Cody White’s winding road to 1st NFL Seahawks TD. Keeping the ball: An adventure
Cody White has been in the NFL for six years.
He’s been signed, waived, released, signed, waived with an injury settlement, signed, promoted from the practice squad and sent back to the practice squad a total of 34 (!) times in those six nomadic seasons.
The 34th was Saturday. With veteran wide receiver Cooper Kupp questionable to play Sunday against Arizona with a hamstring injury plus Jake Bobo and Dareke Young out injured, White signed from Seattle’s practice squad to the 53-man roster among a flurry of Seahawks moves to play the Cardinals.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, rookie Tory Horton, rookie practice-squad call-up Ricky White and the relentless Cody White are Seattle’s only healthy wide receivers to play Arizona.
“It’s a heck of a story,” Seattle coach Mike Macdonald said of Cody White Friday. “And it’s not done yet.
“But he’s an impressive guy.”
“Impressive” is doing a lot of work there.
White’s been with the Kansas City Chiefs as a rookie free agent. He’s been with the New York Giants and Denver Broncos.
Even the team his dad Sheldon is a front-office executive for, the Pittsburgh Steelers, signed cut, re-signed and finally cut him — seven different times.
That was in the summer of 2023. The Seahawks signed him to their practice squad that October.
So as sure as a football is brown, you better believe Cody White wanted to keep the one he caught last weekend for his first NFL touchdown.
After he scored, he roared. He spun the ball in the end-zone grass for all his teammates, plus a national Sunday-night television audience watching on NBC, to see.
Then Tory Horton kicked it.
Yep, after all the 26-year-old White went through to catch that pass from Sam Darnold, bull through a Washington Commander then race down the right sideline for a 60-yard touchdown on his first reception this season to give Seattle a 28-0 lead in the second quarter on his first-ever pro TD last Sunday night, his rookie teammate booted the keepsake ball out of the end zone.
Horton knew he screwed up.
Then, out of the corner of his eye on the side of the end zone at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, a savior appeared.
“I kicked it,” Horton told The News Tribune this week, “and then I saw our ball boy.
“But I didn’t know if he was going to get it.”
The ball boy did. He knew the significance of the ball to White.
So he grabbed it, took it to the Seahawks’ sideline and secured it for safekeeping through the rest of the team’s 38-14 blowout of Washington. His score helped keep Seattle (6-2) atop the NFC West entering its division game Sunday against Arizona (3-5) at Lumen Field (1:05 p.m., CBS television, KIRO-7 locally).
The Seahawks staffers do take care of their own. White didn’t see the ball from the time Horton booted it, during the entire process of leaving the stadium past midnight D.C. time Monday and flying 5 1/2 hours back across the country home to Seattle Monday morning.
To his absolute joy, he found it resting in his locker this week.
Where is the ball from his first NFL touchdown going?
“To my Moms,” he said, proudly.
“Shoot, she’s been the rock of my life.”
Amy White is “Moms.” In late August, she and a bunch of family members drove by car two hours from their home in Michigan, from Novi in the western suburbs of Detroit. They took a ferry across Lake Michigan, to Wisconsin. Back on land they drove another hour or so west to Green Bay, to see their son star in the Seahawks’ final preseason game at Lambeau Field Aug. 23.
That performance cemented Macdonald’s and general manager John Schneider’s decision to have White make an NFL roster coming out of training camp and a preseason for the first time. White was flat better than accomplished veteran Marquez Valdes-Scantling. The Seahawks cut Valdes-Scantling the day they kept White.
White rejoiced on his Instragram account that day, Aug. 26.
“I can finally call my momma and tell her I MADE IT!!” he wrote online.
Cody White’s uneven path continued
But the NFL is a business. Often a cold, calculated, impersonal business.
In September, Schneider, Macdonald and the Seahawks played roster gymnastics with White and his emotions. Even though White kept producing in almost every one of his relatively few chances, they released him after the first game. They promised they would re-sign him to the practice squad.
As a vested veteran, he wasn’t subject to waivers and could have chosen to become an unrestricted free agent to sign with any other team. But he took the coach’s, GM’s and Seahawks’ words they would keep giving him opportunities up from the practice squad.
In order to make the 53-man active roster larger, they signed and released White to the practice squad two more times into early October.
As other players have done this season, each time White went along with the Seahawks’ signing and cutting and signing and cutting him.
Why?
“I think they understand we’re trying to do what’s best for the team and what gives us the best chance to win that game,” Macdonald said.
“Also, moving forward, they hopefully feel the investment that we’ve made into their development. We have individual-development plans for our guys. We’ve poured a lot of resources into them. So it might be a setback for a week or two, but really we’re looking at it through the lens of how we’re in it for the long haul to develop you so you can develop your career and bring it further.
“There’s a couple weeks setback — which in that moment, it’s probably a tough pill to swallow,” Macdonald said. “But so far, our guys have been awesome with it. And I think the team’s better for it.”
White has played in two games this season, the opener against San Francisco and last weekend at Washington. He has three kickoff returns for 88 yards plus that brilliant, one catch for the touchdown against the Commanders.
All the while — on the practice squad, on the active roster, playing, not playing — White has been one of the last if not last player on the field after practices. He takes extra time catching passes from the JUGS machine.
“Since I’ve gotten into the league, that’s all I’ve done,” he said. “I’ll be the first guy in the building, the last guy out. First guy on the field, last guy off. Making sure I’m ready for the opportunity when it comes.
“It came for me Sunday night (in Washington). I just made the best of my opportunity.
“Before the season, there were some people talking about, I just made the team because I was an ‘attaboy,’ or something like that.
“So,” White said, “knowing that I’m better than that and knowing that I’m capable of making a lot plays — I mean, I know I’m a great receiver in this league.
“So whenever the opportunity comes, I’m going to make the play.”
This story was originally published November 8, 2025 at 5:18 PM.
