Seahawks Draft Needs: Shopping For Tackles?

Russell Okung is only 27 years old.  He’s a former high first round pick.

Russell Okung is good.

Russell Okung is not great.

He is entering the final year of his rookie contract.

He is set to count $7.28 Million against the cap this season.

Despite what you think about how good he is or isn’t, solid Left Tackles get paid, and they’re hard to find.  Will the Seahawks want to hand him the kind of new contract he’ll be seeking in 2016?  Someone will be willing to pay him.

We don’t really know how the Hawks feel about him, do we?  He was the first draft pick ever by the Schneider/Carroll regime, but he’s never reached the elite level they envisioned, and at times he’s had trouble staying on the field.  For most teams, paying your LT big money is just an assumed part of building a championship-caliber roster, and exploring an extension for him this offseason would make sense. But the Seahawks are built differently, with a lot of cap space devoted to the defense, and soon the QB.  This might be one of those impending moves Schneider talks about when waxing philosophically about team building:

"“the message that I always send is we want to be a championship-caliber football team so that every year your fans are thinking that every year we have a shot. With that comes tough decisions and you’re going to take some bullets for a while when you make those decisions, but need to be able to make those tough decisions” – John Schneider"

As much as the team would probably love to keep Okung around, they may not be able to.  It could all come down to his willingness to remain a Seahawk. By all appearances Okung seems to be a humble, team-first kind of guy.  Still, when it comes to your first, and possibly last shot at a big payday in free agency, you never know how a player is going to handle the opportunity until it’s at their feet.

The bottom line is that there isn’t a potential future starter at LT on the current roster.  That could change after this year’s draft.

Next: Potential Tackle Targets