As defending Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks enter the 2026 season with one of the more complete rosters in the NFL. They did lose a few key players in free agency, but did an excellent job filling those holes in the draft, led by first-round pick Jadarian Price at running back.

Seattle will get together for their voluntary OTAs on May 26, and mandatory minicamp will begin on June 9. These practices will be vital to players on the roster bubble, especially the following three undrafted free agents who have a shot at stealing a spot on the Seahawks’ 53-man roster.

Uso Seumalo, NT

Seattle understands the importance of dominating at the line of scrimmage. Their expertise in this area was on full display during their Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots and will be a focus again in 2026.

Even with the talent already on their defensive line, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Uso Seumalo make a bid for a roster spot. A mammoth 6-foot-3, 330 pound nose tackle, Seumalo excelled at stopping the run while at Kansas State.

He didn’t fill up the stat sheet, but Seumalo does the dirty work and clogs up lanes, which allows others to make the splash plays. That doesn’t always get noticed but it will under a head coach like Mike Macdonald.

Devean Deal, LB

A former tight end, Devean Deal moved to linebacker and was an impactful player during his two seasons at TCU. He had 99 tackles, 17 tackles for loss, and eight sacks for the Horned Frogs.

Seattle has a crowded room at linebacker but there’s no reason Deal couldn’t push for a spot as a developmental prospect.

Aidan Hubbard, EDGE

Seattle lost Boye Mafe in free agency, but did great work in replacing him with Dante Fowler Jr. at a fraction of the price. Seattle could still use more depth, as well as a younger prospect to groom.

Enter Aidan Hubbard out of Northwestern. Seattle clearly likes Hubbard, signing him to a deal with $267,500 in guaranteed money, which is more than twice as much as any other UDFA they signed.

During his four years at Northwestern, Hubbard recorded 105 tackles and 20.5 sacks. Seahawks On SI writer Michael Hanich wrote that Hubbard doesn’t win with great speed or power, but gives relentless effort and knows how to get off blocks. That might be enough for him to find his way onto the Seahawks roster.

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Youth Ride Free

In 2022, youth began riding transit for free across Washington State. In that year’s transportation budget, Olympia began funding local transit operations for local agencies (except Sound Transit) and in return demanded agencies adopt “low-barrier, zero-fare policies for youth”. That forbids checking IDs, mandating Youth ORCA cards, or even filling out a form. WSDOT indicates that any rider who “identifies oneself as 18 years of age and under” can’t be denied service due to lack of fare media.

Youth Ride Free has been a huge win for parents and children but for transit agencies it’s added complexity to fare enforcement. Today, a large contingent of riders legally ride for free with no identification or fare media making enforcement and calculating a fare evasion rate difficult.

Outside Seattle, no tracking

Outside of Seattle, Community Transit (in Snohomish County), C-TRAN (in Vancouver), and Spokane Transit operate proof of payment BRT systems. We reached out to those agencies to understand their fare evasion rate and all three said fare evasion was not a metric they tracked. Spokane Transit does not have a fare enforcement program. Both Community Transit and C-TRAN cited Youth Ride Free as a reason why their agency is unable to track a fare evasion rate.

King County Metro

In 2019, King County Metro estimated that between 2.7% and 4.5% of riders weren’t paying on proof of payment routes (i.e RapidRides). Last month, the Urbanist broke that King County Metro issued zero citations for fare evasion in 2025 despite Metro estimating a systemwide 35% “nonpayment rate”.

With Youth Ride Free, “nonpayment” and “evasion” aren’t really synonyms anymore so we reached out to Metro for more clarity. Metro spokesperson Jeff Switzer clarified that “the systemwide non-payment rate of 35 percent does exclude youth ridership, based on our best estimates” (emphasis mine).

Coverage of this story in the Seattle Times also indicated that routes with fare enforcement (i.e. the 7, 36, 40, 106, and RapidRides A-F) now have just a 3% evasion rate, an almost 30 percentage point reduction since enforcement began. Metro clarified that they do not actually track fare evasion by route and the 3% figure cited by the Seattle Times is the percentage of fare checks in which riders had not paid, not the percentage of boardings in which riders had not paid.

Sound Transit

In 2019, fare evasion on Link was 2.4% of riders. After a brief hiatus for the pandemic, in Fall 2023 Sound Transit began enforcing fares again (with Fare Ambassadors instead of security).

In early May, staff gave an update to the Sound Transit Board on the Fare Engagement Program. Notably, only 63% of boardings have valid fare media (i.e. paid), a rate somewhat higher than the 56% in 2022. Youth (and those attesting to be youth) are included in the 37% of riders that do not pay. Before Youth Ride Free, youth represented roughly 6% of ridership.

In 2018, Fare Inspectors checked roughly 2.5M fares or 8.76% of riders. In 2025, Fare Ambassadors checked 986,304 fares, roughly 2.5% of riders and a far cry from Sound Transit’s goal of checking 10% of riders.

Of those checked by Fare Ambassadors in 2025, 15% did not have a valid fare. 7.5% were youth legally riding free. 7.8% were not youth and did not have a valid fare and of that number, 60% refused to show ID and were thus not issued a warning.

It is difficult to reconcile the discrepancy between only 63% of riders having paid but 85% of riders checked by Fare Ambassadors having a valid fare. Perhaps 20% of riders dodge the Fare Ambassadors? Or 20% of riders are on crushed trains Fare Ambassadors cannot check? Regardless, it is obvious that Fare Ambassadors are not checking a representative sample of riders.

In 2024, staff estimated that due to fare evasion, the agency lost $15M annually and is losing $30M annually now that ST2 is completed. Over the course of the 50 year ST3 program, that represents roughly $1.5 billion, or 10% of the cost overrun for the Ballard Link. The agency is now piloting “entrance inspections” (i.e. human fare gates), which do increase compliance but only when the inspections are active.

The Sound Transit board obviously sees fare evasion as a problem as they investigate fare gates. But BART, a fully gated system, had a 5% evasion rate in 2017 and has a 10% evasion rate now, both far higher than Sound Transit’s own fare gate-less 2.4% evasion rate from 2019 when over 2.5x more checks were happening.

Editor’s Note: Uncivil comments, especially those which make unsubstantiated claims about riders who do or do not pay fare, will be moderated in accordance with our Comment Policy.

SEATTLE — City leaders are considering a one-year ban on new data centers in Seattle, and many residents are overwhelmingly on board.

Councilmembers Debora Juarez, Eddie Lin, and Council President Joy Hollingsworth introduced the year-long moratorium after reports that four companies have gone to Seattle City Light with proposals to build five large-scale data centers in the Seattle area.

Along with the legislation, councilmembers are also weighing a resolution that would require the city to study how these data centers impact city infrastructure, water usage, utility rates, public health, and more.

The drafted resolution defines data centers as “facilities consisting of housing and infrastructure (heating, cooling, lighting, offices) to support servers (computers), data storage systems, networking equipment, uninterruptible power supply batteries, or backup power generators.” Demand for the centers is growing as the AI industry expands, sponsors said.

On Wednesday, the city’s Land Use and Sustainability Committee was briefed on the proposed ban, and the Parks and City Light Committee discussed the resolution. Neither committee took a vote. However, dozens of people voiced support for the moratorium during public comment periods.

“Public utilities should prioritize public needs, including climate, over the profit interests of big tech,” Rebecca Wood said.

Residents’ concerns about data centers ranged from rising utility rates to increased pressure on the city’s power grid and environmental harms across the Seattle region.

“We are in a climate crisis. We know this, and it is time for us to act urgently. Building data centers is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing,” Alecia Gaussoin said.

Seattle already has roughly 30 small data centers. The large-scale centers in question would be the first of their size in the region, and they would have a combined maximum demand of 369 megawatts — enough to power about 300,000 homes — according to city officials.

“Comparing the 30 that we have in Seattle to the ones they are trying to build here is like saying my bearded dragon is the same as Godzilla,” Evan Sutton said during public comment.

The resolution also calls for cooperation from the mayor’s office in creating policies to guide future legislation and budget appropriations.

Both city committees are expected to vote on the proposed one-year ban and resolution June 3. If passed, the moratorium would take effect immediately.

This is a developing story that will be updated.