What to Watch as Seahawks Kick Off Annual Rookie Minicamp
Less than a week after tying the bow on their latest 2025 draft class, the Seattle Seahawks will get to see first-round pick Grey Zabel and the rest of their selections along with undrafted signees on the practice field for the first time on Friday to kick off their annual rookie minicamp at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
Per general manager John Schneider, the Seahawks will have 72 players participating in the two-day minicamp, which includes 17 undrafted free agents and a bunch of tryout players aiming to impress. But most eyes will be on Zabel and company wearing blue and green for the first time.
Even without pads on and contact prohibited, rookie minicamp presents a great opportunity for Mike Macdonald and the rest of Seattle’s coaching staff to evaluate players as they begin to learn the playbook and prepare for jumping in with veterans with OTAs later this month. As Macdonald said following the 2025 NFL Draft, it presents a launching pad opportunity for rookies to get their feet wet and be better prepared for the rest of the offseason
“We loved how last year went. A by-product of the whole thing is guys are going to understand how we're going to practice here, do it safe, compete, take care of your teammates, but get great work in at the same time,” Macdonald said. “Seeing them out there moving around. It's not like some comprehensive IQ football test. We want them to go play ball and get a good feel for them initially, understand how we're going to operate here, when they come back a week from then, they're kind of off the ground, hit the ground running.”
As the Seahawks get set to hit the field for the first time this spring, here’s a look at three things I will be watching closely at rookie minicamp:
Shiny toys for Sam Darnold and Mike Macdonald get their first run.
With it being a rookie minicamp, Darnold obviously won’t be partaking in the practices and it will be some time before media gets a shot at seeing him throw to a few of his new weapons. But that shouldn’t damper the coaching staff’s excitement to see Milroe lofting passes to second-round tight end Elijah Arroyo as well as day three receivers Tory Horton and Ricky White III.Back healthy after missing extended time last season with an LCL/hamstring injury, Horton told reporters after he was drafted that he recently had been clocked in the mid-4.3 range on the 40-yard dash, and it wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see Milroe take a few downfield shots to him on Friday and Saturday. As for White, the two-time First-Team All-Mountain West selection will be amped for the opportunity to start staking his claim to a roster spot after dipping down to the seventh round, and he should see extensive action both in the slot and working on the boundary in minicamp.But no player will offer more intrigue at this stage than Arroyo, who possesses outstanding speed and fluidness as a route runner at 254 pounds. With some wondering if Seattle may have reached a bit selecting him 50th overall given injury issues for most of his career at Miami, Macdonald and Schneider will be pumped to see his soft hands on display and showcase what stood out to them as a top-15 caliber talent when healthy.
John Benton gets to work with his triad of rookie blockers.
Replacing Scott Huff as the new line coach for the Seahawks, Benton brings more than 20 years of NFL experience in the role, including pairing up with offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak last season and previously working for Gary Kubiak with the Texans from 2006 to 2013. The Shanahan offense is ingrained in his DNA and with his coaching background as a zone blocking savant, he should be quite fired up about who he now gets to mold on the field after the franchise invested three draft picks on athletic linemen last weekend.Coming from North Dakota State, Zabel notched a 9.90 Relative Athletic Score with outstanding agility testing numbers at his pro day workout and a 36 1/2-inch vertical jump at the NFL combine. Those traits were evident on film playing all five positions during his college career with the Bison, and now he will get to team up as a full-time left guard with Benton, who has a history of doing excellent work with uber-athletic guards, including unlocking the upside of former first-round pick Cesar Ruiz in New Orleans last season. Benton will be eager for the chance to dive right in working with such a promising young talent who should, at least in theory, be the perfect fit for his system.But Benton won’t be limited to developing Zabel as a potential franchise cornerstone in the trenches, as he also expressed plenty of excitement in the draft room when Seattle used a sixth round pick on Kansas tackle Bryce Cabeldue and a seventh round pick on Iowa tackle Mason Richman. Cabeldue will make the transition to guard after excelling at the position at the East/West Shrine Bowl and posting elite testing numbers that even surpassed Zabel, while Richman had solid agility numbers and will stay at tackle for now after starting 52 games on the left side for the Hawkeyes. Both those players should be fun projects for the veteran line coach to try and transform into potential swing blockers or even starters down the line and he’ll get his first extended look on Friday and Saturday.
First glimpse of Jalen Milroe as a passer and runner.
Though he fell deep into the third round before the Seahawks selected him 92nd overall, Milroe possesses an athletic skill set rivaled by few quarterbacks in NFL history. He ran a blazing 4.39 40-yard dash at his pro day workout at 6-0, 217 pounds, and those tools allowed him to rush for 36 touchdowns in his two seasons as a starter at Alabama, so nobody should be questioning that athleticism translating at the next level as a runner.Where questions will persist for Milroe, however, lies in his inconsistencies as a passer. In two seasons as the Crimson Tide’s starter under center, he tossed 26 touchdown passes and 42 Big Time Throws on passes traveling 20-plus yards according to Pro Football Focus, making him as prolific of a deep ball threat as any quarterback at the FBS level. But he completed under 60 percent of his intermediate throws traveling 10 to 19 yards and threw more interceptions than touchdowns on those pass attempts, a clear sign of his struggles on shorter throws where his mechanics at times betrayed him.Milroe spent the pre-draft process working with quarterback coach Jordan Palmer and it will be interesting to see if there are any notable changes to his mechanics throwing a handful of passes during drills and scrimmage time at minicamp. After battling through major accuracy issues at the Senior Bowl, this will be his first test in regard to whether or not he has made significant improvements in the past few months.
