Quandre Diggs is indeed, as he said, “back home.”
He hugged new-old teammates. He joked with familiar faces while picking up his new-old gear in the team’s equipment room. He hugged members of the public-relations staff he’s known for year.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementOn the field, wearing the number 37 he initially had when he first arrived in Seattle in a trade from Detroit in the middle of the 2019 season, he slapped hands with staffers. He warmed up next to his instant protege, rookie safety/hybrid linebacker Nick Emmanwori. They know each other from sharing the same agent, David Mulugheta. Diggs also got to see in person the Seahawk he’s been talking to “three, four times per week” since Diggs left. That’s starting safety Coby Bryant.
“Yessir,” the 32-year-old Diggs said inside his new-old locker room Wednesday, “happy to be back.”
Diggs made it clear Wednesday upon his return to the Seahawks, the team for which he was a captain plus a Pro Bowl safety three times in five seasons from 2019-23: He was always coming back.
“Obviously, if I had the opportunity to come back, it was a no-brainer for them,” he said of the Seahawks signing him to the practice squad Wednesday morning.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Just being around my guys, people I, literally, bro, talk to all the time, people I’m always around, being back home, it’s been dope.
“This was always going to be part of the plan, you know what I mean? Everybody knows me. Everybody knows how I feel about this place.”
That includes Mike Macdonald.
Pete Carroll was the coach, not Macdonald, when Diggs played for Seattle. About six weeks after the team hired Macdonald to replace the fired Carroll, the Seahawks released Diggs and former All-Pro Jamal Adams in March 2024 as Macdonald turned over its safety position.
Yet soon after, Macdonald talked with Diggs about re-signing him back to the team. He eventually signed instead with the Tennessee Titans. “Obviously, me and Mike had a conversation last year. Obviously, me and K-Scott (Seahawks defensive backs coach Karl Scott), (safeties coach) Jeff Howard...
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“It just didn’t work out.”
He played on a one-year contract with Tennessee last season, then on a second one-year deal he signed in August. The Titans released him Nov. 7.
“Bringing back Diggs is pretty cool,” Macdonald said Wednesday, “because him and I talked when I first got here last year. Obviously things worked out the way they did. But excited for him to be back. I know the building is really excited. I think he’s excited.
“I know a lot of our guys are really fired up.
“We’ll see how it goes. But we were just doing our walk-through (practice) and he’s spittin’ out (defensive) calls.”
Quandre Diggs (37) and rookie safety Nick Emmanwori (3) greet each other at the start of Diggs’ return practice to the Seahawks Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025, at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton. Injuries at safety promoted Seattle to sign back Diggs, their three-time Pro Bowl selection and team captain from 2019-23.Seahawks’ flurry of moves
Diggs signing back was one of a flurry of moves the team made Wednesday.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Seahawks signed former Rams and Vikings running back Cam Akers to the active roster. He played 12 games for Minnesota last season and parts of three games this season before the Vikings released him last weekend. That move behind lead back Kenneth Walker and number-two runner Zach Charbonnet comes after running back George Holani injured his hamstring last weekend in Seattle’s win at Tennessee.
The Seahawks signed linebacker Patrick O’Connell and cornerback Shaquill Griffin from the practice squad to the active roster. Griffin essentially replaces Derion Kendrick, the cornerback Seattle waived Tuesday. The Rams claimed back their former draft pick Kendrick on Wednesday. O’Connell, in his third season in the NFL all with the Seahawks, had reached his NFL-maximum three elevations from the practice squad.
Starting middle linebacker Ernest Jones has missed two of the last three games with a knee injury. Macdonald said Jones is trending toward perhaps practicing late this week. The coach said Jones will have to show coaches on the field his knee is healed before he can play, Sunday against Minnesota or next week at Atlanta.
Seattle Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones IV (13) walks out ahead of the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Lumen Field, on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, in Seattle.The Seahawks put Chazz Surratt on injured reserve to make roster room to add O’Connell. Surratt hurt his ankle at Tennessee last weekend.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn addition to Diggs, the team also signed back to the practice squad former University of Washington and O’Dea High School star running back Myles Gaskin and plus undrafted rookie wide receiver Jimmy Holiday. Seattle released tackle Logan Brown from the practice squad.
Myles Gaskin, former University of Washington Huskies and O’Dea High School running back, begins his first practice as a member of the Seahawks Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025, at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton. Seattle signed Gaskin, 28, to its practice squad.And the team designated rookie defensive end Rylie Mills to return to practice. The fifth-round draft choice from Notre Dame has been on the non-football-injury list during his recovering from reconstructive knee surgery he had last winter to end his college career. “I told the team this morning, too, and they were fired up,” Macdonald said. “Rylie’s been working extremely hard. He’s been locked in. I know he’s been anticipating this move for a long time.
“Just got to go out there and play the game he’s been playing his whole life.”
Julian Love’s status
Diggs is here because Julian Love, the safety whose emergence into a younger, Pro Bowl selection for Seattle helped send Diggs away last year, remains on injured reserve. Love is eligible to return to practice this week, but Macdonald said that’s not going to happen until next week, at the earliest, because the safety’s hamstring isn’t ready to run fully on yet.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I expect him to be back this year,” Macdonald said. “Really hoping for next week.”
Love is going to miss his ninth consecutive game Sunday when the Seahawks (8-3) host the Minnesota Vikings (4-7) at Lumen Field (1:05 p.m., FOX television, channel 13 locally).
Ty Okada isn’t going to play against Minnesota, either. Love’s replacement as the starter next to Bryant injured his oblique last weekend in Seattle’s win at Tennessee. Macdonald described Okada’s status as “day to day.”
Ty Okada (39) of the Seattle Seahawks reacts in the first half of the game against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium on Nov. 23, 2025 in Nashville, Tenn.D’Anthony Bell, usually a special-teams player, replaced Okada for 55% of the defensive plays against the Titans.
Macdonald would rather keep Emmanwori in his unpredictable, varied roles as safety/linebacker/edge rusher/nickel back than devote him to back-end safety with Love and Okada out. So behind Bell on the active roster at that safety spot is...no one.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement(Re-)enter Diggs.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - JANUARY 01: Quandre Diggs #6 of the Seattle Seahawks looks on after the game against the New York Jets at Lumen Field on January 01, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)Quandre Diggs: I’m ready
The Seahawks signed Diggs to the practice squad initially to gauge how ready he is to play, without yet having to devote a spot on the active, 53-man roster.
NFL rules recently changed allow teams to have veterans of any service time on the practice squad who can be elevated for games three times before they have to be on the 53-man roster.
He was at home with his family in Austin, Texas, talking back and forth with Seahawks general manager John Schneider the last couple weeks since the going-nowhere Titans (1-10) cut him.
Diggs was asked if he had other teams calling to sign him this month besides Schneider and Seattle.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“So you think I didn’t have no opportunities?” Diggs said, with his famiilar confidence.
“I definitely did.
“It was just more, I knew where I wanted to be. If it worked out, cool. If it didn’t, I was cool at the crib.”
The reason he was “spittin’ out calls,” as Macdonald said, so accurately and easily in his first walkthrough practice with the Seahawks Wednesday morning: He is coming from a form of Macdonald’s system. Titans defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson worked with Macdonald on John Harbaugh’s defensive staff with the Baltimore Ravens, until the Seahawks hired Macdonald in January 2024.
Wilson with Tennessee runs a similar, disguised, changing, Ravens-bent scheme as Macdonald uses in Seattle. “There’s some differences. But I’ve been in the league a long time, man,” Diggs said. ”I’m pretty sure I can pick it out.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAsked Wednesday if he’s ready to play Sunday against the Vikings, Diggs gave a look that said ‘C’mon!’”
“I mean, if that’s what is called for,” he said.
“You know me. I’ll be ready to go.”
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