How the Seahawks draft pick salary slots will affect free agency plans
The Seahawks may not have many draft picks, but their draft plans will impact what they do in free agency over the coming months.
The Seahawks don’t have many draft selections in the upcoming 2019 draft. Now that isn’t exactly terrible news. After all, their second pick turned into left tackle Duane Brown. That’s a deal I’d make every year. No, not for Duane Brown every time, but for one of the ten best at their position year in and year out? Yes indeed. Regardless, the Seahawks are likely to do some serious wheeling and dealing this April. Their draft strategy will impact their moves in free agency.
Of course, their free agency moves will have an even bigger impact on the draft. But here’s the thing: the Seahawks already know what they’ll have to spend on their draft picks. That’s a luxury they don’t have when it comes to the free agent market. That’s because rookie contracts have been prescribed into very specific slots by the NFL since the 2011 draft.
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For a thoroughly detailed look at how the rookie salaries are determined, check this great article by Joel Corry on cbssports.com. It includes tons of detail that I’m not going to go into here. For now, here’s where the Seahawks will draft in 2019, and what each draft is slotted to be paid.
You can check every team’s figures here via the great site spotrac.com. Here’s the link to the Seahawks picks. By the way, they erroneously have a seventh-round pick listed; probably just projecting into the future. The values are the total contract, signing bonus, and the 2019 cap hit.
1st round, 21st pick: $12,443,457 $7,069,787 $2,262,447
3rd round, 84th pick: $3,763,382 $908,244 $722,061
4th round, 118th pick: $3,205,641 $685,641 $666,410
5th round,151st pick: $2,817,010 $297,010 $569,252