The Seattle Seahawks have a clear depth chart at quarterback for the 2025 NFL season. Sam Darnold is the starter, Drew Lock in the backup and rookie Jalen Milroe is the No. 3 QB.
But unlike other NFL teams, the Seahawks hope to have their third-team quarterback play an active role on game day.
“We’re going to have plays for Jalen and game plans,” Seattle coach Mike Macdonald said this week, “and he’s going to rep those with the ones, and however we build the package for him going into games, he needs those reps and walkthrough and full speed. So that’s going to be important -- how we do it, who gets how many reps, all that. I mean, obviously, Sam, it starts with how many reps he needs to get ready, and then we kind of work off from there.”
Milroe has added an element to the Seahawks’ quarterbacks room. In addition to passing for 5,678 yards and 39 touchdowns in his final two seasons at Alabama, Milroe ran for 1,257 yards and 32 touchdowns. At the Crimson Tide’s pro day, Milroe ran a reported 4.37-second 40-yard dash.
During Seattle’s three preseason games, Milroe ran for 87 yards on 15 carries.
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But to play, Milroe needs to be active on game day. Macdonald said the Seahawks had modeled their options with two quarterbacks and with three quarterbacks available on game days.
“We’ve worked out both scenarios during preseason,” Macdonald said. “We do, like, mock who would be up, how we would handle it just so with the new offensive staff, making sure we understand, hey, what it’s going to look like once we probably get into the season, and so then you toss around certain scenarios.”
Milroe went all the way under center for Seattle during its preseason finale – a 20-7 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Saturday. Milroe completed 13-of-24 passes for 148 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions and ran seven times for 31 yards. He also lost three fumbles.
Macdonald said that had not diminished the role the Seahawks envisioned for Milroe now that the regular season is at hand.
“I thought there was a lot of good stuff,” Macdonald said. “He made some really good throws on time, went through his progressions. There’s some, you know, we go back to the ball. I mean, I think that’s pretty obvious leaving the field. But I thought the guy made some really cool plays throughout the game, stuff that we can build on moving forward. So, of course, there’s things that we want to get better out of and put up more points and all that type of stuff, but definitely a good foundation to move forward.”
Seahawks general manager John Schneider used a third-round pick in the NFL Draft on April 25 to obtain Milroe. He said the rookie “did great” in preparing for the 2025 season.
“His work ethic’s outstanding,” Schneider said on Wednesday. “He’s got a great, live personality. He’s got a lot of juice. He’s got swag. He studies like crazy, and, you know, he’s following Drew and Sam around and spending a ton of time working on his craft and doing the extras on his own. And I’m sure he would have liked things to go his way with the ball security the other day a little bit better, but really excited to see what the offensive staff’s going to do, like, how we work him in and what the plan’s going to be. But, yeah, very excited about his development.”
The Seahawks open their 17-game regular-season schedule against the San Francisco 49ers on Sept. 7.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at@AMarkG1.
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