4 worst Seahawks free agent signings under John Schneider

Seahawks’ worst free agent signing No. 2: Left guard Luke Joeckel

Joeckel is a symbol of what Russell Wilson complained about when Wilson hints about a reason he wanted out of Seattle was that the team did not put good players in front of him to block oncoming pass rushers. The fact is, the Seahawks did draft more offensive linemen than most other teams during Wilson’s career with Seattle and tried to add what they thought were quality offensive linemen in free agency. But the great eye that Schneider has for knowing how good a quarterback can be does not transpose over the talent evaluation for offensive linemen.

Not until recently has Seattle truly had success in drafting quality linemen. 2022 rookie tackles Charles Cross and Abe Lucas look like they will be really good. Left guard Damien Lewis isn’t bad either. But those are too few examples when the Seahawks have mostly been failures at adding good linemen since 2010.

Before Joeckel came to Seattle he had underperformed and been injured a bunch with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Joeckel had only played four games for the Jaguars in 2016, the year before Schneider signed him to be a Seahawk. He had been a decent run-blocker at times but was not good in pass protection and Seattle’s offense was transitioning to being one that threw the ball a lot more.

Not only did Schneider make a poor choice about bringing Joeckel to Seattle at all in 2017, but Schneider also overpaid for him. The Seahawks signed Joeckel to a one-year deal worth up to $8 million. This was likely far more than another team was going to offer. Joeckel ended up playing 11 games and allowing 5 sacks and 28 pressures in 454 pass block attempts. That’s bad. And Joeckel was so bad he never played football again after 2017 and Seattle missed the playoffs in his only season with the team.