RENTON, Wash. – There was little surprise when the Seahawks cut veteran tight end Noah Fant four days before the beginning of training camp.
Fant was entering the final year of his Seahawks contract and the move saved almost $8.5 million in cash and $9 million in cap space.
The salary seemed outsized for his production and the Seahawks drafted tight ends in 2024 (AJ Barner) and 2025 (Elijah Arroyo) which made it clear Fant was not part of the team’s long-term future.
Still, some wondered whether the Seahawks would think Barner and Arroyo – as well as veteran free agent signee Eric Saubert, who projected as a third tight end/special teamer – was enough, or if the Seahawks might need to add someone.
Adding to the intrigue is that the offense of new coordinator Klint Kubiak utilizes more two-tight end sets than did the scheme of Ryan Grubb in 2024.
On the first day of camp coach Mike Macdonald delivered a strong vote of confidence in the group on hand.
“We love Noah,” Macdonald said of Fant, who the Seahawks acquired in 2022 in the Russell Wilson trade. “We wish him the best. But we also love the guys that are still here. They know what’s at stake, and it’s going to be a lot of fun watching that competition at tight end.”
Through five games of the season that faith has paid off.
Barner leads the Seahawks in receiving touchdowns with four – including two in Sunday’s 38-35 loss to Tampa Bay when he had a career-high seven receptions – and is rated second among all 68 graded tight ends this week by Pro Football Focus.
He was rated first in receiving and 20th in run blocking.
Barner has eight receiving touchdowns in two years with the Seahawks, which ranks tied for eighth with Zach Miller on the team’s all-time tight end TD receiving list (Jimmy Graham has the most with 18).
Arroyo and Saubert have also contributed.
Arroyo, the 50th pick last April, has six receptions for 92 yards and is rated 30th among tight ends by PFF but with a sparkling run blocking grade that is 14th best.
Saubert is tied with Arroyo at 30th among all tight ends via PFF with the 28th best run blocking grade.
“They’re right in the thick of all the things on offense, right?” Macdonald said. “Just they’re instrumental in the run game and in the pass game, them coming to life. We knew we would need them in (the Tampa Bay game) and they continue to come up and make plays for us.’’
But as Macdonald then added: “AJ is the leader of the pack there. He’s doing a great job.”
That comment is validation to Barner that he has proved he can be the kind of all-around tight end that not everyone in the league figured he could when he entered the league out of Michigan in 2024.
“In-line tight end who continues improving as a run blocker but is unlikely to offer much as a pass catcher,” wrote NFL.com’s pre-draft scouting report of Barner.
The Seahawks felt Barner was more complete of a prospect than many of the pre-draft assessments indicated, in part because of reports they received from some of the coaches at Michigan.
Macdonald was the defensive coordinator at Michigan in 2021 and had connections there, and special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh coached Barner in 2023 in his final college year after transferring from Indiana.
“I think he’s an underrated athlete,” Macdonald said on draft day after the Seahawks selected him 121st overall and as the seventh tight end.
Barner’s 44 receptions are tied for second-most among all tight ends taken in the 2024 draft behind only the 131 of Brock Bowers of the Raiders, taken 13th overall, while his eight receiving TDs are the most of any tight end and tied for fourth of all players.
Barner says that even he couldn’t help but wonder if the draft analysts were right as he kept hearing the talk that pigeonholed him as a block-first tight end.
He’d caught just 22 passes for 249 yards in 2023 at Michigan on a loaded and run-oriented Wolverines squad that won the national title. He caught 64 passes in 45 career college games.
“You kind of put yourself in that box, too,’’ he said. “You put limitations on yourself. And once you get out of your own way (it’s) like I can be whoever I want to be in the league. That’s the biggest thing, like it doesn’t matter what the outside noise says.’’
The faith the Seahawks showed him on draft day, he said, helped to quell his own doubts.
“I think Seattle is a great fit for me,” he said. “I always felt I was characterized as I was a misfit. Went to Indiana, went to Michigan, didn’t really have all the things really work out for me. When I came to Seattle, I was ‘all right, this is home. This is where I’m meant to be.’”
He helped fill an immediate need as a rookie as the Seahawks cut Will Dissly and saw free agent Colby Parkinson sign with the Rams. That left Fant, free agent signee Pharaoh Brown and Barner to take over.
Brown battled nagging injuries much of the year and Barner quickly surpassed him on the depth chart as a rookie, playing 501 snaps, or 46% of snaps, far more than Brown’s 264 and not far off Fant’s 569. Brown was not re-signed and is not on a roster.
Barner is playing 79% of snaps this season, with 239 in five games, showing he can indeed be considered a No. 1 tight end, the role the team hoped he could fill when Fant was released.
“Obviously I expected Noah to be here,” Barner said of the release of Fant, who is with the Bengals and had 12 catches in the first three games before suffering a concussion that caused him to miss one game and play limited snaps in another. “It’s just the nature of the business, whoever’s here, whoever’s not, you’ve got to get it done.”
Along with Barner’s increased play and production has come a touchdown celebration consisting of a couple of monster-like leg stomps punctuated by a spike or kick of the ball.
He said it’s something he came up with one day in practice along with fellow 2024 draftee Kenny McIntosh.
“It’s cool to have something that you go to and like people know it,” he said. “So hopefully you guys will continue to see more and more of it.”
Barner said it doesn’t have a name but said he was open to the idea of Barn-stomp.
“Whatever you want to call it,” he said. “Let’s just win.”