countless others who flashed something as rookies and then never did much again.

From there the discussion turns to special teams contributions, where Bobo logged 139 snaps during his rookie season. Those 139 snaps were good for 13th on the team, but according to PFF, 91 of them came on kickoff returns. That is relevant because with the new kickoff rules in place, new special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh has hypothesized that bigger players could wind up on the kick return units. Bobo, while tall, is not a bigger player at the 207 pounds at which he is listed by the team, with guys like AJ Barner (251), Pharaoh Brown (246), Shenault (224) all weighing in heavier.

Putting it together, it becomes a matter of what Bobo does well enough to make an impact on the field in 2024. Can he pry targets away from a group of receiving targets that outproduced him in 2023? Can he work his way into a role on special teams in the wake of the Seahawks adding special teams monsters in the likes of Barner, Brown and K’Von Wallace?

Yes, Bobo runs great routes and has great hands and is a willing and capable blocker, but will that combination of skills be enough to get him on the field for a sufficient number of snaps to make an impact? And if he is seeing snaps, who exactly is he taking those snaps from?