The Seattle Seahawks made a trade on Monday to bring defensive lineman Leonard Williams to Seattle. In return for Williams, Seattle gave New York a second-round choice in 2024 and a fifth-round pick in 2025. Will the trade work out for Seattle? Time will tell, of course.
But most of the trades that general manager John Schneider has made since he became Seattle's GM in 2010 have worked out pretty well. A lot of the trades he's done were made during different drafts and for draft picks. As getting draft capital is great but the player Seattle will get isn't known yet, I am not including any of those kinds of trades on the list that follows.
Hopefully, if we do this same kind of article in a few years the Leonard Williams trade makes the list.
Seattle Seahawks best trade under GM John Schneider No. 5 - Carlos Dunlap (2020)
Seattle traded B.J. Finney and a 2021 seventh-round pick to the Cincinnati Bengals for Dunlap.
Prior to Dunlap being added midway through the 2020 season, Seattle's defense was a mess that could get no pressure on the quarterback. Seattle still found a way to begin the season 5-1 before adding Dunlap. He then had 1.5 sacks in his first game, though it was a Seattle loss. But after defensive coordinator Ken Norton, Jr. figured out - temporarily, as it turns out - how to best use Dunlap, Seattle's pass rush got much better and the team finished the season 6-1 in the games Dunlap played.
He finished the 2020 season with 5 sacks and 14 quarterback hits in just eight games with Seattle. The following offseason, Seattle allowed Dunlap to find work elsewhere (that was part of the stipulation when Dunlap agreed to be traded to the Seahawks), but he ended up returning for 2021.
Sadly, Dunlap was ill-used in Norton, Jr.'s scheme and he was dropped far too many times into coverage early in the year. He did get moved back to a more traditional defensive end role in Week 13, though, and Dunlap finished by getting 8 sacks in his last six games. He was a good player with Seattle but would have been better had he been used better.
Seattle also didn't have to give up much for adding Dunlap so any production he added was a plus. He didn't help get Seattle a Super Bowl victory, but Seattle still got good value in the trade.