With their 2026 season a little more than halfway over, the Seahawks sit at 5-4, not quite where they'd like to be, but very much still in the mix to finish strong and have a good season.

The Seahawks added All-Pro guard Quenton Nelson two weeks ago, but made no additional moves prior to this week's deadline, meaning for the most part, the group of players on the team now will be the group that takes this team as far as it is going to go in 2026, and that's a good thing, head coach Mike Macdonald said.

"I love our team," Macdonald said. "The guys that we have to go from here on out, I'm very optimistic. We have work to do, we have room to grow, and I believe that we can and we will."

With nine games behind them and nine weeks -- eight games and a bye week -- still to come, it's time to take a look back at the first half of the season and hand out some 2026 midseason honors.

Important disclaimer: These are very unofficial honors selected by a writer who might not really know what he's talking about, so please take all of this with a grain of salt.

Offensive MVP: WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba

MVP is usually a quarterback award, but not when a team has used two quarterbacks, with Sam Darnold missing almost all of three games so far due to injury, and not when a non-quarterback is playing as well as Jaxon Smith-Njigba has this season.

The reigning AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year, Smith-Njigba has somehow gotten even better in 2026, piling up a league-leading 1,036 yards and nine touchdowns on 71 receptions. He's the third player in franchise history, along with Steve Largent and Tyler Lockett, to have 1,000 receiving yards in three straight seasons, and for the second straight year, he hit that mark only nine games into the season. And to highlight just how valuable Smith-Njigba has been to the offense, consider the fact that he has accounted for 49.6 percent of Seattle's receiving yards, and nine of the team's 15 receiving scores.

Defensive MVP: LB Ernest Jones IV

A common theme among Mike Macdonald's defenses over the past three seasons is that there are numerous big-time contributors, but not necessarily one or two stars who dominate the stat sheet. As a result, MVP honors in any given part of a season could go to several players, ranging from first-quarter MVP Leonard Williams to current sack leader Byron Murphy IIto outside linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence to defensive backs like Nick Emmanwori, Devon Witherspoon and Julian Love. But if we have to pick just one player, midseason honors will go to linebacker Ernest Jones IV, who in his two-plus seasons with the Seahawks has not only been a consistent playmaker for Macdonald's defense, but also a valuable veteran leader.

Jones' 88 tackles so far in 2026 are the most in the NFC and fourth most in the NFL. His 3.0 sacks are tied for second most on the team, ranks second with five passes defensed, and has tallied one interception on the season.

Special Teams MVP: P Michael Dickson

Michael Dickson, who has been one of the league's best punters throughout his nine-year career, is again putting up great numbers including a 42.8 net average, and 15 punts downed inside the 20 with only two touchbacks. But where he really stands out in addition to his numbers is the way he uses a variety of kicks to keep returners off guard, which is a big reason why the Seahawks have gotten two turnovers on muffed punts, and why opponents have managed only eight returns for 39 yards all season long.

Top Newcomer: RB Emanuel Wilson

The return of Zach Charbonnet and Jadarian Price have led to a decreased role for Wilson, and while having those two back from injury is good news for Seattle, it's worth recognizing the contributions Wilson made in the first half of the season, rushing for a team-high 403 yards and three touchdowns in the first seven games of the season before Charbonnet and Price returned in Week 8. Wilson's first half of the season included a 100-yard, one-touchdown game in a win over the Chiefs, 120 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns in a win over the Chargers, and 92 rushing yards in a Week 2 win over the Cardinals.

Going forward, this spot will probably go to guard Quenton Nelson, a midseason trade acquisition who looked great in his Seahawks debut, but for now Wilson gets the nod for leading the run game in the first half of the season.

Best Relief Performance: QB Drew Lock

The Seahawks saw starting quarterback Sam Darnold go down with a glute injury on the first series of their opener, causing him to miss the rest of that game as well as Seattle's Week 2 game in Arizona. More recently, Darnold injured his quadricep as well as his ribs in Week 8, causing him to miss last week's game as well as Seattle's upcoming game against the Raiders.

And while an injured starting quarterback can be a huge blow for some teams, the Seahawks have been in great hands with Lock, winning all three games he either started, or in the case of the opener, played the majority of.

Through three games, Lock has completed 71.1 percent of his pass attempts, throwing for 597 yards, five touchdowns and no turnovers, giving him a 116.0 passer rating that would lead the NFL if he had enough attempts to qualify.

Best Play, Offense: Drew Lock to Jaxon Smith-Njigba for an 82-yard touchdown at Arizona

The winner from the first quarter of the season is going to be tough to unseat, a play that remains the longest play from scrimmage this season. The touchdown, which came in Seattle's Week 2 win in Glendale, Ariz., came on the second play from scrimmage and not only gave the Seahawks an early lead, but also helped set the tone for a dominant performance for Smith-Njigba, who had a season-high 155 yards and three touchdowns.

Best Play, Defense: Nick Emmanwori pressures Patrick Mahomes into an errant throw that is picked off by Ty Okada

Nick Emmanwori's versatility and playmaking has been on display throughout his second season in the NFL, and that was never more evident than in Seattle's Week 6 win over the Chiefs, a game in which the 2025 second-round pick did everything from rush the passer off the edge, to covering receiver Xavier Worthy, one of the fastest players in the NFL, on a deep ball, running stride-for-stride with him on a pass that fell incomplete.

One of Emmanwori's best plays in that game, saw him start the play lined up like a linebacker before recognizing that Patrick Mahomes was rolling left to throw. Emmanwori used his closing speed to run down Mahomes, who surely thought he had a bit more time to get a throw off, and hit the star quarterback as he released the throw, causing an errant pass that was intercepted by safety Ty Okada. The play came while the game was still close, with the Chiefs in Seahawks territory trailing by a 3-0 margin, and it helped swing momentum fully in Seattle's favor, with that possession resulting in a Jaxon Smith-Njigba touchdown that gave the Seahawks a 10-0 lead on their way to a 20-3 win.

Best Play, Special Teams: Michael Dickson and Nehemiah Pritchett team up to create a turnover vs. San Francisco

As mentioned earlier, Michael Dickson has been putting returners in a tough spot this season with his various styles of punts, ranging from banana punts that slice across the field to low line drives towards the sideline to wobbly knuckleballs, so it's no coincidence that opponents have had multiple muffed punts, including two that led to turnovers in Weeks 4 and 5.

Against the 49ers, Dickson's punt was already slipping through the hands of 49ers returner Jacob Cowing but any chance he had of recovering the loose ball went out the window when he was blasted by a well-timed hit from Nehemiah Pritchett, knocking the ball free beforeEric Saubert was able to recover and give the Seahawks a short field they were able to turn into an Emanuel Wilson touchdown.

Trend To Continue: Overall strong play on defense

After leading the NFL in scoring defense on their way to a title last year, Seattle's Dark Side defense had very high expectations placed on it coming into 2026, and so far, that unit has not disappointed.

Through nine games, the Seahawks rank first in total defense (244.2 yards per game) and passing defense (155.1), second in opponent yards per carry average (3.4), fourth in rushing yards allowed (89.1), tied for fifth in takeaways (13) and fourth in scoring defense (18.0) despite that number being inflated by opponents scoring two defensive touchdowns against Seattle and setting up several other scores with short fields on takeaways. If there is anything to nitpick about Seattle's defense, it has been the struggles to get stops in the red zone, but the Seahawks kept the Cardinals out of the end zone on two red-zone trips last week, hopefully an indicator that things are improving in that regard.

Thing To Clean Up: Turnovers

The Seahawks are 15-0 under Mike Macdonald over the past three seasons when they win the turnover battle, and they're 5-1 this year if they commit one or no turnovers, but too often this season they have not been clean in that area, committing 11 turnovers in their four losses, including 10 in losses to the Commanders, 49ers and Broncos. The Seahawks are coming off a turnover-free performance against the Cardinals in Week 9, and they have shown over and over again that they're incredibly tough to beat if they can avoid hurting themselves.