With the Seahawks needing another stop on third-and-11 to preserve an eight-point lead in Jacksonville, veteran outside linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence, lined up between Uchenna Nwosu and Leonard Williams, was able to push his way past Jacksonville's left guard, Ezra Cleveland, not only winning that rep in a manner that allowed him to get free in the backfield, but thoroughly doing so thoroughly enough that, Cleveland, chasing Lawrence, missed Nwosu looping from outside in, giving him a free run at quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

DeMarcus Lawrence and Nwosu met at the quarterback, and produced a sack that helped secure a Seahawks win.

With a first down, the Jaguars would have been able to continue a potential game-tying drive, or with even a modest gain, they may have gone for it on fourth down, but instead Lawrence and Nwosu's sack put Jacksonville in fourth-and-18, forcing a punt with three minutes left in the game. From there, Sam Darnold and the offense were able to close the game out, thanks largely to a 61-yard Darnold-to-AJ Barner completion, and with another road victory, the Seahawks improved to 4-2.

The fact that Darnold, Lawrence and veteran receiver Cooper Kupp, who had a 29-yard catch-and-run as well as an 11-yard touchdown on the same third-quarter drive, all played key roles in a Seahawks victory is hardly surprising to anyone who has watched Seattle this season. All three, Darnold especially given the importance of the position he plays, have made huge contributions this season, but when it comes to free agency, there's no guarantee that moves made in March will pay off so thoroughly come fall and winter.

For numerous reasons, ranging from scheme fit to the players around them to a player's fit in the locker room, free agency is anything but a sure thing. For every signing that turns into a home run, there are several more each year that don't work out, to varying degrees.

So for general manager and president of football operations John Schneider and his personnel staff to hit on three players as significant to the team's success as Darnold, Lawrence and Kupp is a big reason why the Seahawks are where they are a third of the way through the season, which is in the thick of the playoff race.

"I'm extremely excited that we have them," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. "And I'm thankful for the relationships that we had—I'm thinking AD (Aden Durde) with DeMarcus, Coop with Jake Peetz, Klint (Kubiak) with Sam—those prior relationships are important for understanding who you're bringing into your organization. Then our personnel side does a phenomenal job. As we're going here, aligning about having a shared understanding about how we want to operate, who we want to be as a team, all that type of stuff, I think that's helped the process over the last year."

Darnold's contributions are the easiest to notice given the position he plays, and Darnold has, by just about every measure, been one of the league's best quarterbacks this season. Darnold currently leads the NFL in yards per attempt (9.6) and yards per completion (13.5), ranks third in passer rating (116.0), third in passing yards (1,541), tied for fifth in touchdowns (11) and tied for sixth in completion percentage (70.8).

Pro Football Focus has Darnold as the league's highest-graded quarterback with a 93.7 grade, while ESPN has him third in their Total QBR metric, just behind Daniel Jones and Dak Prescott. NFL Next Gen Stats, meanwhile, has Darnold as the league leader in completion percentage over expected, and third in expected points added per drop back, barely trailing Jordan Love and Jones.

When the Seahawks signed Darnold in March, Macdonald said, "I think Sam's best days are ahead of him," no small statement considering how well he played in Minnesota last season, and yet Darnold has more than backed that up so far this season.

Kupp, meanwhile, hasn't had quite the high level of production fans might remember seeing during his time in Los Angeles, but he has been very good when targeted, as was the case with his two big catches last week, and his contribution to the team have gone so far beyond what shows up on the stat sheet, whether in the form of the blocking he does or the routes he runs that help teammates get open, or the leadership he has shown with his new team, or the way his extensive football knowledge has been a resource to players and coaches on both sides of the ball.

"The biggest thing is that success leaves clues," AJ Barner said. "Cooper is in here at 5 a.m., first car you see in the parking lot. I know he's up in the film room watching film. He's been in the league a long time now and has seen a bunch of things, and he's a really smart player. It's nice for us young guys to be able to pick his brain and ask questions. The proof is in the pudding with Cooper, he's a pro."

Or as Macdonald put it on Sunday after Kupp scored his first touchdown as a Seahawk, "This guy is a force multiplier… It was really important to bring him here. He's one of the biggest reasons why our team is where they're at right now. For him to have the productivity he's had behind it, too, is icing on the cake. He's playing great football for us. Just the run after the catch on that one play was just tremendous."

Lawrence, meanwhile, came to Seattle after a standout 11-year career in Dallas where he was a four-time Pro Bowler. Through five games—he missed most of one game and all of another due to injury—Lawrence has contributed 17 tackles, a pair of sacks, both of which came against Jacksonville, four tackles for loss and six quarterback hits. Those are very solid numbers through five games, but much like Kupp, Lawrence's numbers don't show his full value. Not only is he a leader off the field, taking young edge rushers like Boye Mafe and Derick Hall under his wing, he also has made a lot of plays that don't show up on the stat sheet but that do create opportunities for his teammates.

"Just his leadership, his effort," defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. "He's one of those guys we jokingly call a 'crash out' in the room, because if you watch him on tape, he's throwing his body around like he's a Year 1 type of guy. He doesn't have any remorse for his body. A lot of times, he's helping the rest of the defense make plays from him crashing into guys, shortening edges and picking offensive linemen off of other people and stuff like that."

Macdonald, asked about Lawrence's performance, said, "I think it's par for the course for D-Law. That's the DeMarcus Lawrence that I'm familiar with. He's a disruptive, violent and decisive player. I'll tell you what, I'd love to play linebacker behind him.

He's just kicking butt in the rush game. In order to twist and run games, it takes a lot of communication and unselfishness, and our guys did that. D-Law was a huge part of it."

Adding to the success of those free-agent signings is that all three, in addition to being productive players, were also able to step into significant leadership roles. That is to be expected from a quarterback just because of the demands of the position, but it's not a given that free agents at other positions come in and lead right away, but it's something that trio has done right away, much like linebacker Ernest Jones IV did last season after being acquired in a midseason trade.

"I think it's just reflective of who they are," Macdonald said. "I've been around great players that were free agent acquisitions that weren't leaders, because that was more their personality, but they were extremely helpful to the team. And I've been around guys who have come in—I'm thinking of the guys we've acquired, I'm thinking of guys like (Ravens free-agent signings) Roquan (Smith) and Eric Weddle, they came in, Ernest, even though he was a trade, that was the same idea."

Moving on from a starting quarterback is not an easy decision, nor is trading away a Pro-Bowl receiver, yet the Seahawks did both of those things, and thanks to some shrewd free-agent signings, as well as other additions, including draft picks like Grey Zable, Nick Emmanwori and Tory Horton, the Seahawks are off to a great start even after Schneider and company had to make those difficult decisions to trade Geno Smith and DK Metcalf.

"It's competing," Schneider said in March when asked about those big decisions. "I sound like Pete (Carroll) right there, but it's the truth. We're competing in every aspect of what we're doing every single day. We're not saying this player is better than that player, it's all this huge piece with salaries and scheme fits and people wanting to be here and people not wanting to be here. So you just have to be able to continue to pivot. We didn't just make those moves to chill, we're going for it, we're fighting every day."

And six games into the season, going for it with those moves has paid off, thanks in no small part to three veteran free agents who are making a huge difference for their new team.