Why Seahawks’ search for star tight end is entering its 50th season

On the day the Seahawks acquired tight end Noah Fant from Denver as part of the Russell Wilson trade on March 16, 2022, general manager John Schneider reminded everyone it wasn’t the first time they tried to get him.

Schneider recalled that the Seahawks liked Fant so much coming out of Iowa in 2019 that they were ready to take him with the 21st overall pick.

“We had his name written down,” Schneider said. “It was that close, right? We thought he was coming to us.”

The Broncos took Fant at 20 and the Seahawks traded the 21st pick to Green Bay, eventually selecting defensive end L.J. Collier with their first pick at 29.

The hope was Fant might be the one to end something of a curse on the Seahawks’ tight end position throughout the team’s 50-season history.

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Fant became the latest victim of it Sunday when he was cut after three seasons in which he showed a few tantalizing glimmers of the potential Schneider saw in him as a college player.

Fant caught 130 passes in three seasons, which is tied for 32nd in team history, showing that his tenure was hardly a failure. He never caught more than 50 in a season, far off the 68 of his final Denver campaign, and it wasn’t worth the almost $8.5 million they were set to pay him this year.

Given the team’s history at the tight end spot, maybe the way Fant’s career in Seattle ended should have been expected.

Fant leaves tied for fourth in receptions for a Seahawks tight end, a stat that illustrates the franchise’s perplexing past at that position.

The Seahawks have had just two Pro Bowl appearances out of a tight end, those coming from one player — Jimmy Graham, in 2016 and 2017.

Symbolic of the team’s star-crossed tight-end history is that the team did not name a single tight end to its recent list of the Top 50 Seahawks of all-time, a group selected to commemorate the franchise’s 50th season in 2025.

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It hasn’t been for lack of trying.

The Seahawks have drafted 26 tight ends in its history, six in the first three rounds and 11 in the first four.

The trade for Graham in 2015 was one of the boldest — and among most controversial — moves in team history.

While it didn’t turn out as everyone hoped, Graham did catch enough passes in three seasons — 170 — to leave as the team’s all-time leader in receptions by a tight end, a mark he still holds.

As another illustrative moment of how the tight end spot has gone for the Seahawks, Graham appeared to finally be breaking out late in his first season with the team in 2015 — on pace for 70 receptions and 880 yards — before suffering a devastating patellar tendon injury.

While he rebounded to make the Pro Bowl the next two seasons, he never appeared to be quite the same player — and for all the talk that the Seahawks just didn’t know how to use him, he didn’t make any Pro Bowls after leaving Seattle.

(Proof that Graham is doing OK these days arrived last week when he was part of a four-man crew that rowed 584 nautical miles across the Arctic Ocean in a little over 10 days to set a world record, according to NFL.com).

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Other names on the list of the Seahawks’ top pass-catching tight ends also come tinged with a sense of what-might-have-been.

Christian Fauria ranks second in Seahawks history in receptions by a tight end with 166, but did so from 1995-2001 when the franchise might have been in its lowest ebb of relevancy in the Seattle sports market. He may be best known for winning two Super Bowl rings with the Patriots after leaving Seattle.

Itula Mili is next on the list with 164 from 1998-2006, but isn’t remembered as well as he probably should be because he missed all but two games during the 2005 Super Bowl season due in part to an intestinal disorder.

Next on the list is John Carlson with 137 from 2008-10. At times he looked like an emerging star after arriving as a second-round pick out of Notre Dame.

But a shoulder injury caused Carlson to miss all of the 2011 season and he never played for the Seahawks again, finishing his career with three seasons with Minnesota and Arizona.

Next on the list is Fant, who is tied with Jerramy Stevens from 2002-06. Few longtime Seahawks fans need reminding of the ways Stevens’ career could have left a better lasting legacy (though give him his due for catching six passes, one for a TD, in the 2005 NFC title game win over Carolina).

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Just behind them with 127 catches is Will Dissly, who had a solid career in Seattle, but missed all but 10 games of his first two seasons because of two major injuries.

Next is Zach Miller with 102 from 2011-14. Miller was a key part of the Super Bowl-champion 2013 team, including catching a pass for 15 yards on the play before Russell Wilson hit Jermaine Kearse for the game-winning TD against the 49ers in the 2013 NFC title game.

It’s fair to say the Seahawks hoped for more after signing Miller to a four-year, $34 million deal as a free agent in 2011. After catching 226 passes for 2,712 yards in four years with the Raiders, he had 102 for 1,092 in four seasons with the Seahawks.

No other Seahawk tight end has caught more than 100 passes with the team.

True, a tight end did make one of the most memorable catches in team history — Luke Willson’s improbable two-point reception from Wilson in the comeback win over Green Bay in the 2014 NFC title game.

But more typical are instances such as the decision to trade Pete Metzelaars in 1985.

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The Seahawks drafted Metzelaars in the third round in 1982 and watched him score the second playoff TD in team history in the wild card win over Denver in 1983.

After a knee injury ailed him the following season, he was traded to Buffalo in 1985 for receiver Byron Franklin. Franklin made just 44 catches in three seasons in Seattle, while Metzelaars went on to play 10 years in Buffalo (including four Super Bowls) and 13 overall, finishing his career in 1997 after playing in 235 games — at the time, the most by a tight end in NFL history.

Fant’s chance to change that legacy ended Sunday.

Now to see what AJ Barner and Elijah Arroyo can do.

Seahawks sign two, waive one

The Seahawks filled out their roster Monday by signing rookie cornerback Kam Alexander and nose tackle Justin Rogers while waiving rookie cornerback Zy Alexander. Alexander was waived with a non-football injury designation.

Rogers, listed at 6-foot-3, 338 pounds, was a seventh-round pick by Dallas in 2024 out of Auburn who spent some time on the 53-man roster but did not play in a game, He was waived by Dallas in June.

Kam Alexander, listed at 5-11, 183 pounds, played last year at Oregon after playing previously at The University of Texas at San Antonio but was not drafted. He took part as a tryout player in rookie minicamp in Seattle and Atlanta in the spring.

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