Julian Love is back, and the Seahawks are still trying to figure out whether Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Leonard Williams can keep doing what they’ve been doing.
That’s the split at the center of Sunday’s Week 4 matchup with the Chargers at Lumen Field: Seattle gets a starter back from injury, while Los Angeles arrives with five players listed as questionable, including Derwin James and Ladd McConkey. The game kicks off at 1:25 p.m. PT, but the biggest question is already clear — which side has more of its key pieces available when the ball is kicked off?
Love said he was ready to go after missing one game with a calf injury, and he practiced fully Friday after being limited the previous two days. “I’m feeling good,” Love said. A week after the injury kept him out of the Seahawks’ Week 3 game in Washington, he said he was hopeful it would only be a one-game absence.
Seattle’s own preview has been built around the players who have set the tone through three weeks. Smith-Njigba is leading the NFL with 405 receiving yards, and he has also joined Jerry Rice as one of only two players in NFL history to open a season with at least 120 receiving yards and a touchdown in each of the first three games. Leonard Williams is another player the Seahawks are watching closely as they ask whether the early production can continue.
The Seahawks have reasons to believe the answer can be yes. They rank third in defensive EPA per play at minus-0.118, and they have not allowed a rushing touchdown all season. On the other side, Seattle’s defense has also been stingy against the pass, allowing only five explosive pass plays of 15 or more yards through three games, the fewest in the league.
The Chargers, meanwhile, are still searching for their first win of the 2026 season after digging into an 0-3 hole that included a Week 2 loss to the Raiders. They are underdogs for Week 4, and their own fourth-quarter numbers show how thin the margin has been: through three games, they rank 31st in fourth-quarter points allowed at 11.0 and 32nd in fourth-quarter points scored at 3.0.
That makes the injury report even more central. Derwin James and Ladd McConkey are among five Chargers listed as questionable, leaving another layer of uncertainty around a team already trying to right the ship. Seattle, by contrast, gets Love back and can line up with more clarity around its secondary.
So the game at Lumen Field has two different kinds of pressure attached to it. The Seahawks are trying to extend the momentum built by Smith-Njigba, Williams and a defense that has started fast. The Chargers are trying to find out how much of their roster will actually be available when they try to stop them.