Seattle Seahawks: Predicting the first 15 cuts

The Seattle Seahawks will be cutting down their roster from 90 to 75 by early Tuesday afternoon. With the third preseason game over, there’s nothing left the players can do to make their case that they deserve another week.

This presents as good of an excuse as any for me to make a fool of my self by trying to predict the 15 players that will be cut by Tuesday’s deadline.

Before we get to the player players, let’s first get to some of the reasons that players cut this week. It’s rarely just the bottom 15 players on the roster. There are a couple of other things that must be considered

Veterans: Veteran players who aren’t going to make the team tend to get cut in this first round of cuts. Many are better than the UDFAs that survive until the final cut. This is presumably to give them extra time to catch on with another team. Consider it a professional courtesy.

Cap and trade effects: There are players who fit the above requirement but wont be on the chopping block yet because the team will look to trade them before cutting them.

Fourth preseason game: There are players who won’t get cut in this round of cuts that will only stick around to eat up snaps in the final preseason game. Most of the starters won’t play. Those that do will likely only be in there for a series. That leaves a lot of snaps that need to be covered by backups.

R.J. Archer is a good example. He isn’t going to make the roster this year. Everyone knows that. Even he knows it. With Russell Wilson unlikely to play and Tarvaris Jackson still nursing a sore ankle, the Seahawks need someone to play quarterback. Thus, Archer isn’t going anywhere until after that game.

Injuries: I’ve already mentioned that the Jackson injury will help keep Archer around. That isn’t the only way that an injury can mess with this round of cuts.

Injured rookies, especially UDFAs could be sent packing here as well. The idea here is that they’ll pass through waivers and then land on IR. That’ll allow them to redshirt all year and still be with the team for training camp next year.

One last disclaimer: I typically suck at predicting this round of cuts. If you disagree with my assessment here, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I typically get only about 9-10 of the 15 correct.

Here are the players I expect to not make the drop to 75:

Will Pericak, OC
Patrick Lewis, OC
KeaVon Milton, OG
DeShawn Foxx, WR
Deontay Greenberry, WR
Anthony McCoy, TE
Will Tukuafu, FB
QuayShawn Nealy, LB
Tyrell Adams, LB
Mike Morgan, LB
Julius Warmsley, DT
David King, DT
Triston Wade, CB
Keelan Johnson, CB
Ty Zimmerman, SS

There are a couple of names on here that I didn’t like including, but I couldn’t come up with someone else who was more likely to be gone. Will Tukuafu in particular, but I think he’s given the veteran courtesy of being cut now. Brandon Cottom then becomes safe for another week.

Mike Morgan is another I don’t feel belongs there. He was literally the 15th player added to the list. The only reason he’s included is because he was hurt on Saturday.

He’s unlikely to play next week because of a pulled hamstring. I think the Seahawks choose to keep a player that can help them when they’re short handed next week. We’ll see. I don’t feel confident about that one.

One of Thomas Rawls or Rod Smith might be cut, but neither made the list here. They aren’t making the final 53, and Christine Michael could carry the load next week, so one should probably be on there.

The problem that I had was that I couldn’t choose one to cut. Rawls keeps getting more chances, indicating the coaches prefer him. Smith has been more explosive and has done much more with fewer touches.

Overall, I’m sure I’ve gotten more wrong than right this year. This is never easy. We’ll see how things turn out on Tuesday.

Next: Kam Chancellor: insight on holdout from 2 veteran agents

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