With the NFL Draft officially wrapped up, the Seattle Seahawks will turn their attention to what is most commonly referred to as “Phase 3” of NFL Free Agency. But what is Phase 3 and how can they dominate it?
Let’s start with what Phase 3, or the third wave, of free agency actually is. Basically, any free agent signing in the first week of the new league year is considered a first phase signing. These contracts are the biggest handed out and the Seahawks tend to not be that involved.
In fact, many of the most successful teams avoid this phase of free agency. While most of the best available players go in this phase, it is also where most of the NFL’s bad contracts come from. Perpetual winners like New England and Seattle rarely partake which gives them cap freedom for other moves down the line.
Phase 2 is the signings that happen between week two of the off-season and the NFL Draft. Typically, these signings involve good but not great players, ones that vastly overestimated their market value, or older veterans looking for opportunities to win rather than get the biggest check they can.
The cheapest way to add talent to your roster in the off-season is the NFL Draft. But after you make your selections, you may find that you couldn’t fill all your needs with your draft picks, so teams will try and scavenge what they can in free agency. This is when phase 3 typically starts.
Phase 3
The players left on the market are traditionally role players or veterans who were recently cut by teams who added talent to their position group. Traditionally, Phase 3 players are depth and gap stop options, but this 2019 group is a bit different.
Names like Ziggy Ansah, Ndamukong Suh, Nick Perry, Derrick Morgan, Eric Berry, Glover Quinn, Muhammad Wilkerson, and Michael Crabtree are all still available. Now the Seahawks still have holes to fill, and most of the names above make some sense. In fact, the team has already hosted Ansah for a visit.
There is a lot of talent still on the board and the Seahawks are in a prime position to take advantage of it. Why? While most teams have spent their money already for 2019, GM John Schneider has been going to the opposite direction, clearing cap space instead of using it.
The team saved roughly $7 million in cap space with Russell Wilson‘s new deal and cleared an additional $17 million by trading Frank Clark. This puts the Seahawks with somewhere between $25-$27 million of cap space.
Now before you hit me with “what about Bobby Wagner and Jarran Reed extensions” questions, remember that, traditionally, these re-worked contracts end up saving the team money in year one. We can expect the same from Wagner’s new contract, but Reed’s extension will almost certainly not add more cap space.
Adding free agents
At $30 million (depending on Bobby Wagner’s deal), the team can still spend big on somebody like Ansah or Suh. Or possibly get as many as 3 solid contributors. The Seahawks need help primarily at edge rusher and Ansah and Perry have already been linked to Seattle. Snagging both is in the cards.
But what if the team decided it wanted to add Suh or Wilkerson as well? Could they afford that? The answer is, probably. Things would get tight at that point, but believe it or not, Seattle can create even more cap space pretty easily.
Doug Baldwin is all but confirmed to be retiring. He will probably find a settlement with the Seahawks to pay him a portion of his 2019 bonus, but a June 1 cut of Baldwin adds roughly $10 million of cap space to this year.
Kam Chancellor will also be cut after June 1, saving the team another $5 million. So right away, the Seahawks have cleared $15 million without losing anybody who was in their 2019 plans. Then, if Seattle wanted to go even bigger, cutting Jaron Brown and Barkevious Mingo, who happen to play the 2 positions the Seahawks invested most heavily in during the draft, would save the team an additional $7 million.
The Seahawks can add an additional $22 million of cap space to their already confirmed purse of $25 million by parting ways with 4 players who are either never going to play again or have already had their replacements selected.
With $47 million in cap space, Seattle can afford to extend Bobby and Jarran, and likely add 3, if not 4 of the big names left in free agency. Think about a defensive line that had L.J. Collier, Wilkerson, Reed, Suh, Poona Ford, Ansah, Perry, and Jacob Martin on its depth chart. Pretty fun to think about right?
All of these options will be available to the Seahawks in the next week. After May 8th, free agent signings no longer count against the compensatory draft pick formula, meaning the Seahawks can keep their 4 comp picks and still add talent starting next week. All that is required is a little patience and a touch of sacrifice.
Will Schneider and the Seahawks be aggressive in Phase 3 of free agency? Yes. How aggressive will they be? We will just have to wait and see.