The Seahawks are in rough shape when it comes to the salary cap. They'll need to make some difficult decisions this offseason to free up payroll, yet stay competitive. Happily, there's a simple way they can do that, yet still keep two of their biggest stars in Seattle.
The Seahawks are currently $12 million over the allotted cap space. That means that they must reduce their 2025 payroll by that amount just to stay under the cap, which they must do by the start of the new fiscal year for the league. That's March 16th for the 2025 season. Even then, they would have no money to acquire any free agents or pay any of their draft picks. So clearly, John Schneider and his team have a lot of work to do.
The NFL salary cap is the limit placed on every team's payroll to ensure each organization has the same opportunity to field the best team they can. This avoids the situation in major league baseball, where one team can try to buy a championship by outspending everyone else.
The Seahawks can save $58 million with five easy roster moves
It doesn't always work, though. Last year, the New York Mets payroll was five times higher than the lowest. For their $314 million, they finished third in their division. Cleveland, Baltimore, and Milwaukee all had better records than New York while keeping their payroll under $115 million. The NFL forces teams to have the same chance to be as stupid as the Browns. Hey there, Deshaun, how's it going?
Now when I say these are easy moves, I mean that in relative terms. It's never really easy to cut a player, and three of these moves require exactly that. But all three have underperformed for various reasons. Injuries played a key role in one of these player's performance. But as we've said so often, the most important ability is availability. I think that's one of Shakespeare's...not sure.
Anyway, let's start with the roster cuts, then look at the two players the Seahawks can keep by restructuring their contracts. The NFL does have what's called a hard cap, meaning that no team can spend more than the maximum, there are plenty of ways to avoid that. We'll dive into that after we take care of the simple cuts.
Release: Dre'Mont Jones
Jones has been a disappointment since the Seahawks signed him to a huge free-agent contract in 2023. As Justin Melo wrote for the Seahawks Wire, he just hasn't been good enough to justify his three-year, $51.5 million deal. Yes, Seattle could restructure his deal, but he's had two seasons to show what he can do. If Mike Macdonald can't get more out of him, the Hawks would be better off just releasing him. That shaves $11.7 million off the cap.
Release: Rayshawn Jenkins
I lowkey hate this, as I was really hyped about his arrival in Seattle. Turns out that I wasn't even close to my predictions. Go figure, the guy who said Eddie Lacy would be a huge hit for the Seahawks was wrong. Hey, Lacy was huge, I got that part right. As for Jenkins, injuries played a part in his season. He missed four games and then was outplayed by Coby Bryant.
To his credit, he stepped right into his role as a rotational player. Seattle can save $5.4 million by releasing him. That's simply too much to pay a player for that role.
Release: Uchenna Nwosu
Those of you who frequent our site have probably noticed that all three of these players have already been listed as roster cuts. Lee Vowell had all three as part of his 10 roster cuts - yeah, he's a savage. Obviously, I agree with him on these three. Nwosu pains me much more than the others, as he's been impacted much more by injuries. But again, availability matters and he's only played in 12 games in the past two seasons. The Hawks save $8.5 million with this release.
Restructure: Tyler Lockett
Luke Allen already wrote about this potential move, and I wholeheartedly agree. The Seahawks should do everything they can to keep the beloved Lockett on the roster. Yes, he is clearly receiver number three on the roster now. His receptions dropped from a team-high 79 in 223 to third this past season with 49. He's still highly effective, though, as 74 percent of those catches went for first downs.
In comparison, the Hawks' newest star, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, moved the chains on 57 percent of his catches, while DK Metcalf picked up the first on 53 percent of his receptions.
So how can Seattle keep Lockett without overpaying him? It's all about the void years, 12s. The excellent site overthecap.com has a great explanation of how it works. Basically, it allows a team to sign a player to a one-year deal and spread the payments over more years. In Lockett's case, his current cap hit is $30.9 million, and yeah, that's far too much money.
But by converting his deal to one year with a bonus and two void years, they could spread that the next three seasons. That drops his 2025 cap hit to a much more palatable $18.6 million and saves the Seahawks $12. 2milion this year.
Restructure: Geno Smith
Yeah, I know he isn't the most popular payer with all 12s. Four red zone interceptions didn't exactly bolster his standings in the popularity contest, nor did the 15 total picks. But he also threw for 4,300 yards while completing over 70 percent of his passes, all behind a pretty crappy line. Ask around the league; even average quarterbacks are hard to find.
When Smith hit all three of his roster incentives, he boosted his 2025 cap hit by $6 million. That's six million more reasons John Schneider may want to cut Smith. That's a pretty strong incentive to release him or trade him, regardless of how Mike Macdonald feels about it. Happily, there's a way around it. Um... did someone say void years?
Just as with Lockett, the Hawks can restructure Smith's deal. And in Geno's case, it could have a huge impact on their bottom line. His current cap hit is $44 million. Whew, that's a lot of potatoes. Anyway, let's move Mr. Smith to pay him a bonus with two void years - again just a one-year deal, like Lockett - and Seattle saves $20.5 million in cap space. Smith still gets his money, just spread out over three seasons. That would drop his cap hit for 2025 to a very manageable $24 million.
Those restructured deals were run on spotrac.com, by the way. I highly recommend those of you who enjoy the mathy side of things to jump in and play. As for the Seahawks, those five moves would save them $58 million and set their new cap space at $48 million. That alone would move them from 30th in cap to 14th, a much more comfortable position. Another $4 million in savings would jump them into the top 10. We'll work on that another day.