Newly minted Devon Witherspoon — who agreed to a record $132 million contract extension with $101 million guaranteed Saturday morning — plus Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Sam Darnold, Cooper Kupp, Leonard Williams and the Super Bowl-champion starters did pregame warmups in full pads.
All 22 expected starters on offense and defense when Seattle begins defense of its Super Bowl title Sept. 9 in the NFL season opener against New England on this same field watched this preseason game from the sideline in their jerseys, no pads and white team caps.
The fullest action the starters are likely to get this preseason will be Friday when they scrimmage the Tennessee Titans’ starters in a joint practice in Nashville.
They spent Saturday night running off the sideline, jumping up and down and celebrating big plays by their backups.
One of the two biggest one was wide receiver Rashad Rochelle’s 52-yard punt return weaving through Cowboys late in the third quarter. Middle linebacker Ernest Jones and Witherspoon were the first Seahawks off the sideline to congratulate Rochelle, an undrafted rookie from Indiana State. Jones slapped at him with a towel.
Rochelle had a smirk on his face as he got to the sideline, seemingly miffed he didn’t run by the last Cowboy to score a touchdown.
Backup quarterback Drew Lock and the Seahawks reserve offense didn’t score from the first down at the Dallas 27. On fourth down, Lock had no one open to throw to and while pressured threw a check-down 10 yards short of the first down, for a turnover on downs. Seattle remained behind 17-7 early in the fourth quarter.
Then midway through the fourth quarter undrafted rookie running back T.J. Harden, signed a week ago, recovered a punt Dallas muffed punt at the Cowboys 5-yard line.
Rookie Justin Jones ran once for 2 yards. Harden ran twice short of the goal line. On fourth down, third quarterback Jalen Milroe waited to throw, escaped a sack, tried to change the direction of his run and took a 14-yard sack.
Dallas stayed ahead 17-7.
The starters on offense Saturday were all backups. They included Lock, left tackle Josh Jones, left guard Mason Richman, center Olu Oluwatimi, right guard Christian Haynes, right tackle Bobby Hart, tight end Elijah Arroyo, fullback Brady Russell and tailback George Holani. Jake Bobo and Cody White were Lock’s primary first wide receivers.
They constructed a 13-play, 80-yard drive to begin the game. They got help by a 19-yard pass-interference penalty on Dallas that White sold by throwing his hands up as Lock’s pass sailed beyond him incomplete on a third down.
Holani (12 carries, 42 yards) got six of the Seahawks’ first nine rushes.
Rookie first-round draft choice Jadarian Price, Seattle’s presumed lead back for the opener replacing departed (to Kansas City) Kenneth Walker, did full pregame warmups then watched the game from the sideline.
Price has missed the last five full practices of training camp because of a sore upper leg.
Lock threw 12 yards off play action to tight end Elijah Arroyo over the middle. That continued the standout preseason for Arroyo, Seattle’s second-round pick in 2025.
Two runs for 4 yards by Holani later, on third and goal from the 5-yard line, Lock threw quickly to his right in the slot toward wide receiver Montorie Foster Jr. Leaping Dallas linebacker Curtis Robinson appeared to deflect the pass changing its direction as it got to Foster in the end zone. His reaction was true, keeping his concentration and hands to the ball for a touchdown catch.
Foster, the high-school substitute teacher and real-estate agent back home in Cleveland, continues to make plays and impress teammates and coaches this training camp. He is forging a spot for himself on the 53-man roster for the regular season, in a crowded and competitive wide-receiver room.
He scored Seattle’s only points.
Foster nearly had a second touchdown with 6 minutes left in the third quarter. He beat Dallas’ right cornerback by 3 yards down the left sideline on third down. But Lock’s throw was a couple yards too far in front of Foster and landed incomplete.
Coach Mike Macdonald tapped Foster on top of the helmet for the effort, as the former Ohio high-school basketball star who played only one year of high-school football returned to the Seahawks sideline.
Foster later had a 10-yard catch at the sideline from Milroe for a first down on third down. He finished with five catches and 36 yards.
Lock finished 9 of 13 passing for 40 yards and the touchdown.
Jalen Milroe’s accuracy, awareness
Milroe entered at quarterback 4 minutes into the second quarter. Last year’s third-round draft choice from Alabama dropped a short-looking snap from directly under center Olu Oluwatimi to ruin his second play. On his third one, Milroe completed a strike into Jake Bobo’s chest on an in route on third down for a first down.
The next play showed some of how his coaches want to see Milroe’s NFL game grow. He was rolling out left on a bootleg pass. His intended, deep receiver got held coming out of his break by Dallas’ defensive back. The deep official threw his penalty flag into the middle of the field. With the free play and imminent penalty, Milroe kept running while not seeing a receiver open and ran out of bounds for a short gain.
Coaches would like for Milroe to see the flag and have the awareness to throw the deep pass into coverage, knowing even a forced interception would get negated by that penalty flag on the Cowboys.
Accuracy on his passes are the other issue Milroe must improve. An example came on a third and 2 inside the Cowboys 20-yard line in the second quarter.
White ran a quick slant and was open past the line to gain. Milroe’s pass was too far inside his receiver, into the Dallas defender arriving from behind. That contact where and when the ball arrived was why White could not hold onto the ball for a first down.
On fourth and 2, Milroe showed what he does best by running for a first down. But officials penalized reserve tackle Amari Kight for holding on the play. Seattle settled for a field-goal attempt. Jason Myers missed it wide right from 45 yards to keep the score 7-3 Seahawks.
New offensive coordinator Brian Fleury called the base plays he’s installed so far, from the field and not the press box. Of the first 16 plays the former San Francisco 49ers tight ends coach called in his first game as an offensive coordinator at any level in his 23-year career, eight were runs and eight were passes.
Milroe re-entered the game for Lock early in the fourth quarter. Days after saying being more decisive was his key, he held onto the ball too long to take a 9-yard sack. He didn’t throw when he could have before he took off scrambling short of the line to gain on the ensuing third down. Then came the fourth-down sack at the goal line, when he again waited too long to throw.
Milroe finished 5 for 8 passing for 36 yards
Devon Witherspoon ‘thankful’
Witherspoon talked on the sidelines during the first quarter with former Seahawks Super Bowl-champion Cliff Avril on the team’s television broadcast of the game about getting his new contract, the richest in NFL history for a cornerback at $33 million per year.
“It feels good. Long time coming,” Witherspoon said. “He just had to get it done, though. I’m thankful. All glory to God. Shoutout to John (Schneider, the team’s general manager) and all the people upstairs (in the team’s headquarters) for getting it done. Just grateful, man.”
Straight from Spoon pic.twitter.com/5PFhpvRTmU
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) August 16, 2026
A first-round draft choice, the fifth pick overall in 2023. A Super Bowl champion. A Pro Bowl selection in each of his first three NFL seasons. Now, record-setting wealth.
Devon Witherspoon (21) hugging fellow defensive starters before the first play of #Seahawks warmups for the preseason game vs Dallas. Likely the most work they’ll do all night. Not expected to play.@thenewstribunepic.twitter.com/HRwIzIOQW9
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) August 15, 2026
Aden Durde calls the defense
Head coach Mike Macdonald appeared to yield this game’s defensive play calling to coordinator Aden Durde. Durde had the play card and was talking into his speaker between snaps to middle linebacker Patrick O’Connell to relay the play on the field to his teammates. Macdonald was usually on the other end of the Seahawks sideline, just watching.
The defense’s starters were linemen Mike Morris, Brandon Pili and Rylie Mills, linebackers O’Connell and Tyrice Knight, cornerbacks Shemar Jean-Charles, Nehemiah Pritchett and Noah Igbinoghene, with safeties AJ Finley and rookie second-round pick Bud Clark.
Clark, who has gotten some first-team time in training camp in six defensive-back, dime packages, showed his open-field speed running down plays from behind. He also came up fast from deep safety to make an open-field tackle down low on a Cowboys running play in the third quarter.
Dallas with former Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer as head coach started one-time (briefly) Seattle backup Sam Howell at quarterback. Howell could barely hit Lake Washington from the Seahawks’ lakeside practice field in his 2024 with the team after they traded for him. Saturday, he shot-putted a pass high into the air late in the first half. The Seahawks’ Jean-Charles was in position to at least knock down the fluttering ball. He watched wide receiver Cameron Brown pulled down the pass in the end zone next to him for an avoidable touchdown of 39 yards.
Dallas led 10-7.
Jean-Charles, a sixth-year veteran Seattle signed before last season, hasn’t appeared in an NFL game since the end of the 2024 season with New Orleans. It appears it’s going to stay that way. He allowed multiple pass completions, outside and over the middle, before and after halftime.
The ones after halftime led to Brown’s second touchdown catch for Dallas, a reaching, one-handed grab of Joe Milton’s 2-yard throw over Seattle rookie seventh-round pick Michael Dansby. The Seahawks reserves trailed 17-7 midway through the third quarter.
Aidan Hubbard’s UDFA shot
Given his pass-rushing ability, the importance of the position in the pass-happy NFL and the fact coaches have already changed his position in camp, Aidan Hubbard has a chance to become the latest in a legacy of Seahawks to make the 53-man roster for the regular season as an undrafted rookie free agent.
He was an outside linebacker to begin camp. Coaches converted him to defensive end. He played some snaps Saturday inside at tackle. In the third quarter Hubbard had Milton in his hands for a would-be sack. But Dallas’ QB spun out of the sack to continue the incomplete pass. On the next play Hubbard, from Northwestern, recognized Dallas’ screen pass on third and long. He reversed course outside to get in on the tackle short of the line to gain. That forced a punt.
Hubbard was playing in front of his sister and his girlfriend who flew to Seattle for the game from his native Cleveland.
Beau Stephens’ debut
Rookie fifth-round pick Beau Stephens entered at right guard in the second quarter.
The Iowa All-American last college season slanted left at the snap and bulldozed Dallas’ opposite defensive tackle to clear the path for Holani to run for a first down.
Stephens also was penalized for holding during an ugly stretch for the offensive line on a hurry-up drive to end the first half: that holding penalty, a sack of Milroe allowed by Richman and a holding penalty on tackle Logan Brown.
Brown had three accepted penalties. Two were for holding. One was a false start with Seattle’s offensive lined up to go for a fourth and 2 with 8 1/2 minutes left.
