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# Seahawks Minicamp Takeaways: Jalen Milroe’s Confidence Growing Heading Towards 2025 Season
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seattle-seahawks-minicamp-takeaways-jalen-milroe-confidence-2025-season/
- Published: 2025-06-12T00:24:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T06:19:59.000Z
- Author: Corbin Smith
- Tags: Analysis, Seahawks, Jalen Milroe, Steven Sims Jr., Leonard Williams, Devon Witherspoon

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/img_4923-5b1-5d-jpg-format-original-2.jpg)

RENTON, Wash. - Ending their offseason program on a positive note, the Seattle Seahawks wrapped up their second and final mandatory minicamp practice on Wednesday with no shortage of excitement for the upcoming 2025 season.

“I think we're on our way to being tough. We haven't had to prove it yet with pads on, but definitely feel like we're a connected group,” coach Mike Macdonald told reporters. “I think we've made a lot of strides confidence-wise in the schemes we are running and understanding what's expected and just how we roll here in general. So really excited about this group. They're a lot of fun to coach. I think I speak for the whole coaching staff when I say that. We're going into a break here so you can kind of regather and take a breath and then kind of recalibrate going into camp, but I tell you what, I think I speak for the whole team, we're really excited to get this team going starting in training camp.”

What went down at the VMAC in the final practice before summer break? Here are five takeaways from Wednesday’s session:

### 1\. Rewarded for his hard work, Jalen Milroe keeps making strides in Klint Kubiak’s offense.

Rookies always face a steep learning curve coming into the NFL, but that’s especially the case for quarterbacks, who have to learn an entire brand new playbook along with listening for line calls from the trenches and identifying coverages. Starting with rookie minicamp, there were times where Milroe seemed to be playing and processing in slow motion, which led to some errant throws and inconsistent mechanics.

But as the offseason program has progressed, with Milroe coming in as early as 4:30 in the morning to get right to work, the third-round pick has improved every single session, becoming more and more comfortable operating Kubiak’s system. In Tuesday’s first minicamp session, he lofted a perfectly thrown deep ball on a fade to undrafted rookie Tyrone Broden for a 45-yard touchdown in 7-on-7, highlighting his best practice to date in terms of accuracy throwing the football.

On Wednesday, Milroe took another step forward, delivering crisp passes to all three levels throughout team drills. He started off with a bullet to Steven Sims in the opening situational drill, completing a drag route to the receiver for a first down conversion on fourth down. During 7-on-7 drills, he hooked up with Sims again on a curl route for a short touchdown, finishing the red zone session with four completions on five attempts.

But Milroe’s two most impressive throws came towards the end of the practice, when Macdonald called upon the youngsters to cap things off with a four-minute offense situation. He swiftly moved Seattle’s third-team offense down the field with 20-yard strike to Cody White on a corner route and a long completion down the seam to rookie tight end Marshall Lang, and though receiver Ricky White III couldn’t quite reel in a deep ball at the back of the end zone, the signal caller fired a bullet over the middle to Sims to complete the drive for six points, ending minicamp with an exclamation point.

“You see the poise, the fundamental stuff that we're asking, footwork and timing and reads,” Macdonald said of Milroe’s improvement. “I just said to him today, Routes on air, man, how much different does it feel compared to two months ago? He gave me a big smile. ‘Man, I feel great.’ But you don't just do that by showing up every day. You have to be intentional and on record with his work ethic and stuff, that's really impressive. He's earned kind of that feeling of confidence right now. He's earned that feeling going into the summer.”

### 2\. Seattle hopes offensive line competitions will be settled “sooner than later,” but won’t rush process either.

As has been the case for every open practice in OTAs and minicamp, the Seahawks kept rotating four players at the center and right guard spots with the first and second-team offenses on Wednesday. Christian Haynes and Anthony Bradford logged a near-even split with the starters, while Olu Oluwatimi appeared to get the majority of the center reps with Jalen Sundell subbing in for a handful of series.

Based on the past two weeks, Haynes and Bradford appear to be neck-and-neck as the two contenders to win the right guard job. But Macdonald didn’t rule out the possibility players such as Sataoa Laumea or rookie Bryce Cabeldue could still factor into that competition, cautioning that until the pads come out in late July and blockers start actually mixing it up physically, it’s difficult to truly assess who stands out in the trenches.

The same could be said at center, where Oluwatimi and Sundell have both spent extensive time snapping to Sam Darnold during the offseason program. As an X-factor to watch, though he didn’t appear to snap at all on Wednesday, Haynes has gotten a few looks at the pivot position as well, potentially opening the door for him to be in contention for that spot if Bradford makes a push to re-claim the right guard position.

Once the pads come on, those battles will start to really take shape for the Seahawks, and Macdonald hopes that they can figure out their winners faster than they did last summer when competitions waged deep into the preseason and even into the regular season at right guard. But he wasn’t going to give a definitive timeline on Wednesday either, planning to let those battles play out as they will when the time comes.

“I think we would like to make some decisions sooner than later, but we're going to let the play speak for itself,” Macdonald said. “We're not going to force the decision. We're going to be intentional in what happens probably within the first two weeks.”

### 3\. Not resting on laurels, Leonard Williams still has areas for improvement after dominant 2024 campaign.

Enjoying an All-Pro worthy first season in Macdonald’s defense, few players were more disruptive a year ago than Williams, who eclipsed double digit sacks for the first time in his career while adding 28 quarterback hits, 16 tackles for loss, and an interception returned for a touchdown. Lining up in multiple alignments along the defensive line, he wreaked havoc against guards and tackles alike, helping fuel the team’s top-five finish in scoring defense over the final nine games and receiving votes for Defensive Player of the Year honors.

But like all great players, Williams still saw plenty of room for further growth going into his 11th season, opting to come to town for voluntary OTAs as a means to attack those deficiencies and take his game to another level. Though winning with power as a bull rusher will remain his bread and butter moving forward and should remain a strength as he ages, he has placed an emphasis this spring on continuing to add viable counters to his pass rushing toolbox, notably working alongside defensive coordinator Aden Durde on the finesse part of his game.

“I think something that me and AD \[Aden Durde\] are working on is being able to learn when I can do more finesse stuff, take an edge, and really keep the o-linemen guessing on what type of moves I'm going to give them,” Williams explained. “I think last year I was doing a lot of like bull rushes, power moves, and stuff like that. I want to try to integrate some type of counters when the offensive lineman is trying to sit on my power.

After coaching him for the first time last season, nothing Williams does surprises Macdonald, but he has great respect for the veteran continuing to push himself to find another gear at this stage of his career. With more than 10 years under his belt, he doesn’t necessarily need to be at OTAs, but he values leading by example, an area where he has somehow surpassed the expectations that the coaching staff had for him when they took over last season.

“We knew he was an awesome guy. We knew he was a great football player, but what we needed from him was more in terms of a leadership role and asserting himself and his style. At this point in your career to challenge yourself to take it to another level, I think that speaks volumes for who he is.”

### 4\. Stingy defense rules the day in the final tune up before the season arrives in July.

Continuing to set the tone after keeping the first-team offense out of the end zone in Tuesday’s practice, Devon Witherspoon and the Seahawks starters pitched an impressive encore on Wednesday. The group allowed just one touchdown in 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills to the Darnold-led offense, which came on a debatable reception by Jaxon Smith-Njigba that may not have been caught inbounds during skelly drills.

In that same red zone 7-on-7 session, Darnold didn’t complete any of his other five pass attempts, often dealing with air-tight coverage in the secondary that left the quarterback with nowhere to go. On two of those incompletions, linebacker Drake Thomas reached his left hand out to break up a curl route over the middle and rookie safety Nick Emmanwori managed to jar the ball away from Jake Bobo to wipe out a possible touchdown on an out route, while the quarterback had to just loft two other throws out of bounds with nowhere to go.

During an earlier team session, Witherspoon sniffed out a jet sweep to Bobo before the receiver even received the handoff in the backfield, rocketing upfield to meet him as soon as he tried to turn the corner for a “tackle” for loss, drawing a very quick whistle. Two plays later, Mike Morris beat tackle Josh Jones off the edge and forced Darnold to step up in the pocket before the quarterback threw into double coverage over the middle and lucked out that Riq Woolen dropped an easy interception opportunity.

It wasn’t a strong showing from Darnold, but in his defense, the defense played a big part in that, leaving him very tight windows to throw the ball in full speed drills. There’s a reason that optimism seems to be flowing out of the VMAC right now on that side of the ball and the fact the offense didn’t score a single touchdown in 11-on-11 drills against the first-team defense in either minicamp session backs up that confidence and then some.

When the real bullets start flying next month, Macdonald expects to see the offense close the gap, but there’s no question he’s fired up about where the defense sits currently.

“It's going to come to life when you can separate the defense. You know, we are on some of these runs and then all of a sudden it's 2nd-and-4 rather than, hey, we're just kind of -- looks like a soft spot right there or we broke a tackle. That's where it really comes to life when you are wearing defenses down, and then here comes the actions and the movements that you have to honor the run game. So I think we'll have a better feel a couple of weeks into training camp.”

### 5\. Seahawks will have no shortage of candidates for back-end receiver roles with special teams looming large.

Every single day during OTAs and minicamp, different receivers stood out for the Seahawks, from veteran mainstays such as Cooper Kupp and Jaxon Smith-Njigba last week to White on Tuesday. That trend continued in the final day before summer break, as it was Sims’ turn to get in on the action with the shifty receiver seemingly having the football in his hands for half of the scrimmage time, starting with a first down snag from Milroe in the opening fourth down situational drill to move the chains.

From there, Sims remained incredibly active with the second and third-team offenses working both the middle of the field and the boundary, making multiple catches on the receiving end of throws from Drew Lock and Milroe during 7-on-7 drills, including back-to-back touchdowns on a crosser and a curl route that came from both quarterbacks. Over the course of several full-speed skelly and team periods, he reeled in six catches with a pair of scores, showing he belongs in the discussion for one of the final roster spots in a deep receiving corps and drawing positive remarks from Macdonald on both days this week.

“It's exciting, and it's going to come down to a large part of how they play on special teams. Can you move people? Can you block people? Can you get people in the ground? Who is going to play gunner for us? Who is going to be our personal protector? Who is going to be our punt returner? All those things haven't been settled yet,” Macdonald remarked. “And then go make plays on offense. Can you dig out a safety and be a force out there and also come alive in the pass game as well, and how does that complement the skill sets of Coop \[Cooper Kupp\] and Jaxon \[Smith-Njigba\] and Quez \[Marques Valdes-Scantling\]? Really excited about those guys. It will come to life throughout the preseason.”

Like several of his competitors, as Macdonald acknowledged, special teams will likely make or break Sims’ chances of being on Seattle’s 53-man in September. He brings a strong resume to the table as a return specialist, including returning a punt for a touchdown in a playoff game for the Ravens a few seasons ago. But he will have plenty of challengers in that department, including rookie Tory Horton, who should be ready for the start of training camp after being a bystander in OTAs and minicamp recovering from a knee/hamstring injury. Jake Bobo, White, and rookie Ricky White III will also be in the equation as returners who could also vie for other roles on special teams, making it an exciting position to watch in camp that could go down to the wire.