Seahawks’ all-new Quinton Bohanna says he’d run through glass for Mike Macdonald
Quinton Bohanna has one goal. It drives him every day, through every drill, every snap.
He’s been focused on it since college, since after he left his family home in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2017 to play at the University of Kentucky.
He had this objective in 2021 when the Dallas Cowboys selected him in the sixth round of the NFL draft. He’s kept it through two seasons and 27 games playing for Dallas, through Detroit where he played for Lions, and Tennessee where he played for the Titans, both in 2023.
His goal kept him going last year — when he absolutely needed something to.
The Titans released the big nose tackle in late August 2024. He was among their final preseason cuts, soon after he faced the Seahawks in joint practices and a preseason game in Nashville last summer. Seattle signed him a week after Tennessee cut him.
The Seahawks then released him and signed him back to their practice squad four times last season. His newest team elevated him from the practice squad onto the active roster for two games. Through all that, he played just seven snaps in one Seattle game.
Now, he has the chance of his five-year NFL career. The D-lineman they call “Big Bo” remains squarely focused on his goal, for his mother, Stella Bohanna, and his grandmother, Jurline, back home in Memphis.
That goal: Earn enough money to take care of his mom and grandma, the women who gave so much of themselves to get him here, for the rest of their lives.
How long has he had this goal? Since he was a teenager. He listed it on a Kentucky football sports information questionnaire for UK to put on his biography, when he was a college freshman. He has his mom’s name tattooed on the side of his neck.
Now, 33-year-old veteran nose tackle Johnathan Hankins — Bohanna’s mentor from their days together playing in Dallas — is out indefinitely. That is giving Bohanna an opportunity realize his goal with a possible breakout year for the Seahawks.
He’s already having a breakout summer.
“That motivates me a lot, man,” Bohanna told The News Tribune of his goal Tuesday, standing outside the team’s locker room before practice at Seahawks training camp.
Bohanna has helped his mom and grandma. But in his mind he hasn’t been able to totally set them up financially for life. He earned $1.6 million in his two seasons playing 27 games for the Cowboys. That was about half what his original rookie contract was worth.
“I know if I handle me and I handle this work right now that I have to do every day, stack these days, I know that’ll be good,” he said.
“So this, it’s always on the back of my mind. I try not to overthink about it too much, because, you know, it’ll weigh on you. But that’s my ultimate goal.
“I’m cool. I’m fine, and, like, I don’t really I’m not too flashy. As long as my mom and grandma are good, that’s my goal.
“And I’m still working towards it.”
The 25-year-old Bohanna says he lives a comfortable life, and that he has simple needs, personally. He’s earned $2.5 million in his four-year NFL career.
He’s on a minimum-salary deal now with Seattle, worth just over a million dollars for this year only. None of it is guaranteed.
None of it has been for Bohanna.
Doing what coach Mike Macdonald asks
The Cowboys cut him two years into his four-year rookie contract. The Titans gave him a two-year deal, at near minimum pay. They terminated it after one season.
So when Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, defensive line coach Justin Hinds and defensive coordinator Aden Durde told Bohanna the practice-squad player needed to lose 15 pounds, he lost 17. He went from 365 in January to 348.
They told him to play two more positions this spring into summer training camp, and he’s doing that. He’s been impressive picking up the technique and the speed of playing three-technique tackle over the offensive tackle — and even defensive end.
“My mindset is, all season I work, regardless of what they asked me to do,” Bohanna said. “I want to be here. I want to be on this team, and, shoot I’ll do anything I could do, anything Coach McDonald asks me to do and Coach Hinds asks me to do, I was going to do it.”
How did he lose the 17 pounds? He ran hills in the June and July heat near his home in Plano, Texas, in the north suburbs of Dallas. Doing that in 95 degrees with 90-plus% humidity will take off the lbs.
That plus drinking tons of water, following the Seahawks’ training staff’s weight-lifting and nutrition plans has Bohanna feeling like a new guy.
“Man, it is wonderful. This is the best I’ve felt in any training camp,” he said.
The Seahawks want to rotate up to 10 defensive linemen into games. When they were at their Super Bowl best 10 years ago, that’s what they did — 10 D-linemen within the first quarter. They wore down offensive lines with waves of defensive tackles and ends who became fresher and more effective than the same five blockers later in games. Bohanna can feel that fresh vibe already.
“I can tell the difference in my body, like, as far as I can take it. I can take the snaps. I can take the hits. I can give it, you know,” he said.
“I’m in the shape to be able to handle it.”
Bohanna and 26-year-old third-year pro Brandon Pili, signed off waivers last year from Miami, are ahead of undrafted rookies Bubba Thomas and J.R. Singleton at nose tackle with Hankins out.
“Those are two guys that went into the off season with something to prove,” Macdonald said of Bohanna and Pili. “Both guys have taken ownership of the trajectory of their career by taking care of their bodies, taking a ton of reps, doing a great job. Great attitude. Positive. Really attacked the whole off season program.
“You can tell the position that they put them in going into camp. And then they’ve really backed it up with some great practices. And I thought they had played well in the game (last week). So, excited about both those guys.”
But Bohanna has another edge, on the edge.
He has been so quick and effective at his lighter weight, coaches also have moved him outside to three-technique tackle — and, for the first time in his life, further outside to a five-technique defensive end.
“In the league, opportunities come up. People get hurt. People leave. Transactions,” Bohanna said.
“I had my time when I was younger that I worried about the room and who was here; who they gonna keep with it? But it’s, like, man, I’m just working and I’m just enjoying it.
“Appreciative.”
Quinton Bohanna’s multiple spots
It’s the adage almost as old as football itself: “The more you can do...”
As in, the more you prove you can do, the better your chances to make the team and get more opportunities.
Bohanna is living that this month.
How is he doing at end? Let’s ask the defensive line coach he had in Dallas, when he was exclusively a heavier nose tackle to begin his NFL career. Let’s ask the coach who was a main attraction for Bohanna coming to Seattle last summer.
Durde smiled at the question.
“He’s doing good,” Seattle’s second-year defensive coordinator said coyly, as if a secret had been revealed. “It’s the first time that he’s played it, yeah.
“When we put him in there first, he was really understanding the blocks without really thinking about it.”
Durde said Bohanna has benefitted from the fact that his “4i” technique at end, on the inside eye of the offensive tackle, is similar to the “2i” Seattle has had him doing, on the inside eye of the guard.
“When he can understand the blocks from there, he can get going,” Durde said. “It’s just about getting more and more reps.
“He’s improving every day.”
Bohanna started Seattle’s first preseason game last week and impressed. Tuesday he was in the rotation with the starting defense during 11-on-11 scrimmaging. He alternated with Byron Murphy and Jarran Reed.
Seahawks coaches, and the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive linemen, are going to see a lot of Bohanna Friday night in Seattle’s second preseason game, at Lumen Field. And it may remain like this with Bohanna along the defensive line through the Seahawks’ opener Sept. 7 against San Francisco. Macdonald this week had no timetable when Hankins will return from his back injury. He hasn’t practiced all summer.
Bohanna has taken full advantage of that.
“Coach McDonald gave me opportunity when I got cut from Tennessee, and I was here in a p-squad all year, last year,” Bohanna said. “And then, you know, they told me, just come back in shape and work and they will see what we can do.” They are seeing now what he can do.
“You know, everything they said, they kept their word with me. And they’ve been super supportive of me, just off the field, on the field,” Bohanna said.
“So, man, they can tell me to run down that hallway, through that glass on the door full speed — and I’m doing it.
“I know they got good intentions for me. Like, they are just not having me here to just be here. Everything they tell me to do is good intentions behind.
“And I respect that 100%.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
