Seattle Seahawks: John Schneider wants to re-sign ‘everybody’

Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider met the media on Wednesday at the NFL combine and had a bunch of notable things to say.

One of which was that the Seahawks re-signing free agent safety Quandre Diggs to a lucrative contract doesn’t both Schneider, and Schneider doesn’t mind having two of the higher paid safeties in the NFL on the same team.

Last offseason, Seattle gave Jamal Adams an extension that pays him $70 million over four years with $38 million guaranteed. Diggs isn’t going to get that much money from any team but the Seahawks do need to make him a priority to re-sign.

John Schneider, in fact, said Seattle is “going to try to do is to keep everybody.” By “everybody,” we can assume he means all of Seattle’s key free agents, such as Diggs, Duane Brown, Rashaad Penny, D.J. Reed and others. That is both good and bad. Some of those guys are very good and will help the team win. But Seattle also went 7-10 with those players so changes do need to be made and upgrades are needed.

One player that maybe Schneider wouldn’t mind not having back is Ethan Pocic. Schneider didn’t say bad things about Pocic on Wednesday, but he did speak very highly of backup center Dakoda Shepley. Shepley was claimed last offseason but didn’t lay any offensive snaps. He did play center in the Canadian Football League and seemed to be pretty good.

That said, the Seahawks don’t play in the CFL so the players in the NFL are better. That Shepley might end up being the starter for Seattle in 2022 is worrisome because he’s never played a down of offense in the NFL.

Schneider did say that no decision has been made on Seattle using the franchise tag on a player this offseason, however. The team has until March 10th to do so. In all the years Schneider and coach Pete Carroll have been in Seattle, the team has only used the tag twice: 2010 on kicker Orlando Mare (seriously) and 2019 with edge rusher Frank Clark in a planned sign-and-trade deal.