This is a guest post by Curtis Allen
This offseason will be one of the most intriguing in recent Seahawk history.
A new coach. A new system of ideas for both sides of the ball.
A General Manager with full personnel control for the first time.
The moves they make in the very near future will give us all kinds of things to break down and analyze:
— How they view the roster as it currently stands
— What players they value as key building blocks, critical system players — and which they do not
— What positions they value -and- what kind of offense and defense they anticipate implementing
— The team’s expectations for success in 2024. Do they feel a few tweaks are in order, or do they need to take a step back in 2024 to take two or three steps forward in future seasons?
Moves they make in the next month or so will start to give us a sense of direction the team leadership is headed in.
Now until March 13
The Seahawks Can Negotiate Trades and Release Players
They can talk with teams about trading players, come to an agreement and even leak the news. Trades will become official when the new league year starts March 13.
NFL teams can process a max of two post-June 1 releases before June 1 comes. They process March 13, but there is nothing keeping them from leaking the news and letting the player start looking at his options.
A big key point that often goes forgotten by fans on this specific cut: The player (and his cap hit) technically stays on the roster until after June 1. A post-June 1 cut often gives teams more cap room than a regular cut but the tradeoff is they do not have access to that cap room until the summertime.
Straight releases can be done at this time as well. It’s very likely Bryan Mone will be released to get the team in cap compliance. Possibly Nick Bellore as well.
The Seahawks Have a Window to Exclusively Negotiate with their Unrestricted Free Agents
This is a key period for the Seahawks. If they have designs on keeping some of their free agents, now is the time to get some intel on the market, initiate contract negotiations and plan accordingly.
The Seahawks have some key Unrestricted Free Agents they can exclusively talk to in this window:
Offense: Drew Lock, Noah Fant, Colby Parkinson, Damien Lewis
Defense: Leonard Williams, Jordyn Brooks, Devin Bush, Bobby Wagner
There are other UFA’s like Deejay Dallas, Evan Brown and Mario Edwards Jr but these players are most likely not a top priority (unless they are eager to sign an extremely friendly contract, that is).
The challenge is, they need to balance their books…
The Seahawks are Over the 2024 Salary Cap
Spotrac has them $800k over the salary cap, OTC has them as $5.2 million over currently. It appears their cap rollover from 2023 is the main difference. It will get sorted out but the main takeaway is the team needs to find some cap savings to get under the cap before the league year starts on March 13.
February 16: 2024 Salary Guarantees Come into Effect
Quarterback Geno Smith has no guaranteed money on his contract currently. That will change five days after the Super Bowl, as his entire $12.7 million salary for 2024 becomes guaranteed. We discussed the options the Seahawks have an the ramifications of their decisions here.
This date is not a ‘point of no return’ for the Seahawks with Smith but it most definitely limits their options regarding cutting him or renegotiating his contract. If they get to this point without taking either of those actions, that signals that they either intend to trade him (there is another deadline for that action coming up shortly) or have him on the roster in 2024.
Wide Receiver D.K. Metcalf’s $13 million salary for 2024 is also guaranteed on this day. There is not much to discuss with this as Metcalf is not going to be cut.
Defensive Lineman Dre’Mont Jones has a chunk of his salary locked on this date as well. He currently has an $11 million salary with no guarantees for 2024. On this date though, $7 million of that salary becomes guaranteed. This is a ‘point of no return’ for Jones, as cutting him after that salary guarantees that would cost the Seahawks $2.1 million against the cap.
As it is, cutting him prior to this day would only net them $4.84 million of cap room and incur $13.33 million of dead cap charges. A post-June1 cut would only net them $4.51 million of cap room, so that is not a preferable solution either. A trade is the most likely option if the front office deems Jones as a player they can do without.
Kicker Jason Myers’ 2024 salary of $3.63 million guarantees on this date as well. There is no practical value to releasing him before this date, as the salary saved would not exceed the dead cap hit.
February 20: Franchise Tag Window Opens (Window Closes March 5)
This one is moot for the Seahawks. They do not have any cap room to reserve for a tag. OTC has their tag cost projections and the odds the Seahawks will use the tag this year are very slim.
February 27 – March 4: The Scouting Combine
Player testing, medical checks and interviews are a key part of the team building process for all teams.
However, the worst-kept secret in the NFL is this gathering affords General Managers, coaches and agents of current players an open excuse to be in proximity to one another. Savvy professionals on all sides use this opportunity to gauge the salary and trade markets for their players under contract as well as potential free agents. It is not a coincidence that after last year’s combine finished March 6, Geno Smith had his new Seahawks contract agreed to the next day.
The Seahawks have a lot of ground to cover in this area, with a lot of moving parts on their roster. Information gathering at this event is crucial to inform decisions they will make this offseason.
March 10: Exclusive Window for Unrestricted Free Agents Closes
I do not need to tell you; a lot of value may be in the balance here. Leonard Williams not being signed by this date opens the door to him signing elsewhere and as a result the Seahawks will have paid an exorbitant price in a trade to rent his services for 10 games.
March 11-13: The Legal Tampering Window Opens
Teams and players can meet and negotiate contracts. With very little cap room, the Seahawks will likely either be very quiet or strike some low-level deals at this period.
However, a possibility exists that the team can sign a player and make a release or trade that opens the cap to cover that signing before the filing deadline.
March 13 1pm PST: The New League Year Begins
Trades, free agent signings and releases are processed by the league.
The Seahawks must be under the salary cap at this point.
It is important because another big event happens today…
Deadline to Tender Restricted Free Agents and Exclusive-Rights Free Agents
This needs to happen on this day and the Seahawks need the relevant cap room to have these tenders honored.
Simply put, tendering players keeps them from being unrestricted free agents, able to sign with any team without the Seahawks getting a chance for compensation.
Restricted Free Agents available to tender are Darrell Taylor and Michael Jackson. Those will be two very interesting decisions. Tackle Jake Curhan and Linebacker John Rhattigan are also RFA’s.
Keep in mind that RFA tenders are non-guaranteed. They can rescind the tender and let the player hit free agency. The biggest downside is they need cap space to hold those tenders. Rescinding the tag opens that cap room back up.
Exclusive Rights Free Agents also need to be tendered and there will be some interesting team-building choices made there as well. Defensive Lineman Myles Adams can be kept, as well as Offensive Linemen McLendon Curtis and Raiqwon O’Neal. Those two were waiver claims and the Seahawks stashed them on their active roster all year in 2023.
March 18: Geno Smith Has a $9.6 million Roster Bonus Due
Another line in the sand when dealing with Smith’s contract and deciding what to do with him in 2024.
If the Seahawks cut him before Feb 16, this bonus disappears.
If they want to trade Smith, this roster bonus may be wielded by the acquiring team as a weapon to drive down the draft pick compensation in return. At that point, the Seahawks will have to decide what they want. If trading Smith is just a ‘moving on’ situation, or if they can live with his big number on the cap in 2024 without the assurance of a performance better than 2023. They may trade eating some of that bonus in exchange for a better draft pick, like the Giants did when they got a second-round pick for eating almost $10 million of Leonard Williams’ contract.
Another factor teams can use to their advantage: cutting Geno Smith after March 18 represents almost $40 million in dead money. That day is the point of no return for the Seahawks.
It is worth noting that had Smith achieved his $15 million of escalators, this roster bonus would be $24.6 million. The point being, the Seahawks would have been forced to deal with this cap number and convert it to a signing bonus, renegotiate his contract or cut him loose. The team knew that this day was coming no matter how Smith played in 2023. I have no doubt that John Schneider has a plan in place for Smith.
What that plan is, we will need to wait and see.
March 24-27: League Meeting
Another opportunity to network and feel out trade and draft options among their fellow teams.
April 1: First Day of Offseason Workouts
The Seahawks get the early workout benefit because they have a new coach.
April 25-27: The Draft
A prime chance to shape the future of this roster with Schneider as the GM and Macdonald as the coach. Keep in mind, rookie salaries do not hit the salary cap until their contracts are signed.
June 1: Players Cut with a Post-June1 Designation Come Off the Roster and the Salary Cap Savings is Realized
Teams like Seattle with little cap room in February and March look forward to this day. They gain cap space and can make official moves that push the roster forward, like signing their draft picks to contracts and making those late-summer moves that receive little fanfare but can make a real difference in their season.
First Week of the NFL Season
Vested veterans with large non-guaranteed salaries have their 2024 salary number guaranteed. This would include players such as Quandre Diggs, Jamal Adams and Tyler Lockett.
It is going to be a very busy offseason for the team.
Decisions are going to have to be made one after the other.
It is possible that by this time next month, we will have an idea of where the Seahawks are heading at the Quarterback position. Also, whether they have a real, vested interest in returning some of their top players back to the team in 2024 — and who they will move on from as they reshape the roster.
Thanks for the roadmap cha.
Just want to make sure I understand the situation with Jones. Cut him pre 2/16 and save a clean $11m for 2024. Cut him between 2/16 and 6/1 net only $4.84m. Cut him post 6/1 and net slightly less $4.51m
Almost
Now–>before Feb 16 save $4.84m
Feb 16 on: $2.1m extra expense
Post June 1 cut: save $4.51m (but push $6.66m bonus pro to 2025)
Thanks. Not as much as I had hoped. I wonder it’s worth trading him. What could we hope to get? Do we package him with Geno for an earlier pick(s)?
Packaging veteran higher profile players rarely happens.
The acquiring team would have Jones for 2y (age 27 and 28) for $28m with only $7m guaranteed. That’s not bad but it’s not a rocking bargain for a 6-sack 10-QB Hits player.
Who besides the Commanders have a lot of effective cap space, so they could potentially acquire a Seahawks veteran?
https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space
Excelsior, Curtis. We literally have a calendar blueprint of how this season’s recipe for success (or failure 😬) will come together.
Thank you for this!
It’s a fantastically useful piece by Curtis
Can you pin this on the site somehow so it’s easy to find all off-season?
I’ll see if I can put it in the header bar
This article is now in the header bar under the title ‘Key Dates’
Great! Easy access
Don’t forget . June7th: Seattle hires an Offensive Coordinator.
What’s the rush?
None, but It’s like waiting for Christmas.
Was expecting a pony. Now, I’m expecting a lump of coal. If nothing happens soon, I’ll expect a pile of horse shit. Ah well, let’s hope there’s a pony in there somewhere.
Such a great site with such great content. Literally a few days ago I was googling ‘nfl offseason dates’, and now here it is layed out in perfect detail, WITH a bunch of great seahawk related context.
I really think the dates highlighted by Cha regarding Geno will be interesting, sounds like march 17/18 we should know for a fact whether Geno will be playing with the hawks or elsewhere. Personally I’m fine with a trade, gather a mid round pick and take the savings but I’m also ok semi tanking the next season to fill the roster with more talent.
Key decisions will be does JS finally pull the June 1st trigger on Jamal (and anyone else), does diggs/dissly/adams/mone all get cut, and if so WHEN do they get cut (maybe after free agency or after draft), ALSO WHEN THE HELL DO WE SIGN AN OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR IM GOING CRAZY.
https://giphy.com/gifs/laff-tv-comedy-himym-how-i-met-your-mother-dv6HOZDJJMiUaKBSCb
Thanks cha.
Dremont Jones is the interesting decision for me. I think he was grossly misused; but you can’t deny the lack of production.
Given Macdonald’s reputation for getting the most out of his players I’d like to hang onto Jones and see what he can do.
This kinda reminds me of all the wheeling and dealing done in the JS/PC regime. Literally hundreds of moves. Of course nothing has happened yet but as Curtis points out, it’s coming.
Maybe they haven’t hired an OC because the main candidate is on one of the 2 teams playing Sunday?
Great article, Curtis. Really ties the next few months together. Big weeks coming up.
On another note, Twitter/X has become a flood of Geno defending posts and call outs to any doubters. I don’t get the proactive attacks on anyone doubting Geno was a top tier QB. Maybe it’s just my algorithm, but I just keep reading post after post arguing Geno’s greatness without provocations. It’s weird. I was sorta on the fence on his future, but now I want him gone just so I don’t have to hear the Geno worshipping.
Thanks for the breakdown cha, very thorough. As Seahawk fans we are very fortunate to have Rob and you as such outstanding sources of information.
Thanks, Cha! This is awesome to have such an important off-season mapped out so clearly.
No real new information to be gleaned (except perhaps the excessive size of the bathroom for the head coach at the VMAC…😂), but if anyone wants to tag along for MM’s first couple days as Seahawks coach, here’s a bts look that just premiered on YT an hour ago:
New Era | The Sound Of The Seahawks: S2 Ep. 17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhgm58zwW04
This highlights how many decisions the FO has to make and at what pace. I really appreciate this as a fan that wants to understand what is going on at a slightly deeper level than just which coaches are hired and which players are added/subtracted. It reminds me of poker, where the accumulated results of so many decisions in a short period of time eventually separate the winners and the losers. It is an exciting time to be a Hawks fan.
Thanks again, Cha. Wonderful article.
Since Cha has nailed down the salary cap situation, I feel it is my responsibility to lock down the gumbo situation.
You may remember from the metrics video I shared from the Senior Bowl that Walk-On’s Sports Bistreax, the sponsor, gives away free gumbo on game day
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmk9mhAHXl0
At the time, I did not know that the co-owner was Drew Brees, until I saw a commercial for it here in Pensacola. Brees, if you didn’t know, has cornered the market on Jimmy John’s franchises all along the Gulf Coast and now he’s doing this. They are opening up a new location near me out on 9 Mile Road/Mobile Highway.
But, If you don’t want to travel all the way to New Orleans/Mobile for authentic Cajun gumbo and want to make some for the Super Bowl, I highly recommend using the recipe for Gumbo du Monde at gumbopages. com. And here are a couple of cheats to save time.
#1 The sachet d’epices can easily be replaced with a crab boil bag from Zatarains.
#2 The “Cajun Trinity” of bell papers, celery, and onions can be found pre-chopped in a can. I think it’s Del Monte that makes it.
Joe Cullen turned down Michigan
The only three teams connected to him were Seattle, Michigan and Washington
Seattle are the only team
Dayum. Didn’t see that coming.
Sounds good. Hopefully he’s cool with not calling plays or designing defensive schemes for the year.
I take it his primary responsibilities will organizing the defense coaches and making sure they all understand what Max is trying to scheme, game to game?
Also, a bit strange that we secured a LB coach before a DC, no?
*Mac, not Max
Not strange if the DC you want can’t be hired because he’s coaching in the Super Bowl
You know, it doesn’t bother me that he drove a drive-through naked. It bothers me that he did it at Wendy’s.
A real man would do it at Chic-Fil-A, or as I like to call it “Christian Hooters.”
It’s fine. He can just live in Federal Way or Puyallup instead of Bellevue.
Do they have Chic-Fila-A in Washington now?
Yes, at least in Vancouver , WA we do. It’s about 1/2 mile from my house. Now if we can just get a damned In-N-Out……
There are a number of them now. There is one on 99 in North Seattle so you can get your godly chicken and go down the road a block or two and get a date as well.
He’s the ideal option. Proven work with DL, has worked with Macdonald before so there’s familiarity, and unlikely to be hired away.
Plus I think the combined brain trust of the young hot shot with experienced sounding boards for both the secondary (Fraizer) and DL. Defense should be very well coached if nothing else.
Nicely done Cha!!
Rob I got to say I’ve been mulling that draft you just did.
Just some absolute players you’ve selected and with great reasoning.
One common thread I see is the ability to sift through traffic and react.
One question. You mentioned Ruke Orhorhoro and stated he may have a lower ceiling? I’ve been thinking the opposite. He only started playing football as a junior in HS. When I watch him I see a guy who has ( on tape) a freaky first step, great strength…not so much double teams but if he gets his guy he seems to get them down, and a few other things I like.
All that to say I wonder if he’s not got another gear to get to with even more/better coaching? And I really like Jenkins so I’m very good with either. Or Murphy.
That is very interesting Peter.
Plus you’ve got to consider the honorary John Clayton name award ( RIP)
********
Thanks for the Rotel tip btw!!
You’re welcome.
I think everyone has a lower ceiling than Kris Jenkins. Look at his projected testing numbers
Got it. Watched both extensively last night. Thought both were awesome.
With regard to Geno, I’d rather have a starting QB on the roster, than $13.8M and no starting QB.
Cut:
Adams (Post June 1) – $16.5M
Diggs -$11M
Mone – $5.39M
Dissly – $6.97
Lockett (Post June 1) – $17M
Now you’ve got $56.86M extra to go shopping!
Yes, I’m on board with this list, though I’d add Nick Bellore to the Cuts, adding another $2.85M to the total. $59.71M, so but for some small change in the NFL world $60M.
I agree about Geno, they need to have a credible vet on the roster at the time of the Draft, though I’m all in on drafting a QB in the first couple of rounds.
Unless you think Geno Smith is going to take you to the Super Bowl. Which in my opinion is highly unlikely. I would rather have Drew Lock. First. I would like to see what Drew Lock can do. Second. Since Geno Smith/Drew Lock are both “bridge QBs” Not sure how much you save by cutting Geno. But you are looking at probably saving 20+ million. Plus you never know. Maybe you hit pay dirt with Drew . Now Geno Smith did play reasonably well the 2nd half of the season. However, unless you think Geno is the long-term answer. What is the point? Drew Lock has been with the Seahawks two full seasons. He engineered the comeback against Philadelphia. He actually made some amazing throws in that game. He does have a strong arm. He has pretty good speed. And he is going to save you a lot if money. Not saying he is the long-term answer. But in my opinion he deserves a shot.
Perhaps it was an issue that John Schneider, understandably, wasn’t at the Senior Bowl, to start getting a measure on whether or not there is a Trade market for Geno Smith. Unless Schneider thinks he can get a Day 2 pick for Geno, I’d certainly be more for cutting him than trading for a Day 3 pick. A pre 16 Feb cut would acquire the team around $22M in cap savings, but a trade would acquire $13.8, most of which would have to go on a Vet QB in any case.
It’s more than just that though
If the intention was to draft a rookie QB and get the growing pains out of the way, or give them an easier route to start quickly, you would be better off saving the money and removing a player it will be harder to bench. I’m not sure whether people realise how easy it is to create a roadblock situation even with a fairly average level of performance
You could argue though, that keeping Geno makes the most sense if your intention is to sit your QB draft pick for a whole year.
Rolling with Lock risks needing to throw a rookie, and not a super highly drafted one at that, out before he’s ready.
With a new OC why do you need to sit a qb for the whole year? Geno will need to learn a new system and/or the OC will need to create an offense for him.
I’ve listened to your video and it seems you’ve moved on from the idea that you could have a Rookie QB sat for a year behind Geno Smith ‘a la Patrick Mahomes and Alex Smith’, before moving on from Geno in 2025, with a trade? Geno might perform well enough in 2024 that a Trade in 2025 could bring in a decent draft pick? I don’t think Geno performing at a decent level (for him) over the course of a season, would block a developed rookie taking on the starting role as the new QB in his sophomore season? If the Seahawks aren’t happy with how a QB drafted this year develops over the course of a season, they could draft another QB in 2025 to compete?
Certainly one thing I’m completely behind, is that the Seahawks should manoeuvre themselves to draft a QB this year.
May very well be looking at a situation where they go one qb this year and one next year.
You have to take shots where you can.
Let’s take a moment and talk about the Ravens defense. First of all without looking on Google can you tell me who lead the Ravens in sacks. No J.J. Watt, no Nick Bosa, no Micah Parsons, no Myles Garret, Josh Allen, Aaron Donald, Chris Jones, Troy Hendrickson, Maxx Crosby etc. etc. No big name pass rusher. But yet Mike MacDonald’s defense generated 60 sacks , 397 QB pressures and lead the entire NFL in turnovers. 397 QB pressures. That is 23+ QB pressures per game. And they didn’t have a big name sack guy. Let’s put it this way. John Schneider knew what he was doing when he went after Mike MacDonald. Mike McDonald’s defense allowed only 27 points in two playoff games. That was against teams led by future Hall of Famer Patrick Mahomes and rookie of the year candidate C. J. Stroud. In the regular the Ravens shut Ben Johnson’s offense. It’s no wonder John Schneider was smiling from ear to ear at that press conference when he was sitting next to Mike MacDonald.
I wish we could edit our postings. That should T.J. Watt not J.J. Watt. Also that should be that Baltimore held Ben Johnson’s offense to six points.
Let’s face it Pete Carroll’s bend but don’t break defense had to go. The Seahawk’s defense the last 3 or4 years was at the bottom of the NFL. Over the years Pete Carroll’s defense just got steadily worse. He told Jody Allen he was going to fix it. Well basically PC had many years to fix it.. Jody Allen probably rolled her eyes in that last meeting when Pete Carroll told her he was going to fix it.
For me, there are two paths to go down… making the smaller moves Plus one big one – ie Mone, Bellore and Eskridge gets you about £10m. plus Jamal – that seems like a no brianer Post June 1. Then spend time putting toegther the Leonard Williams deal, and trying to get a bit more to retain much of the roster as is and add LOADS of rookies…
Alternatively, RIP ALL the bandaids off in one go. Have a year with a huge dead cap, hope to get enough play out of rookies as a learning year and make 2025 The first year of a “title window” that means no june 1st designations (bar one). But saying thanks and good bye to Geno, Jamal, Diggs and Lockett (in additon to Mone, Bellore and Eskridge). Yes the cost is huge in dead cap but frees up SOOO much for 2025.
One last thought. I will be really interesting to see who John Schneider selects for QB in the upcoming NFL 2024 draft. Will he go 1st round. Or will he go later in the draft. After all he did find Russell Wilson in the 3rd round.
One thing that gives me comfort is that JS has historically been pretty good in predicting where other teams will take players, and in being aggressive to get “his guys” when he needs to. So if we don’t nab a QB on day 1, I will still feel pretty confident that he has a plan and isn’t just going to let the board fall how it may.
I’m not sure that’s true. We settled for Collier after trading down, and watched all pass rushers go right in front of us–like when WA traded back in and took Montez Sweat.
They whiffed last year on a DT and a DT, and so ended up trading down and not getting enough help on the DL.
They were interested in S Jonathan Abram as a consolation prize, and missed out on him too–though that didn’t matter, because he ended up here and couldn’t keep a roster spot.
Nobody’s perfect, but JS has some pretty big whiffs trying to gauge where guys will get picked.
I’m not sure if they missed on DT last year as much as opted to fill other spots. I mean, they could have grabbed Jalen Carter or Tyree Wilson and opted not to. And they didn’t trade back and missing like they did with Collier (maybe JS learned a lesson from that), they just opted not to partake. But yeah, Collier. Oof.
Thanks, cha! Great work as always making the NFL’s convoluted administrative rules accessible to the layperson.
Has anyone delved in and worked out what it’d cost to re-sign the likes of Leonard Williams, Jordan Brooks, Noah Fant, Drew Lock and possibly Damien Lewis? What could be left? It’d would be worth knowing to determine what other Free Agents it might be possible to sign?
I would try and work it out, but I have NO idea how NFL contracts are structured.
Taken from Spotrac:
Williams…16.7 million
Brooks….11.3 million
Lewis…..7.4 million
Nothing listed on Lock but Rob thinks 5 million which seems very fair for a career backup.
Fant. Will not be surprised to see him get Njoku level money. Similar production up to the same point in there career. Actually better when you consider Seattle elected to not throw to TE’s. I think anywhere between 8 million up to 12 million.
First year cap hits are never that high. Maybe if they did one year deals for all of those guys it would look like that, but you could get them all for probably $10-12M in 2024.
The problem – that we are running into now – is that if LW’s deal averages $16 and we make his cap hit $6M in year one, we need to make up that $10M in other years. So by year 3, that cap hit will look more like $26M.
Left field comment because seemingly most of us have our minds made up on qb….
A commenter recently posted that someone connected to the Broncos thinks Nix is not in their plans. Which us weird because when you watch his highlights in white tops black pants he looks almost exactly like taller brees.
There is as a ton of smoke early among Denver people that Nix was their guy and suspect they’ve been trying to backpedal to avoid being too obvious.
My youtube feed is filled with broncos + nix videos.
Feels like they would want to trade down. No 2nd rounder either, and Nix (or JJ) feel like a bit of a reach at #12.
There will be a bunch of good OL and probably all of the CB’s still on the board there. You could envision them trading back and targeting that QB later in the 1st.
What is the word on how much say Sean Peyton has in the draft?
Some guys just FEEL like they fit with certain teams. Nix and the Broncos feels that way. Not sure why. Not sure how anyone’s reporting at this point can be taken with anything more than a grain of salt.
We can’t really know, but I’d like to think JS intended to take AR or Stroud if they fell to 5 last year, even if Pete overrides. Both QBs appeared to show they didn’t need to sit a year (despite shortened season by AR injury). Geno would’ve been a bridge last year (and ended up being an hedge) and is even more expendable if they intend on taking a QB this year. The dropoff to Lock isn’t massive.
Seems like an easy call to make on Geno, unless they’ve already decided NOT to take a QB.
Question: Can Lockett be extended with void years ala Rams with Bobby? Would that be beneficial?
No need to kick the can further down the road. It’s better to take our lumps now than to sacrifice valuable cap space in future years when we have a chance to be a contender. Void year shenanigans are what teams do to sign players who will put them over the top and they have no cap room (or if you’re the Saints, you do it with pretty much every contract because you’ve been rolling a snowball of dead money for a decade and you literally cannot afford to fill out a roster with the meager cap room you have).
They could pick up around $10m if they tacked two void years on this year.
$19m dead cap next year if they traded or cut him. $19.7m dead cap if they dropped him right now.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility. But Seahawks are loathe to use void years this way. Just about the only time they’ve done it was to borrow some cap to meet the COVID year cap shortfall.
Great article Cha. Appreciate having the calendar of pending dates and what they entail as a roadmap for the offseason.
Specific to this, I really appreciate the RFA/ERFA breakdown. How it relates to the cap & who we have. One other bit there – RFA values are determined by the league, right? Last year, I see that a 1st round tender was the higher of $5.6-6M (depending on the source) or 110% of the previous year’s base salary. A 2nd round tender is ~$4.3M and the original round/right-of-first-refusal is around $2.7M.
With a handful of guys (Mike Jackson, Miles Adams, Curhan, DT, maybe the waiver claim guys) that we might want to consider it for, that could be a decent chunk of money to tie up. Do you know if John has used this tender route much in the past? I know they used it on Ryan Neal and had to rescind it because they are such cap wizards that they couldn’t make things work without an extra $2.7M, then lost him for $1.1M to boot.
OTC projects them here
https://overthecap.com/franchise-transition-and-rfa-tenders
I think the RFA and ERFA tenderings are smart business. It is not guaranteed money. So you can drop the players if the market says you have a better opportunity.
Neal is a perfect example. They tendered him after a great year, but Julian Love fell into their laps at a pretty reasonable rate, and they probably wanted to do Neal a solid and let him explore.
Love was $3.9m and Neal’s tag was $2.7m, so for $1.2m they got an upgrade to a player they liked more and could also play free safety as needed.
(keep in mind ERFA’s are usually around $800-900k, so the ‘true’ cost of tendering them is only about $100k as they push off a player making rock bottom $750k or so)
Fair point on Neal. I had forgotten that Julian Love and not JA’s $$ was the driving force behind letting him go, and agree that doing him a solid was likely what happened.
Going to put this here as well, as it’s part of the team-building calendar and I feel important dates. March 13th is when FA signings can begin, but there is a date (last year was May 2nd) when signings no longer effect the comp pick calculation.
I know everyone wants to re-sign LW and possibly Fant, Lewis, Brooks etc., but those are truly the only guys who might actually net us comp picks. Every year I struggle with the fact that when the comp picks are announced, the Seahawks are left without. Often because we just had to rush out and sign someone like Bruce Irvin or BJ Finney.
The Ravens director of player personnel was hired as the new GM of the Chargers recently. The following was in an article about his views on comp picks:
Hope I got that formatting right and I also hope we can take a page out of that playbook and start trying to improve on the aspect of our team building along with cap management. I think 2024 is a good year to start, despite the short-term pain it will cause.
Agree heartily but unless they want to scorched earth and clear the decks for 2025, that’s not an option this year.
To get a 3rd rounder sure. I think they could re-sign LW & Mike Jackson though and let the rest sign elsewhere or come back on the cheap. LW is really the only FA who will command big money.
Between DT, Bobby, Haynes, Fant, Brooks, Brown, Lewis, Parkinson & Curhan, at least a few , if not most of those guys will get signed on somewhere in that window. A handful of 1 year $4-5M contracts there and holding our water in FA could be 4 more picks next year. Not great ones, but still.
I think the scorched earth side is more about cutting guys under contract as a means to gaining cap health. Losing the guys above to FA might be inconvenient, but most fans won’t care too much and honestly won’t impact competitiveness all that much.
If we cut Tyler, Geno, Jamal, Diggs etc. that is when people will see it as ‘tanking’ or scorched Earth, but those moves don’t play into the comp pick situation.