The Seattle Seahawks’ midseason trade for Rashid Shaheed was supposed to add speed and chaos. It also cost them two 2026 draft picks, a fourth-rounder and a fifth-rounder sent to the New Orleans Saints.
That deal now has a clean paper trail. New Orleans used the Seahawks’ fourth-round pick on guard Jeremiah Wright and the fifth-rounder on safety Lorenzo Styles Jr., while Seattle entered the 2026 draft with only four selections. For a team that had already given up draft capital in the middle of the 2025 season, the Shaheed move left a thin class before the picks were even made.
The cost only makes sense if Shaheed keeps doing what made him worth chasing. During the 2025 season, he returned two kickoffs for touchdowns and added a punt return touchdown. He also opened the Divisional Round game against the San Francisco 49ers with a kickoff return for a touchdown, the kind of play that changes a game before the offense settles in.
That is why Shaheed is more than a wide receiver, and why Seattle paid for him like a weapon, not just a pass catcher. But the trade also landed in a 2026 draft that was not highly respected, which dulls the sting somewhat for Seattle and raises the question of how much value the Saints ultimately squeezed from those selections. The Rams game in Week 16 offered a reminder of why the Seahawks were hunting for help in the first place: Seattle trailed 30-14 in the second half, and Shaheed’s arrival was meant to help create more of the kind of instant momentum the roster lacked.
The deal has already produced real results for both sides. Seattle got the return threat it wanted, and New Orleans turned the Seahawks’ picks into Jeremiah Wright and Lorenzo Styles Jr. What remains is the hard part for the Seahawks: proving that a smaller 2026 draft class was a fair price for a player who can flip a game with one touch.
