This is a guest article by Curtis Allen…
With the draft behind us it’s a good time to talk about where the Seahawks’ cap situation stands. They made the majority of their most impactful roster moves already and the picture of what this roster will look like in 2023 is quickly coming into focus.
OTC has the Seahawks with only $4.6 million of cap room before they sign their draft picks and they’ll be $4.33 million over the cap after they sign them all. They currently don’t have enough room to sign their draft class, let alone make any further moves.
For what it is worth, at the very end of the Seahawks’ press conference on day three of the draft, John Schneider was asked if the team will have to make moves or tweak some contracts to fit the draft class in. He responded, “No. We’re OK right now.”
Very interesting. The official NFLPA cap report has the Seahawks with only $5.5 million of cap room currently so OTC is not wildly misreporting their cap number. They clearly do need to make room to pay their rookies.
Schneider’s answer may have been a dodge on his part – a waiving off the question to not tip their hand to what they have in store.
At this point it might be most logical to forget his comment and just say they need the full $4.33 million to sign their draft class.
They will also need to free up an additional $6 million or so to pay their practice squad. All in we are looking at $10.33 million of room they need to create to keep their heads above water.
Let’s call it $11 million.
Looking at the calendar, time-wise they will likely need to free up the $4.33m by mid-July or so (last year, Charles Cross signed his contract in early June and they completed their draft class contracts in late July).
The practice squad cap room does not need to be created until early September.
They still have time to make moves but the clock is ticking. The next few weeks could be very intriguing. What they decide to do will also give us clues about the direction this team is heading.
Where The Cap Space Will Come From
We have talked at length about the options available to the team:
There is over $30 million of cap space between these players the team can work with. It is not a question of space so much as priorities.
To frame the discussion a bit, the age-old cap conundrum is at play here.
Would the Seahawks prefer to maximize their potential competitiveness in 2023? Or focus more on 2024?
Here are some examples of what an extreme approach to answering those questions would look like:
— If the Seahawks want to go all in on 2023, they could simply convert salary to bonus for Tyler Lockett and Quandre Diggs. That would create $11.85 million of cap space and keep the current roster intact. However, Diggs’ 2024 cap number would increase to $21.26m with a $10.26m dead cap and $11m cap gained if cut. Lockett’s 2024 and 2025 numbers increase from $23.95m to $26.79m each year to pay for his restructuring.
— A 2024-centric approach would be to Post-June 1st cut Jamal Adams and trade Noah Fant for 2024 draft stock. That opens $15.29m of room for this year, $9.39m of room in 2024 on Adams and gives the team more options and flexibility in the draft. However, that subtracts two potentially important pieces from the 2023 squad and they would probably want to use some of that cap space gained to bring in lesser options at their positions for depth.
— A neutral approach would be to extend both Fant and Nwosu and push the maximum cap available into the future. They keep their 2023 roster intact; in 2024 the team can move on from Will Dissly to afford Fant and Nwosu could be extended for two years not unlike the contract they signed him to last year, with a lighter cap in 2024 and a ballooned cap in 2025.
What Will the Seahawks Do?
History would indicate that the Seahawks will find a compromise between the two approaches. Their ‘win forever’ thinking often leads them to straddle that line between being competitive in the current year and building for the future.
The cleanest option would be to first make a decision on Noah Fant. There would be benefits to both 2023 and 2024 if they either trade or extend him and either option would clear enough to pay the rookie class and buy them a couple months to pursue the most advantageous opportunities to gain room.
Nwosu could be a tough needle to thread. It’s possible he has no interest in negotiating an extension. Or he will want a very healthy raise to buy him out of 2024 free agency. An excellent 2022, a high 2023 cap hit and 2024 free agency make for some strong negotiating leverage in his favor.
I do think they will want to at least see if he is willing to have the conversation and get a feel for the parameters of an extension.
Lockett and Diggs – I think they will keep those potential restructures in their back pocket. If they deal with Fant sooner rather than later, that will buy them some time to talk to Nwosu to see where he is. They can then plan accordingly. It could also be potentially very useful to have some cap room at the ready if they are having a fantastic 2023 and that one-more-piece player becomes available at the trade deadline or in street free agency.
If it comes down to picking one or the other to restructure, Lockett is the easy choice. He has two years remaining on his contract so you can water the cap hit down. He also has been incredibly durable and his skillset has translated extremely well as he has aged.
Jamal Adams. All the signals the team have been sending out indicate he is coming back for 2023 and that they still consider him a vital cog in the defense. It certainly could be smoke – a way to encourage him in his rehab and to be able to apply a salve of positivity if they do decide to approach him about renegotiating his contract to a lower cap number.
Trying to convince Adams to take a reduced contract will be like a game of poker. If they want to get some cap relief, they need to sit at the bargaining table with the mindset of being ready to cut Adams loose if he says he is not willing to be flexible on his contract.
Do the Seahawks honestly have a taste for eating $24 million in dead cap and walking away from a player they clearly have considered a linchpin of their defense? Despite his injury record and what a lot of fans think of him? Very hard to say.
I have long argued that they should make a move on Adams, promoting an aggressive strategy that opens up that $8.44 million of cap space, whether through renegotiation first or a release as a last resort.
It is possible the Seahawks view keeping Adams as the aggressive strategy. That he could in fact be that one-more-piece player they ‘acquire’ by activating him off Injured Reserve with the goal of adding electricity to the defense.
Whatever you think of Adams, I think we can all agree that renegotiating his salary down followed by him being put in a position to maximize his talents and then doing so (while avoiding further injury) would be an optimal scenario.
Unfortunately, the odds of having that materialize as a reality are not extremely high.
Thanks for the update.
If Nwosu really is the type of personality they covet for the new culture, he’s at a great age and was quite productive even on a subpar DL, I think we should extend him now. Those are exactly the type of players that are worth paying. Now that they’ve added more depth and talent to the DL, he could really break out this season, so it might be good to get ahead of that.
Same with Fant. If they get a crazy good trade offer (say another R3 next year), I take that and run with the cap savings. But we know they really like him; he was a player they were targeting in R1. And now with a year in the system and with adding another weapon in JSN to work the middle of the field, Fant could also see his production jump.
So those would be the two I would look at doing now, along with trying to negotiate down Adams. If he’s unwilling to budge (easy to imagine), we have Love and now Reed to fall back on.
I take Schneider’s comment to mean that there’s a plan in place and no one should be concerned. Of course, there was a plan in 2017 when they had to suddenly release Dwight Freeney—it just wasn’t a sound plan. Hopefully, he learned from that.
…or it could be, ‘shhh, don’t tell our potential trade partners they have us over a barrel’.
This feels a lot less dire to me than it seems to be to a lot of the fan base.
I took the comment from JS to mean that he already knows he has it covered from conversations with some veterans.
I do wonder if JS is intentionally creating salary cap stress to increase the teams negotiating position when it comes to Adams/Fant. Salary cap distress would be a reason to either trade a player, or leverage a restructuring without blaming the individual player – or disturbing what they may feel is blooming locker room chemistry. Another part of the stress would be a reason why you might be making a player available for trade. Private companies manipulate cash flow and finances for these same purposes all the time (contact renegotiation/cancellation, talent management) – would it be surprising to hear a NFL franchise does the same?
Part of the trouble analyzing this decision-making from the outside is our own imperfect information. JS correctly ascertained that the market for Geno Smith would be lukewarm at best and leveraged that – multiple outlets were calling for a LJack type contract.
We, as fans, may believe that Adams might have no trade market, similar with Fant – both players may be highly sought after. Also, a factor to consider is that the Hawks do appear to be making a push to compete in 2023 and 2024 – what trade targets would realistically move the needle for the team? And how much financial flexibility is needed to make those moves happen? What assets does the team have, assuming they no longer want to sacrifice draft capital?
Assuming the Seahawks believe they have a punchers chance at winning the Super Bowl this next season, and also have an eye on landing the QBotF in the 2024, there is nothing but a needle threading balancing act that needs to be executed. I’m fascinated, for the first time in a long time, to see if they pull it off.
We discussed that in the last update. I would say JS is aggressively pursuing roster upgrades in 2023, and a very nice side effect is they have built up some pressure to negotiate from, particularly with JA.
We spent the fall and spring discussing it at length. Nobody – and I mean nobody – should have been surprised at the contract Geno signed.
Nobody is giving the Seahawks anything to pay Adams $45m in salary the next 3 seasons.
As for Fant, TJ Hockensen came from the same draft class, and has better career numbers then Fant. The Lions traded a current year 4th + a next year conditional along with him to net a current year 2nd and a next year 3rd.
A deal in that neighborhood might be on the table, but keep in mind the team is only getting 17 games of Fant, where the Vikings get 27 games of TJ.
Yeah, I agree that they aren’t getting much of anything for Fant. I was all aboard the Fant trade (for a late round pick wagon), but if that were going to happen I would have expected them to pull the trigger by now. It was a good and deep TE draft and they didn’t take anyone there. I’m not sure they’ll be confident enough to roll with Dissly (who they keep saying has a “unique” injury) and Parkinson. That’s pretty thin for a team that spent a lot of 2022 in two TE sets.
The Jamal renegotiation potential is fascinating. On the one hand I think he’s only getting a small one year prove it deal on the open market if they cut him. On the other hand he made $20M on his rookie deal and Seattle’s already guaranteed him $38M. That’s a lot of money in his back pocket to stand firm and roll with it if he gets cut. Maybe he proves me wrong, but doesn’t really seem like a guy willing to sacrifice ego to take less money.
Insane they are in this position. It really comes down to to the awful decisions that led them to spending $45M+ on the trio of Diggs, Jamal and Dissly this year.
Ego can cut two ways…
Which seems worse? Agreeing to a restructure? Or getting cut and having to sign a one year prove it deal?
I don’t think anyone can argue that Jamal Adams has done very well using the trade to leverage an over-inflated deal for himself.
With Dissly, I’m not sure he’s looked at in the same way. He’s only ever been with the Hawks, they know his attitude, his injury specifics and capability more than anyone else and were prepared to give him a large deal to keep him at the facility.
If he was out TE1 and had a healthy season, I don’t see a significant drop in production between him and Fant. Hopefully his injuries are behind him and he can prove he is worthy.
From a character perspective, the front office have talked glowingly about his leadership – we just put a higher priority on character over skill than some other teams is my perspective
Certainly don’t want to replow any territory.
I was meaning to intentionally compare and contrast with Geno Smith though.
My point, although not clearly made, was that both Fant and JA are players you bring in because of potential at this point … and Seattle has two position groups that post draft are a bit crowded. Both JA and Fant are also names, which means inclusion in a deal is more likely to satiate a fan base then say DT or Mike Jackson. If freeing up salary truly is a concern.
Was really looking forward to this. Thanks as always, cha!
New Top Billin just dropped.
I must say, while I don’t value the guy’s insight much more than I do any other Seahawks person on youtube or Twitter, his one-liners crack me up.
“Bob Scranton” is A+
Why is it?
I enjoy that he resorts immediately to the playground “I’m going to mispronounce your name to make it seem like I don’t know your name” strategy.
A man that large acting like an elementary school student is a hilarious irony.
It’s funny because you are living rent free inside his head with very little effort and he has immediately resorted to schoolyard bullying and name calling.
💯💯💯
He can’t help himself
He really can’t. He’s just a large child.
Jamal Adams should never attend another practice, visit a team facility, etc. I don’t want to risk him so much as stubbing a toe. They have a way to remove this albatross around their neck. The draft is over – remove it!
The fanbase in general do not seem to understand the urgent need to address Adams in one way or another this offseason.
They are already into Adams for $24m.
If they do absolutely nothing and Adams is on the roster Week One, as a vested veteran his entire 2023 salary becomes guaranteed. That means the Seahawks will be into Adams for another $8.44m, making the total bill $32.4m.
And there is very little chance Adams will actually play Week One. They probably will not have him available in the first quarter of the season.
There has to be some sort of plan here
Does ‘pay the iron price’ also apply here?
More like a glass price, given that’s what he’s made of
Very funny Bob.
Seriously tho, really too true to be funny. Now I suppose I can expect an Adams defender in here to tell us injuries were out of his control, give the guy a break, blah, blah, blah.
I sincerely hope you’re right that there is “some sort of plan here”. My gut tells me Pete has dug his heels in on Adams and will continue to try to salvage this abomination of a trade by waiting to play him if and when he’s ready at some point/any point in the season. I pray to be wrong as I’ve made abundantly clear on numerous occasions. If I am I will truly be in here nearly daily begging people to tell me how wrong I was.
https://i.etsystatic.com/17922403/r/il/7ae8c5/2075227820/il_794xN.2075227820_tjvi.jpg
Can’t wait for Top Billin’s cap update.
He had enough trouble using words as a comeback for Rob (instead basically said “wanna fight?” and “I’m famous from sitting here, be jealous”).
Now you want him to try and look at the team long-term from a salary-cap viewpoint? That’s just mean…
I think it’s a cap in yo’ ass update.
Nah he needs to go to the dentist and keep up his nice “TEEF”
Today he has a deep dive on Eli Ricks, aka ELI RICKS once had CFB on SMASH!!!!
636 views in 5 hours…
Sad…
Maybe he should try developing a pencil neck in order to attract more views from his home markets.
Ive said it a couple times now and Ill mention it again. I believe they will convert $6m of Diggs $13.5m base salary into a signing bonus. That will open up $3m in cap space and will flip flop his cap hits from $15.1m this year and $18.1m next year. A partial restructure instead of a full restructure on Diggs
Do you think this is wise? Diggs is thirty and he did not play up to his contract last season. I’m not sure we want to increase our commitment to him in 2024 and beyond.
Have to get it from somewhere. Dont want to do it with Adams or Lockett as there caps are already big next year. Diggs played very well in the 2nd half as he looked more like himself. Doing what I said wouldnt be that big of a deal as it almost looked like it was on purpose to have his second year cap hit higher than his third just in case. I agree with cha though that Fant is where the biggest money can come from. Just dont think they will want to extend Nwosu figjt now as they want to see it twice.
And also to get back to the article, thank you Curtis. This black and white lay out is what I need for this aspect of the team. Could be pretty telling to see what John and Pete do vs. where they think the team is.
I’m more or less going to try and enjoy this next year with lower expectations because I think that the roster is still incomplete, with the salary cap being a big part of that. It’s only year 2, build off of it and try to get ahead of it all now.
Thanks Curtis.
It seems like a no-brainer to do something with Tyler right off the bat. I’d love to see him as a Seahawk for his entire career.
Ditto Tom. As classy a player as the franchise has ever had.
Interesting article, but one thing I’m confused about is the practice squad bit. I though the salary cap was just for the 51 highest paid players on the roster? The article seems to say everyone including PS guys counts against the cap?
They do. Practice squad players count against the salary cap.
But it isn’t formed until final cutdown day so they have time.
Isn’t Jamal Adams the same guy who ran an entire scorched-earth marketing campaign to get out of New York when he wasn’t happy with his contract situation? Why wouldn’t he go that same route this time if Pete and John ‘disrespected him’ with a request to trim his salary?
I think the better option here is to cut him and admit that this trade was a colossal mistake. Apportion the hit over two seasons if you want to smooth it out. Ride with Diggs and Love at safety. They’ve admitted mistakes before (see Harvin, Percy).
The alternative is to roll the dice once again, make Adams’ contract guaranteed for 2023 when he’s on the roster in wk 1, and then pray that his litany of injuries are over.
“Jet for life” is my favorite quote from his brief tenure in NYC.
Building a defense around a box safety was a bad plan to begin with. Continuing to build that defense around a constantly injured box safety is criminal.
“Continuing to build that defense around a constantly injured box safety is criminal.”
The specific charge I would say applies here is ‘Reckless Endangerment’.
Of the team culture.
Of the cap space.
This vanity project should be over.
Ego is a very big driving force in human beings gentlemen.
Vanity project is indeed what it’s become.
https://seahawksdraftblog.com/the-seahawks-had-a-second-consecutive-a-draft#comment-763014
If they still want to sign another veteran FA, for example, a Frank Clark, how would they ever accomplish that on top of everything else? Especially if the Adams number won’t be changing significantly.
To me, “rebuild” means taking a step back in order to take a step forward. The Hawks won’t do that. They are doing “renewal”, remaining competitive while they upgrade their roster.
They don’t have to take the max salary and convert to bonus, they could piece it out a little.
This is the interesting part to me. Right now, they could sign a veteran FA like say Clark and just delay signing the rookies a little if they want. It’s a bit of a shell game.
But as I discussed in the piece, what are their goals? It’s tempting to not let go of one branch until you’ve got a solid grip on the next branch, but as you say Elmer, that is the thinking that leads to 9-11 win seasons and one-and-done playoff trips.
Even JA would understand that the “disrespect” thing won’t work well when you’ve been unable to stay healthy while still getting huge chunks of change, and of the cap.
Percy costs a bunch less than JA, in dollars and draft choices–Pete is not there yet, I’m afraid. He’s stubborn as a mule when he knows his personnel judgment is in question.
It just makes no sense to be so committed to Adams for so little return when the team desperately needs money.
There has to be a coming together to free something up. Has to be. And there has to be at least the thought to move on if not, because he will not make as much elsewhere. It makes sense for both parties to work together.
I’ll simply respond by saying it’s my opinion that your assessment of Adams’ personality is incorrect.
Eskridge post 6/1 would save $1.2 million.
Every little bit helps🤣
Curtis
Thank you for your contributions! As always – EVERYTHIING you submit is wonderful.
nwosu and fant extensions make perfect sense… thanks cha!
Thanks for the update Curtis. The mess they’ve made of the safety room just gnaws at me every time I look at the cap picture. I will be very surprised if they do anything with Jamal. From everything Pete has said, they plan to feature him in creative ways when he’s healthy, so I don’t see him being cut. Guaranteeing even more money in future years would be madness too. He’s already set to be the highest paid safety in the NFL in ’24 & ’25.
I think Lockett is the hole-card, where they can feel good about freeing up cap this year by pushing it with his contract. Even with that, he’s already in line to make $24M in ’24 & ’25.
I agree that Fant should be the first move. Whether that is a trade or extension, he gets us enough to sign the class, which you mention is a mid-July timeframe.
Interesting to me is the roster cut deadline change that was approved this spring. Prior to this year, there were 3 different cut days, where teams trimmed their rosters bit by bit. Starting this year, there is only one cut day (Aug 29th) where every team will go from 90 to a 53 man roster. That is almost 1200 players hitting the open market in a single day. What opportunities might that carnage create?
They obviously want to keep as much flexibility as possible while also minimizing the ‘borrowed’ amount on future contracts (especially Adams/Diggs). It could be that they are trying to gauge how much they will likely need before they structure new deals for Nwosu and possibly Fant.
I think the number we need for PS is a couple million lower than $6.7M.
10 players with Nwosu -> Tyler (based on the remaining gap) seems like the least painful way. Damien Lewis is in the last year of his rookie deal too. It isn’t much, but an extension for him could be another $1.5M.
Great stuff as always!
Absolutely. It could be as low as $3.02m or as high as $5.19m . I round up to $6m just to leave some breathing room.
Roger that. I thought maybe it included injury money to set aside.
I haven’t really seen a hard and fast rule about what the number is for the ‘injury’ pool. I read $5-$10M, but considering the state of our roster, that would mean A LOT of injuries to need that much. Each new guy from the bottom of the cap is only around $800k.
If 12 of our starters go down, the cap is going to be the least of our problems.
Oops, it looks like I deleted a big chunk of text somehow.
The 10 players with Nwosu -> Tyler (based on the remaining gap) seems like the least painful way. Is how that should have read.
Hmmm. Something going on with my posts. Maybe because I’m including a link to another site.
Apologies, as these aren’t making sense.
**Fant -> Nwosu -> Tyler (based on the remaining gap) seems like the least painful way.
The stuff I’m typing about the practice squad numbers is auto-deleting when I post.
I suspect they already have extensions or restructures agreed to and they simply haven’t been announced yet.
Thank you for your continued efforts that always enhance this blog cha. Outstanding as always.
The 2024 cap will be tighter as well when we pay Geno his $40m.
I don’t understand the point of this article at all. According to Twitter, the salary cap doesn’t really exist , kinda like the moon landing and the spherical earth. In all seriousness, great article. Thanks for the update.
Jalen Carter and the Seahawks latest…
https://twitter.com/robstaton/status/1655707568843390981
Anyone who listened to Mike Dugar’s podcast (Seahawks Man 2 Man) knew this. I don’t know if he ever wrote it up, but he was pretty clear that the Hawks saw far, far too many red flags in Jalen to ever draft him.
Well, anyone who followed this blog from January also knew it…
BS. MSD was forever mocking Carter to us throughout the pre-draft. He never stopped talking about it. I stopped reading Dugar because of that. He finally relented because he had no choice. Lost a lot respect for Dugar.
This. He and Chris were constantly saying the Hawks would take JC and how they could take on that risk. That is until the last couple weeks before the draft. I think he finally accepted what he was hearing about the kid. However, he still mocked him there even after saying there were too many red flags for the Hawks. Weird. I do like listening to his pod, but I find myself yelling at my phone in frustration from time to time.
It seemed pretty antithetical to the way the org presents itself that Carter would have been the choice. I don’t know how things really work inside the building though, so I was open to the thought that maybe they would take a shot.
It eventually got to the point that I just worried about the has-to-be-Carter crowd’s mental stability. Started sounding like the flat earth society.
If I were deeply interested in the Seahawks and had not come across SDB, I would be very disturbed with what has been put out there in the media and fan blogs the last few years. The number of times they have led fans down a path to nowhere is incredible.
The Bob Scranton blog just wouldn’t be the same without cap updates from this Chad Aldrege fella. Thanks for your time CHA I always appreciate these.
I’d be a little worried about extending Diggs. He really didnt look like the same guy last year, but I’ve been wondering if they just had too many problems up front and he was trying to cover up for other people. Hope he can bounce back this year with all the additions around the D.
I would never recommend extending Diggs. But a simple restructure might be in order if they are out of other options.
I hope that the Seahawks don’t extend mediocre players like Diggs or Fant to push their cap hits into 2024 and beyond.
Let’s be honest here, the Seahawks still have some work to do to be a Superbowl contender and need to be flexible in 2024 and 2025. They should be pushing cap space past this season if they can help it.
100%
Diggs may be starting to age but he’s far from a mediocre player. He’s been the best player on our defense at certain points the past two or three seasons and his ball production generally very good and fairly consistent.
Extending Nwousu should be the top priority.
Fant would make sense to keep long term at the right price. TE is a position TJ t usually takes a few seasons before you get good production from a player and Fant is at a reasonable age and has receiving skills that teams these days covet highly. We should too.
I’m with you Allen. Nwosu and Fant, I think is the route. Good age, good production (Fant can’t throw it to himself).
Diggs has been good, but how long do we want to have such an absurd amount tied to our safeties? To your point, OverTheCap uses some comparative tools to come up with their OTC valuation and Diggs has the highest value ($11.5M) of any safety in the league.
Sadly the calculation is at least fairly accurate, as Jamal’s “Value” is $1.3M.
The main thing I got out of this article is that the Seahawks need to change at least two veteran players contracts. That is exponentially more difficult than just one player. In other words, they are way over cap. Like some others I think they need to bite the bullet and cut Adams.
The Seahawks need to get younger and cheaper at TE and Safety. Use future cap savings from that for premium positions, especially the Defensive Line. It looks like the Seahawks are going to be paying Geno a lot of money in 2024.and 2025 since they seem to not want to spend Draft Capital on the QB position.
They don’t want spend draft capital on QB’s that are JAG.
Only using only one 3rd round pick and one 7th round pick in 14 years indicates that they really don’t want to use draft picks on thr Qzb position.
Would it be possible to trade someone like Fant, Adams, or Diggs away, with the idea that Seattle pays a substantial part of their salary this year? Would that create some cap relief for Seattle?
Not really.
Just throwing pasta at the wall, but since Adams is our albatross, is there a team out there with a similar albatross of a DL, could a trade happen? Not for cap advantage, but to balance the investment away from what we are paying our safeties and putting more into positions of need.
Buckner jumps out to me but the Adams contract is just so bad I don’t think any team would take it
It’d need to be a borderline Osweiler-esque deal
John Boyle had an interesting article detailing draft process. There’s some insight I was not aware of.
https://www.seahawks.com/news/go-with-the-board-inside-the-seahawks-draft-room-during-the-2023-nfl-draft
The biggest takeaway for me was not having a first round grade on Mayer. I had been wondering if we missed out on him because Vegas moved ahead of us.
To add to Rob’s video – https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/draft2023/insider/story/_/id/37461056/key-intel-all-32-teams-2023-nfl-draft-buzz-depth-chart-fits-team-needs-next
Fowler says Seahawks never would’ve gone for QB, excited about roster replenishing to win now
Seattle Seahawks
I’ve talked to multiple teams who wonder whether the Seahawks now have the best receiving trio in the NFL after placing Jaxon Smith-Njigba alongside DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. The Seahawks did not expect Smith-Njigba to be there at No. 20, thinking he’d go somewhere in the teens. Seattle has had an up-close look at Cooper Kupp over the years, and Smith-Njigba has a similar skill set as an elite slot receiver who can also move to the outside.
I never got the sense Seattle was poised for a major QB move in the draft. Anthony Richardson would have been tempting. But as was pointed out to me, the Seahawks were pretty excited about replenishing the roster to win now. That played out in the second round — they see Auburn pass-rusher Derick Hall as an immediate starter because of his combination of effort, physicality and speed, so that selection felt more crucial than straining for Will Levis or Hendon Hooker, despite all the QB homework they did on the pro-day circuit.
“despite all the QB homework they did”
I really hate this line of reasoning. They didn’t take a QB after doing all that work, therefore it was all a smokescreen and we’re in “win-now” mode. Has it ever occurred to these people that they did all that homework and just didn’t like what they saw? Levis fell to the 2nd round so it seems pretty likely to me that teams liked him less and less the more they saw from him.
I also don’t really understand the Hall comment. We don’t even need him to be a starter this year. He’ll probably end up playing fewer snaps than Olu or Bradford. Just such a weird leap from “we took a DE instead of trading up for Levis or taking Hooker (who rightly fell to the 3rd round)” to “we were never interested in any QB and we think we’re Super Bowl contenders”.
I will never forget Brock Huard confidently stating on his radio show that JA is “Kam Chancellor who can cover.” Mr. Huard was obviously caught up in some kind of post-trade emotional fervor, as Adams has subsequently proven himself to have beyond abysmal ball skills. I’ve never seen an NFL defensive back let several easy interceptions bounce off his facemask. Just flat out embarrassing. I think the guy only had 2 picks in his entire Jets career. Brock should have done some research.
Facemask doink Jamal has to go on June 2nd.
Did you know Ade has a brother who’s an edge for Oklahoma? Adepoju Adebawore is regarded by some to be better than his brother
5star recruit. Freshman 6’4” 240lbs
Tyler Lockett’s contract has been restructured and it’s opened up $5.69M in cap space this season.
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/05/11/seahawks-restructure-tyler-locketts-contract/