The Seattle Seahawks have been pretty successful for a decade and Seattle has never gone years since the franchises’s inception of being just awful. There have been a lot of mediocre seasons, sure. But terrible? Few.
While the last several years have been very good to Seattle, they might have been even better and into the future had John Schneider and Pete Carroll not decided to try to pull the trigger on several moves. Schneider and Carroll have guided Seattle to great success but they haven’t been perfect.
One trade I do not have on this list, and possibly this disappoints you, is the Jamal Adams trade. Many articles have been written that the Adams trade is clearly one of the worst in Seahawks history. This may end up being true but it is still too early to say this.
Adams was very good in his first year in Seattle in 2020 at getting to opposing quarterbacks and had a record 9.5 sacks (a record for a secondary player). He wasn’t great in coverage and he missed several games due to injury.
Seattle Seahawks worst trades in franchise history
In 2021, Adams has been misused. He needs a defensive coordinator who gets the most out of his unique ability while also helping the overall defense and Ken Norton, Jr. simply doesn’t have the ability on how to figure this out. With a different defensive coordinator, Adams might be better.
He is still also just 25 years old and has lots of good years left to play.
Does the trade look like a bad one now and did Seattle give up far too much to get Adams from the Jets? Yes. But we simply don’t know how the future will go with such a good young player and we might view the Adams trade differently in two years. Or we might not.
But here are there trades we can definitely see did not work out well for the Seahawks.
Number 3: Tony Dorsett pick traded to the Dallas Cowboys, 1977
Seahawks received one first round pick and three second-round picks for Seattle’s number 2 pick
If the Seahawks were already a good team and traded their number two pick in the 1977 draft for multiple draft picks, that may not have been a bad thing. But Seattle was still trying to build a franchise. 1977 was just the Seahawks second year in the NFL. The number two pick ended up being running back Tony Dorsett.
To be fair, even had Seattle drafted Dorsett they would have needed a lot of other pieces to be good and maybe Dorsett’s first few years in the league would have been wasted. But we can only assume that would have been a worst-case scenario on the field because Dorsett never played for Seattle. And adding Dorsett might have helped make Seattle good for many years.
Before the draft, Dorsett allegedly wrote a letter to Seattle’s management saying if taken by the Seahawks he would never play for them. He threatened to play in the CFL instead. Seattle’s general manager John Thompson took the bait and Seattle’s number-two pick in the draft was traded to the Dallas Cowboys.
Seattle ended up with the number 14 pick in the draft and chose offensive tackle Steve August. Seattle also chose offensive lineman Tom Lynch and linebacker Terry Beeson in the second round and traded their third second round pick back to the Cowboys for a receiver.
August wasn’t awful. He started 50 straight games for Seattle from 1978 through 1981. But he was never a Pro Bowler. Lynch started on the same offensive line with August for most of 1978 through 1980. Beeson was pretty solid for most of five seasons and had 153 tackles in 1978.
But none of these players, of course, can measure up to the success Dorsett had individually and with his team. Dorsett ran for more than 1,000 yards eight times and made the Pro Bowl four times. He also won a Super Bowl with the Cowboys in 1977. Dorsett was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Number 2: Percy Harvin from the Minnesota Vikings, 2013
Seahawks received Harvin in exchange for Seattle’s first round pick and a seventh round pick in 2013 plus a third round choice in 2014
The Percy Harvin trade ended up being an issue due to all kinds of problems with the player. Not only was he rarely available to play for Seattle but he was terrible in the locker room. It is actually a good thing that the 2013 Seahawks had players with strong personalities like Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, Michael Bennett and Doug Baldwin or Harvin could have completely wrecked the team’s chemistry.
Before coming to Seattle, Harvin spent four years with the Vikings. He was an electric kick returner and made the Pro Bowl in 2009 because of it. In four years with Minnesota, he had 5 kickoff return touchdowns. This is why Seattle wanted him.
But in 2013, Harvin played in one regular season game. He did have one 58-yard kickoff return and he caught one pass for 17 yards. But with Harvin, one was never sure if he missed so much time because he was actually hurt or he simply didn’t want to play.
In 2014, Harvin managed to play in five games and caught 22 passes but for only 133 yards. But his locker rooms issues were the real problem. The day before the Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, Harvin got into a fight with receiver Golden Tate. The following August, Harvin got into a scuffle with receiver Doug Baldwin. Harvin had to go.
In October, Seattle traded Harvin to the Jets.
What Seattle gave to the Vikings in draft picks turned out to be Cordarelle Patterson (a decent player but not when he was with Minnesota), Travis Bond (never played for Minnesota) and running back Jerick McKinnon (a decent player who now plays for the 49ers but is injured).
It should be noted that Harvin has since admitted to being treated for anxiety while he was in the NFL. Also, 12s have one great memory of Harvin when he ran the opening second half kickoff back for a touchdown in Super Bowl XLVIII.
Number 1: Seahawks acquire Jimmy Graham from the New Orleans Saints, 2014
Seahawks trade center Max Unger and a first round pick for Graham and a fourth round choice
There is one huge reason why I have Jimmy Graham number one on this list. That said, I do want to note that Graham wasn’t bad in the locker room. Graham seems like a decent human being and did not create a problem on the team. He played for Seattle from 2015 through 2017 and was decent but not great.
In fact, a lot of the reason Graham is first on the list has nothing do to specifically with Graham. He wasn’t completely ineffective as a tight end. That said, here is the reason he should have never been with the Seahawks:
Seattle was greedy and overextended themselves so much that it affected the future success of the team.
After going to back-to-back Super Bowls (yes, they should have won back-to-back Super Bowls), Seattle thought getting someone who could be another option for Russell Wilson was a great route to take. What they needed was to keep a person who was very good at protecting Wilson while also opening holes for the running game.
John Schneider and Pete Carroll must have wrongfully thought that Unger only playing 6 games in 2014 was a sign of things to come. But it wasn’t. Unger ended up playing 63 of a possible 64 games over the next four seasons with the Saints. He made the Pro Bowl in 2018. This after making the Pro Bowl with Seattle in 2012 and 2013.
Centers are more important than simply blocking. Most of them call out the line plays and that communication can be the difference between a quarterback having time to throw and not. Unger’s line around him was much better at run blocking but if Unger had stayed on the team when Seattle added pieces like left tackle Duane Brown, imagine how good that line would have been.
Seattle has been playing musical center ever since Unger left seven seasons ago. I get that Justin Britt played the position for three years but he wasn’t very good for most of that time. Not having a good center has hurt the chemistry of an offensive line that has been bad for several years. And Seattle still has no answer at center and may not have one at any time soon. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson keeps getting hit and therefore the offense is limited.
Seattle trading for Jimmy Graham created a problem that wasn’t there before and that is Management 101: Don’t create problems, fix them. The Seahawks are still dealing with the mess they created by trading Unger for Graham and there is no known answer when the problem will be solved.