Musings on Day 1 of NFL Free Agency

The Seattle Seahawks mostly took the day off today, while the rest of the NFL Free agency period was out of its damn mind. 

The first day of the NFL free agency period is mostly complete, not that there is any end point to the madness. The Seattle Seahawks were mostly silent spectators today, and that is almost certainly a good thing.

After hours of insane deals and massive overreactions, things have calmed down enough for me to collect my thoughts. Here are a few random Seahawks thoughts as day one the league year draws to a close:

• The contracts given out today were just stupid. Vernon for more than Watt? Osweiller for close to what Wilson got a year ago? Seriously, many of the guys who switched teams today will be back on the market in 2 years as salary cap casualties.

• The Seahawks didn’t make any significant additions today, which isn’t a surprise. There was no way they were going to give out those insane contracts that were given out today. They lack the cap space to be that aggressive. They’ll wait until prices come down in the next day or so.

• We knew the Seahawks were going to re-sign one of Ahtyba Ruben or Brandon Mebane, and that the other was likely to sign elsewhere fairly quickly. Well, Ruben is back, and Mebane is now a member of the Chargers.

• We also had a pretty good idea that Sweezy was going to be gone unless he was willing to sign a very team-friendly deal. Instead, Tampa paid him about double what he’s worth and he’s now an ex-Seahawk.

• We also knew Bruce Irvin was going to get paid. It was a little surprising that it was the Raiders and not the Jaguars or Falcons, but it wasn’t any surprise that someone gave him big money.

• Okung remains unsigned, which isn’t unexpected. He hasn’t been able to talk to team for the last two days like everyone else. He also is still recovering from shoulder surgery, so there’s no rush.

• Speaking of Okung, there remains a good chance that he’s back next year. The Seahawks would like to keep him, and their other options are drying up. At this point, I’ll be mildly surprised if he leaves.

• The same goes for Kearse, but for an entirely different reason. He isn’t even generating any buzz yet. Kearse likely won’t see much interest for a couple of days until some other WRs are no longer on the market. Once he price drop to something reasonable, Seattle could work to keep him.

• The Seahawks have been preparing for today for a year now. Glowinski is set to take over at RG. Clark is slimmed down and ready to replace most of what Irvin provided. Getting a NT to replace Mebane becomes a draft priority, but overall the team is in good shape.

• If there was a surprise in Seattle today, it was the return of Jeremy Lane (which wasn’t all that surprising). The Seahawks had reasonable depth at CB before bringing Lane back. Now they are rather stacked at the position.

That’s it for today. Hopefully things will slow down enough for me to get some sleep at some point.