Seahawks cuts: who wins between Mingo and Griffin?

The Seahawks roster cuts may be a few weeks away, but it’s never too early to speculate about who will win the battle to make the roster.

The Seahawks are three weeks away from announcing their 53 man roster, so you could say it’s a bit premature to make these predictions. Fun fact: I was born seven weeks early, so I’m all about premature arrivals. I’m going to look at several roster battles all the way up to the final cuts. I’ll start with two players who were underwhelming in their first seasons in Seattle. Both are making a transition back to their roots in a bid to stay on this year: Barkevius Mingo and Shaquem Griffin.

I’ll start with Mingo, in deference to his status as a somewhat grizzled veteran. He’s hardly ancient, as he won’t turn 29 until October. He does have five years and 78 games on Griffin, including 36 more starts. Mingo’s experience gives him a powerful advantage over Griffin. Unfortunately for the former first-round pick, his production doesn’t match that experience.

Despite his 37 starts, Mingo has just 10 career sacks, half of those in his rookie season. Last year he got 14 starts with the Seahawks. Despite getting 517 snaps on defense, he had just 48 total tackles, three for a loss, one pass defense, and one sack. Compare his production to two more notable players last year, K.J. Wright and Mychal Kendricks. They combined for 406 snaps, 101 fewer than Mingo. Yet they totaled 42 tackles, six for losses, four pass defenses, and two sacks. It’s pretty clear who caused more havoc on the field.

Seattle Seahawks

On paper, Shaquem Griffin faired no better. He got just one start and was pulled in favor of Austin Calitro. But when you look at his stats, Griffin looks more like a player who was just getting his feet wet than a guy who was totally outclassed. He had just 50 snaps on defense, 40 of those in the season opener. He played much better on special teams, though.

So we have two underperforming linebackers. We also have Wright returning at full strength, and Kendricks returning for – well, who knows how long? The Seahawks also have Calitro and two promising rookies in Cody Barton and Ben Burr-Kirven.  With that depth and a sudden need for pass-rushing talent, it makes sense for the Seahawks to try both Mingo and Griffin on the edge.

Both players starred in college as destroyers of quarterbacks. Mingo had 29 tackles for a loss and 15 sacks with his hand on the ground in 40 games at LSU. Griffin was even more impressive at UCF. He turned in 33.5 tackles for a loss and 18.5 sacks in his 40-game collegiate career. So it’s a smart move to try both of them on the edge, especially with Ezekiel Ansah’s health still a bit of a question mark.

Between the two, I think it’s more likely that Griffin will win out. I believe we saw the upside of Mingo in his rookie season with the Browns, as he never came close to matching that performance. My one caveat here is this was the height – or to be more accurate, the depth – of Cleveland’s futility. Griffin was still learning to adjust to the speed of the NFL last year. Both were standouts on special teams and would be likely to continue that this season.

For me, the choice comes down to contracts. Mingo’s cap hit for this year is $5.3 million. If the Seahawks cut him, they’ll save $4.2 million. Meanwhile, Griffin’s cap hit is just over $649,000. Cutting him would save Seattle a little over $410,000. You can look at that as a tenth of the savings of cutting Mingo, or D.J. Fluker’s monthly bill at Trader Joe’s. Unless Mingo drastically outperforms Griffin, I expect he’ll be out.