4 Seattle Seahawks on the hot seat heading into 2023 offseason

Seahawks defensive end Shelby Harris

My assumption is that Shelby Harris will not be with the Seahawks in 2023, at least not at his current cap number. Harris, an eight-year veteran, has a cap hit of $12,201,753 in 2023 but a dead cap number of only $3,260,588. By releasing Harris, Seattle would save almost $9 million. It simply doesn’t make financial sense to bring Harris back at his current number unless he had been extremely productive in 2022. He wasn’t.

In fact, by nearly every metric, Harris was much worse in his first year with the Seahawks than he was with the Broncos in 2021. He had 2 sacks this season compared t 6 in 2021, his quarterback hits fell from 11 to 6, his tackles for loss went from 7 to 5 and his missed tackle percentage jumped from 3.9 in 2021 to 8.3 in 2022. 8.3 percent of missed tackles by an interior defensive lineman is simply very bad.

Harris will be 32 years old when next season begins so he could be good for a few more seasons. He has been a solid player for most of his NFL career so 2022 might simply be some kind of negative blip on his career radar. But there is also no proof he will be any better next season.

Harris is on the hot seat this offseason because of his diminished production and his increased salary. He seems like a good due and a good guy to have in the locker room. But this doesn’t mean he is worthy of being on the roster in 2023 if he is getting paid $12 million.