Seahawks not picking up Germain Ifedi’s option was right thing to do

The Seahawks decided not to pick up the fifth-year option of Germain Ifedi for 2020. This was absolutely the right decision.

Prior to the 2018 season, Seahawks right tackle Germain Ifedi was almost a complete bust. He was a drive-killing machine and could commit a penalty on nearly any play. Beyond his penalties, though, Ifedi was simply ineffective and easily dominated by good defensive ends. But in 2018, Ifedi was decent.

A lot of Ifedi being better might have something to do with getting better coaching from Mike Solari than he ever could get from Tom Cable. Cable was Ifedi’s offensive line coach for the first two seasons of Ifedi’s career. Solari became his line coach last season.

Pro Football Focus gave Ifedi a grade of 55.6 in 2018. This was the best grade of Ifedi’s career. He still was the worst graded tackle on Seattle’s team. Worse he was awful run blocking and that is what the Seahawks want to do the most. George Fant, though in much fewer snaps, graded at 72.6 overall but when it came to run blocking was 25 points higher.

If Seattle were to have picked up Ifedi’s option in 2020 they would have had to pay him $10.5 million. This is far too much. That amount of money could go towards a different right tackle who produces at a much higher level. That could be someone from outside the franchise. It could even be that Fant gets a lot more snaps in 2019 as the season wears on and shows that maybe he is Seattle’s right tackle of the future instead of Ifedi.

That is chance worth taking for the Seahawks. Fant is still learning his position but picking up knowledge fairly quickly. Plus, he has athletic ability Ifedi doesn’t. A chance that Seattle could not take was picking up Ifedi’s fifth-year option. For the betterment of the franchise, they chose not to. And it was the correct decision.