4 Seahawks who will be playing for their future jobs in Week 18
Seattle likely has many players still trying to earn roster spots for 2024.
By Lee Vowell
The Seattle Seahawks are 8-8 after an awful and humiliating Week 18 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Seattle could be a week away from making the playoffs or a week away from preparing in full for the coming offseason. At this point, and as bad as Seattle's defense played against the Steelers, we should expect Seattle to miss the postseason this year.
The 2024 Seahawks should look different than in previous years. There could be some coaching changes. The roster should be overhauled a bit.
The following four players might still need to prove their place on the team for next year. Sure, there are a lot of players that Seattle might need to move on. But this isn't a roster breakdown but a list of four players whose future with the team might be iffy.
Seahawks need Quandre Diggs to be special versus the Cardinals
In the last few seasons with Seattle, Quandre Diggs has started a little slowly but then improved as the season went on and was so good by the end of the year that he was honored with a Pro Bowl nod. He had multiple interceptions with Seattle each season from 2019 through 2022 and was a solid tackler as well. But this year, Diggs looks like he has lost a step and after starting slowly he didn't get much better.
According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Diggs is graded as the 10th-worst safety in the NFL in 2023-24. In fact, he grades even lower than Jamal Adams. Diggs' grade is a career-worst. So is his quarterback rating allowed of 107.0. He has allowed 22 completions on 34 targets for 10.5 yards a target (second-worst in his career). He also has just one interception. Diggs has whiffed on 10.9 percent of his tackle attempts which is his worst mark since he was traded to Seattle in the middle of 2019.
But the biggest issue with Diggs going into 2024 is the size of his contract. His cap hit next year is $21,262,500 and his dead cap is $10,262,500. If the Seahawks were to release Diggs this offseason, they would save $11 million in cap space. Diggs will be 31 years old in 2024 and while that isn't ancient, Seattle likely needs to find a young safety in the NFL draft to replace Diggs. Unless, of course, he somehow comes up with 3 picks in Week 18 and returns two of them for touchdowns.