With the Seahawks facing third-and-14 on their second possession of Friday night's preseason game—hardly a high-percentage situation—Drew Lock fired a pass over the middle to Dareke Young, who was running a slant route well short of the sticks. With the defense giving a big cushion because of the down and distance, the fourth-year receiver was able to do the rest, turning up field before putting his shoulder down to fight through two defenders for a first down.

Later in the half, after a holding call had the Seahawks facing first-and-20 early in a drive, Lock again turned to Young, and Young again turned a short completion into a long gain, picking up 24 yards and a first down to get the Seahawks out of that first-and-20 hole. Later in that same drive, Lock found Young one more time, with Young picking up 14 yards and another first down, setting up a Jake Bobo touchdown catch one play later.

That reception capped off an impressive first half for Young in Friday night's 33-16 win over Kansas City, with Young catching three passes, all for first downs, for a team-high 52 yards on 22 offensive snaps. Young also fielded Kansas City's first kickoff, gaining 29 yards on the return, and perhaps more meaningful than the yardage he gained was the fact that he, along with George Holani, was one of the two players back on return duty early in the game before other players rotated into that role later in the game.

It was the kind of performance that showed that Young, a special teams mainstay during each of his first three seasons in Seattle, not only deserves a spot on the team, but that he also is someone who could make a leap and help the team on offense in 2025.

"I think this is a great system for him because he can show his physicality in the run game and he's really fast, so all the vertical stretch stuff," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. "And then just him in and out of his breaks is just way more decisive. You feel the burst, feel the flexibility, which is a tribute to his work ethic and the work he put on his body. The guy looks like a figurine out there, man. It's impressive."

Lightly recruited in high school, in part due to a leg injury during his senior year, Young wound up at Lenoir-Rhyne, and despite playing in relative obscurity at the Division II school, Young's production, size and athletic ability put him on NFL teams' radar in the 2022 draft. The Seahawks selected Young in the seventh round that year, and he stuck around on the 53-man roster thanks in large part to his work as a core special teams player.

And if Young is on the roster come the regular season, something that seems more and more likely with each passing week, he will again be expected to have a big role on special teams, but what Friday's game, as well as several training camp practices have shown, is that he is looking like a player who could have a meaningful role in Seattle's offense. Whether its using his speed to get open down field or his size and hands to make contested catches over defensive backs, or using his physicality as a blocker in the running game, Young has put on display several traits that could make him an attractive option in Klint Kubiak's offense.

"It felt good," Young said of Friday's performance. "It always feels good when the coaches are calling plays for me and I'm getting open and succeeding."

For Young, the goal in this camp, like any other, has been to show growth, or as he put it, "Show that I'm a better version of myself than previous years. That's my goal going into each and every year, to be better than I was last year. I worked really hard this offseason and I feel like I came in the most confident I've ever came in into a training camp and it's showing."

That confidence and improvement has been evident on gamedays and in practice, and it sticks out to teammates who have seen him grow since arriving in Seattle in 2022.

"I've talked to him one on one about his progression from mainly special teams to becoming a reliable receiver for us," said Lock who spent 2022-2023 in Seattle before spending last season with he Giants. "He's done a great job. I missed that year obviously last year, but the difference from my second year here to what he is now, that little gap of a year I wasn't here with him, it's miles ahead of what I remember. That's just a testament to how hard he works. He's one of those guys who just puts his head down, grinds, works. You're not going to get a ton of hoorah out of him; he's going to come out and play his butt off."