Seahawks ponder big question: should they re-sign K.J. Wright?

The Seahawks have a lot of personnel questions to address this offseason, but the most intriguing to me is whether they should bring back K.J. Wright.

The Seahawks faced the challenge of 2018 better than most expected, as they returned to the playoffs with a retooled team. 2019 will bring its own challenges, as they have 14 unrestricted free agents to worry about. For a great look at the Hawks free agency issues, check out Karley Sibert’s article right here.

As for those worries, there are some players they won’t worry about quite so much as others. Like, oh, I don’t know, Earl Thomas. It would be great to have Thomas back, but that’s clearly not going to happen. Pete Carroll has done everything but flatly state Thomas won’t be back. Or does this sound like he’s dying to get Thomas back?

"“We’ll see what happens. Yeah, Earl is a great player. I don’t know what that means for his contract and all that stuff, but it’s one of the issues and we’ve got a bunch of them,” Carroll said."

Seattle Seahawks

That comment was widely reported; in this instance by Derek Lewis on 247sports.com. As Lewis writes, Carroll has made it very clear how important it is to re-sign players like Frank Clark and K.J. Wright. None of that “we’ll see what happens” stuff.

Dion Jordan is another member of the 2018 Seahawks defense that Pete Carroll and John Schneider aren’t going to lose much sleep over. They’d certainly like to have him back, but only for another low dollar contract (under $2 million). They took a small risk, and got a small reward.

Jordan played less than 30 percent of the defensive snaps. He did have his moments, like his sack and two quarterback hits against the Chiefs. It would be really good to have him back, but no one is going to say “Super Bowl” if the Hawks re-sign him.

Seahawks have to consider salary cap, injury

The one player I’m truly concerned about is a man that Carroll has praised repeatedly since the season’s end for his leadership. That would be linebacker K.J. Wright. It isn’t that Wright isn’t worth a big contract. And it certainly isn’t that Wright can’t play. As usual in the NFL, it’s a money issue.

Even though the Seahawks will have over $60 million in cap space, as reported by overthecap.com, they have a couple of very pricey contracts coming up for Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson in 2020. Both are likely to be at the very top of the salary scale for their positions. That doesn’t include Frank Clark, who will most definitely get paid.

So is K.J. Wright worth re-signing, with all the other high profile contracts the Seahawks will have? He’ll be 30 before the 2019 season starts, and is coming off a year that saw him miss 11 games with a tough knee injury. Those go on the “ugh” side of the ledger.

On the “yay” side, Wright started the last three games for the Seahawks, including the playoff loss to Dallas. He had his best game of the year against the Cowboys, too. Wright had seven solo tackles and an assist, one of those a tackle for a loss. He also broke up one pass and made a brilliant interception that would have saved the game if Seattle had stopped running the ball so darn much.

Then again, Wright only averaged 45 snaps per game in 2018. He averaged 64, 66, 61 and 57 per game from 2014 through 2017. That undoubtedly has a lot to do with the fact he averaged 4.6 combined tackles per game last year, by far the lowest of his career. As a point of reference, Wright averaged 7.6 combined tackles in those previous four seasons. To get mathy, Wright averaged 10.2 tackles per 100 snaps last year, and averaged 12.2 per 100 snaps in the previous four years. I’m not sure that goes on the “ugh” side, but it sure doesn’t fit the “yay” side of the ledger.

Now that I documented his decline in 2018, I think Wright will bounce back in 2019. I think his drop in stats was entirely due to his knee injury. His play against the Cowboys bears this out, as he was in for 92 percent of the Seahawks defensive plays. That’s the K.J. Wright the 12s know, and I’m pretty sure that’s the player the 12s would see next season. I think Seattle will find a way to bring him back, and needs to bring him back. A healthy K.J. Wright: now that’s a guy that can make you think Super Bowl.