Seahawks 2020 offseason plan: Getting Seattle back to the Super Bowl

My projected cap casualties

Seattle is in the midst of their Super Bowl window and they need to gather as much cash as possible for free agency. This could be a cruel off-season for some of the Seahawks veterans. It really comes down to a case of opportunity cost. An example would be if keeping KJ Wright, and Justin Britt would be considered more valuable than signing another top tier defensive line talent?

The following are all the candidates to be potential salary-cap casualties, how much in cap savings would be accrued and what their dead cap would be (what’s still applied toward the Seahawks cap after a player is gone).

Player                     Savings         Dead cap

Justin Britt                 $8.5 mil        $2.9 mil

KJ Wright                    $7.5 mil        $2.5 mil

Bradley McDougald $4.1 mil      $1.3 mil

Ed Dickson                 $3.0 mil        $866k

DJ Fluker                     $2.9 mil        $500k

Tedric Thompson    $2.14 mil     $168k

Ethan Pocic               $1 mil            $336k

Some of these players will undoubtedly be gone, others will likely stay. The exercise of listing all the possibilities is simply letting you know what kind of money is tied to the player and the opportunity cost of retaining certain players.

For example, I think there is almost no chance KJ Wright is going anywhere this season, he played some of the best football of his career last year. That being said he will cost $10 million against the cap and the team could accrue $7.5 million back if he were to be cut or traded. Again, I think it’s highly unlikely he will be going anywhere, but the exercise is important.

The players I believe will be cut (and their cap savings) are:

• Justin Britt ($8.5 mil)
• Ed Dickson ($3 mil)
• Tedric Thompson (2.14 mil)
• Ethan Pocic ($1 mil)

Justin Britt holds the 4th largest cap hit for centers next season and is coming off a significant injury. He has been a lone staple of the offensive line since 2014, however, unless he is willing to take a significant pay cut, I think its time to cut ties.

Ed Dickson is all but assured to be gone with the Greg Olsen signing. Tedric Thompson failed to take the next step and with nearly his entire salary being non-guaranteed, he should be gone. Ethan Pocic has failed to make much of a dent since his rookie year. He has struggled with injuries and consistency and has yet to find a spot he is comfortable playing.

After some difficult cuts, Seattle now has $49 million in cap space to spend.