The Seattle Seahawks focused heavily on their offense during the draft this past spring, using nine of their 11 selections to pick players on that side of the ball.

Just two of their picks were defenders: safety Nick Emmanwori and defensive lineman Rylie Mills.

Seattle Seahawks waive 2 players, have options to fill their roster spots

After returning from an injury suffered in the season opener that forced him to miss three games (and essentially four since he played on four snaps in Week 1), Emmanwori is making his case to be in consideration for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Mills, on the other hand, has yet to play a snap while recovering from an ACL tear suffered last December during his final season at Notre Dame. But the fifth-round pick appears to be nearing his NFL debut. Mills, who was designated to return to practice from injured reserve Nov. 26, was a full participant in practice for the first time last Friday. He was ruled out of Sunday’s game against Atlanta, but practiced in full on Wednesday and Thursday as Seattle prepares for a matchup with Indianapolis this Sunday.

The Seahawks have until next Wednesday to decide if they will activate Mills to the 53-man roster or place him on IR for the rest of the season. So it may be another week until he makes his debut, and it’s no guarantee that he will play this season. If he is activated to the 53-man roster, how will he fit the Seahawks’ standout defense? Former NFL quarterback Brock Huard shared his insight about the role the Notre Dame product could play during his Blue 88 segment on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Thursday.

“I do remember watching him a number of times and just, gosh, he was a good college football player,” Huard said. “He’s big now. He’s 6-5, 290 (pounds), and to be honest with you, you know where he fits a little bit more? He would fit a little bit more in a traditional, kind of old school Pittsburgh Steelers 3-4 defense. He would be that five-technique defensive end that could play that spot and be very stout.”

Mills is similar in size to star Seahawks defensive lineman Leonard Williams, who measures in at 6-5 and 310 pounds. But one key difference is Williams has more length, which is a concern Huard has about Mills.

“The challenge and what I’m anxious to kind of see in how they utilize him eventually is he’s not real long (Mills had 32 5/8 inch arms at the draft combine)” Huard said. “He’s not like Leonard Williams with that length. He’s not necessarily like a (Quinton) Bohanna and a (Brandon) Pili at 330-plus pounds either. (He’s) 6-5, 290, fairly athletic, super smart, super savvy, but he’s a little different than all the rest of these D-linemen.

“He’s certainly not an edge player and he doesn’t have some of the size or the length of some of the interior (linemen).”

Every Rylie Mills sack (17.0) 👀💪

The best of @ryliemills99 ➡️ https://t.co/tBCRILE4Eh#GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/kdxRT6F6c5

— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) March 21, 2025

However, Huard is confident the Seahawks can figure out the best way to utilize Mills’ skills just like they have with another player on their defensive line who lacks some of the ideal measurables: 2024 first-round pick Byron Murphy II.

“Like they’ve done with Murphy, who also is not prototypical in some of the size, they will play to his skill set,” Huard said. “(Mills’) greatest skill set, frankly, might just be his brain.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

Seattle Seahawks coverage

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SEATTLE – High river levels continue this evening after the heaviest showers came to an end Thursday with only a few lingering showers. A Flash Flood Watch remains in effect for the Mount Vernon area due to flood risks if local levees fail, which remains possible through Friday afternoon.

A Flash Flood Watch is posted until late Friday: there is a possibility of dike/levee failure. (FOX 13 Seattle)

 Landslide and localized flooding will still remain an issue into the end of the week. 

High river levels continue this evening after the heaviest showers come to an end Thursday. 

We have seen three rivers in Western Washington reach record level heights, making this a historic flooding event for the state. We still have the likelihood of seeing record heights for the Skagit River at Mount Vernon this evening into early Friday morning as it crests. Most of our area rivers will continue to decrease overnight and throughout Friday. 

We have seen three rivers in Western Washington reach record level heights, making this a historic flooding event for Western Washington. 

Rainfall totals Thursday were significantly lower compared to Wednesday, which will help to lower river levels over the next few days. 

Rainfall totals Thursday were significantly lower compared to Wednesday, which will help to lower river levels over the next few days. 

Temperatures this afternoon were also significantly warmer compared to average, with highs in the mid to upper 50s.

Temperatures this afternoon were also significantly warmer compared to average, with highs in the mid to upper 50s.

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What’s next:

Skies will be much drier Friday as we see the atmospheric river move out of Western Washington. High pressure will slowly build back in for Friday and Saturday, aiding in the rivers receding and for the soil to dry out. 

Skies will be much drier Friday as we see the atmospheric river move out of Western Washington. 

Highs will remain very mild through the weekend, reaching the mid 50s. We will see dry skies and even some sunbreaks for Saturday. Our next round of showers return Sunday with scattered rain, then heavier showers and lowering snowlevels by the middle of next week. 

Highs will remain very mild through the weekend, reaching the mid 50s. 

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Seattle landmarks are woven into the city’s identity: the Space Needle, Gas Works Park, Pike Place Market, Humpy the Salmon. They’re playful, iconic, and accessible to locals and visitors alike. The monorail should belong in that same category. It is a piece of transportation infrastructure history that helps residents move through the city and remark on times gone by. Instead, it is becoming a premium attraction aimed at visitors, rather than a practical option for everyday riders. 

Fresh off hiking fares on the nearly-one-mile-long monorail to $4.00, Seattle Monorail Services is getting rid of transfer credits to other transit services in a blow to riders. In early December, ORCA informed riders that starting January 1, 2026, monorail fares paid with ORCA E-purse will no longer receive the two-hour transfer credit. Every ride will require full payment, even if the rider tapped onto another service minutes earlier. 

For transit users who rely on transfers to move through the city, this is a step backward. It is also a policy decision that treats the monorail as an exception to regional transit norms — or perhaps not a service intended for use by locals, at all. 

Taking the 1 Line from Lynnwood and transferring to the monorail to attend Pride, Seattle Eats, or any number of other events in Seattle Center just jumped from $4 per person to $7 per person. Fortunately, many Climate Pledge Arena events come with monorail cost bundled in the ticket cost. 

History of the Seattle Monorail

Seattle’s monorail began as a showpiece, built in 1962 for the Century 21 World’s Fair. The idea wasn’t to serve commuters, but rather to dazzle visitors and move crowds between downtown and the fairgrounds. For more dazzling during the World’s Fair, Seattle Center had rollercoasters, which I, for one, am in favor of bringing back. 

The Seattle Monorail has been accepting passengers since 1962, when it was launched as part of the Seattle World’s Fair. (Seattle Municipal Archive, Item #73122)

The monorail system worked as millions rode it in its first year, and the sleek elevated trains helped cement the city’s Jet Age identity. But the system was never expanded, and the short two-stop alignment was left behind as a novelty once the fair ended. 

Seattle actually tried to scale that vision into real transit. In 1968 and 1970, voters were asked to approve the Forward Thrust plan, a regional rapid transit system combining tunnels, elevated lines, and stations across the city. Both measures earned a majority, but Washington law required 60% voter approval to issue bonds. The transit proposals failed, and the federal funds earmarked for Seattle were redirected to Atlanta (where only a simple 50% majority vote was required), funds that ultimately seeded MARTA. 

Meanwhile, Seattle spent decades without rapid transit, and the monorail became a relic of a future that never materialized. Fortunately, Seattle eventually invested in light rail and continues to do so despite financial hurdles. 

But before light rail buildout, Seattle made one more attempt to turn the monorail into a network. From the late 1990s through the mid-2000s, voters backed the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority, which pursued the elevated “Green Line” from Ballard through Downtown to West Seattle. The citizen-led program struggled with escalating costs, uncertain financing models, and political backlash. 

Map of the proposed Seattle Monorail Project, superimposed on Link (2021 extent) and Sounder. (Mliu92, CC 4.0)

After five public votes, the project was dissolved in 2005 without breaking ground. What remained was the original 0.9-mile segment. Still iconic, still beloved by tourists, but functionally unchanged since the Eisenhower era.

Recent fare hike

In 2024, the City and the contracted operator of the monorail announced another round of fare increases. Adult fares rose from $3.50 to $4.00, a 14% jump in a single adjustment. 

The monorail fare hike was much steeper than those on other transit services in the region. King County Metro buses moved from $2.75 to $3.00, a 9% increase. Sound Transit’s Link light rail standardized fares at $3.00 regardless of trip distance, in a win for long-distance commuters. Even in larger cities with higher living costs, like New York and San Francisco, transit fares remain lower at around $2.85–$2.90 for metro service. The monorail is now one of the most expensive local transit rides per mile in the country. 

For many riders, fare increases alone would be frustrating but manageable. Seattle transit often requires combining services: a bus from a neighborhood, a train downtown, then the monorail to a shift at Seattle Center or an event at Climate Pledge Arena. The regional ORCA card system has long made this a possibility. Riders are given a two-hour transfer window so multiple trips are counted as part of the same journey rather than priced separately. 

That saving grace is about to end with the end of monorail transfer credits in 2026.

Email sent by MyORCA on December 2nd, 2025. (MyORCA) 

The monorail has always been an unusual piece of infrastructure. The city owns the physical system, but operations are handled by a private contractor. That arrangement gives the operator strong incentives to raise revenue, while riders are left without the protections and policies that apply to publicly-run transit service. 

The argument for ending transfer credits is that monorail operating costs have risen, and maintenance is essential to preserving a historic system. That is a reasonable concern. Transit infrastructure requires investment, but charging riders twice within two hours, once for a bus or train and again for the monorail, does not preserve the system; it discourages the very people who use it most consistently. The monorail should not be the transfer exception. 

Ridership rebound

“But Sam hardly anyone takes the monorail anyway. Why does it matter?” I hear you say. Despite its short route and just two stops, the monorail sees real usage. The Seattle Times reported that the monorail hit its highest ridership in over a decade in early 2023. Buoyed by Seattle Kraken hockey fans, the monorail recorded 533,000 rides in the first quarter of 2023, 150,000 more than during the same period in 2022, and over 100,000 more than in the same four months of 2019. That’s about 4,000 rides per day.

The City of Seattle partnered with developer Oak View Group to rehab the Seattle Center arena in hopes of luring a NHL team and return of an NBA team. (Doug Trumm)

In 2023, the monorail carried nearly 2.1 million passengers and in 2024 approached 2.2 million trips, offering a strong indication that, given the right circumstances, the monorail serves a concrete transit need, not just occasional tourists. 

Admittedly, other transit lines get far more ridership. In 2024, the region’s six ORCA transit agencies delivered about 151 million trips, up from roughly 134 million in 2023, a 12% increase. Within that total, Sound Transit alone logged 41.5 million trips in 2024, up by more than 4 million from 2023 (about an 11% year-over-year increase). 

The Link light rail system operated by Sound Transit carried 30.8 million passengers in 2024 and averaged about 90,050 weekday riders system-wide. Recent months have seen ridership climb even higher: as of May 2025, Link weekday boardings exceeded 112,000, a 23% increase over May 2024. 

For the monorail, much of that boost came from event traffic. With the arrival of the Seattle Kraken hockey franchise and the rebound in concert and arena events at Climate Pledge Arena after the 2020 pandemic, a notable portion of fans used the monorail (or other transit) to avoid heavy traffic and gridlock around Seattle Center. Now, with a new Professional Women’s Hockey League hockey team and the FIFA World Cup on the horizon the entire city’s infrastructure needs to be ready, with transit running at peak efficiency to handle the load. Mega events act as a canary in a coal mine, stress testing our transportation network. 

With $15 million in federal funds in hand, accessibility upgrades are moving forward for the Seattle Center monorail station. (Ryan Packer)

But the monorail’s renewed popularity and potential to help shoulder the load during World Cup games doesn’t mean its pricing should shift even further toward tourists. If anything, high ridership underscores its value as part of a functioning public-transport network. 

Possible solutions

Unlike most transit systems in Washington, the Seattle Center Monorail is not a drain on the public purse. The monorail’s operations are uniquely funded through fare revenue rather than taxpayer subsidies, and even returns money to the City of Seattle annually under a concessions agreement. That revenue covers day-to-day operations, and equipment upgrades, an almost unheard-of arrangement in U.S. transit. 

But the monorail’s success doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Its elevated track and supporting pylons occupy the public right-of-way along 5th Avenue and Belltown corridors, forming a permanent footprint above some of the city’s most heavily used streets. Riders may not feel it, but the system relies on the city’s public infrastructure and airspace to operate. 

Seattle’s broader goals like reducing car dependency, cutting emissions, and encouraging public transit depend on regional coordination. Breaking fare integration works in the opposite direction. If the monorail is truly a civic asset, it should align with the rest of the city’s transportation policies. 

There are realistic solutions. The City of Seattle can require that the monorail restore ORCA transfer credit as a condition of its operating agreement. The City can tie future fare increases to best practices other agencies typically follow, such as conducting public outreach, publishing a cost-benefit analysis noting ridership impacts, and providing a public forum to debate the tradeoffs. 

Most importantly, Seattle leaders can treat the monorail as part of the transit network rather than an isolated, revenue-dependent attraction. None of these changes require a huge funding infusion or an expansion of the system (even if I think it would be cool if they expanded the monorail). They simply require prioritizing residents over ticket revenue. 

I ride the monorail more than most living in Lower Queen Anne/Uptown. It avoids traffic, provides a distinct view of the city, and remains one of Seattle’s most recognizable transit experiences. It should not be reserved for tourists or special occasions. Public transportation should be priced to serve the public. If it brings joy while doing so, that is even better.

Samuel Ross

Samuel Ross is a Seattle based public servant, returned Peace Corps volunteer, and self-described nerd. He works to promote sustainable development backed by mixed-method research. All opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect attitudes of any organizations he is affiliated with.