The Seattle Seahawks have waited months to put their offseason investment in punt coverage to work.
Irv Charles has a chance to show why John Schneider sounded so eager.
Seattle activated the veteran receiver from injured reserve Tuesday, clearing the way for a potential team debut against the Denver Broncos on Thursday night.
The move brings a player with an unusual combination of size and speed into the mix. Charles stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 219 pounds, and his most established NFL skill involves chasing down returners.
That specialty helped persuade the Seahawks to acquire him from the New York Jets in May.
“He’s a dominant gunner,” the general manager and president of football operations said before the season, according to the team’s Tuesday announcement.
With Charles back on the active roster, that endorsement gets its first opportunity to spur regular-season production for Seattle.
Why the Seahawks Waited for Their New Gunner
Schneider’s enthusiasm went highlighted the speed that makes the receiver an intriguing guy on the outside of the punt formation.
“He’s running 22 miles an hour, and he’s just a monster special teams player,” Schneider said.
Beating the blockers assigned to slow him down and reaching the returner to limit the room available after the catch are his aims.
Charles has experience doing that work at the NFL level. In its announcement of the May 27 trade, New York credited him with 14 special teams tackles across 25 games in 2023 and 2024. He logged 450 snaps in that phase, compared with 53 on offense.
Those numbers explain the appeal more clearly than his receiver designation. Seattle acquired someone with a defined role and a body of work covering kicks.
The cost also gave the Seahawks room to be patient. The deal sent a conditional 2028 seventh-round draft pick to New York, a not-terrible commitment for a specialist Seattle believed could strengthen its coverage units.
Charles’ Recovery and More
Charles’ route to this point has been lengthy. He tore his ACL during a game at Miami on Dec. 8, 2024, and missed the entire 2025 season, according to the Jets’ trade release.
The Seahawks subsequently placed him on injured reserve before the 2026 opener. His return took a significant step forward when Seattle designated him to resume practicing Oct. 7.
That opened a 21-day window for the club to assess him before deciding whether to add him to the 53-man roster. Tuesday’s activation came less than a week later.
His background includes more than coverage assignments. Charles began his college career at Penn State before moving to Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His Seahawks biography lists 39 receptions for 792 yards and 12 touchdowns in his lone season on the field there.
He went into the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2022 and spent his rookie year on New York’s practice squad before snagging a special teams role.
Now comes the potential to establish himself, this time with Seattle.
Against Denver, Charles can begin showing what the wait was for.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
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