NFL insider gives Seahawks fans hope that Seattle can make this important move

Seattle might still have a chance to re-sign this key player.
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The Seattle Seahawks have zero cap room currently. Well, that is not entirely true. Seattle has negative cap space entering the offseason. According to Spotrac. Seattle has $-799,027, 24th in the NFL. This means the team is going to have to re-work some contracts, trade players, or make some tough roster decisions in an attempt to create cap space.

Seattle would not want to hire new head coach Mike Macdonald and not already have a plan for how to keep or add talent, especially defensive talent. That would be like hiring Macdonald, doing nothing to help him as far as the roster is concerned, and saying, "Good luck!" General manager John Schneider is not going to let that happen.

One player that the Seahawks would love to bring back is defensive lineman Leonard Williams. Seattle gave up a second-round choice in the 2024 NFL draft in order to acquire Williams from the New York Giants midway through the 2023 season. While most of the rest of Seattle's defense was extremely bad over the last half of this season, Williams was mostly terrific.

There is "hope" that the Seattle Seahawks can re-sign Leonard Williams

In 10 games for Seattle in 2023, he had 32 total pressures, 4 sacks, 21 run stuffs, and he did not miss a tackle in seven of the games. But 12s knew two things even before Seattle added Williams. One is that Williams was a very good player. The other was that he would be expensive to re-sign.

The likelihood of Williams getting paid $18 million a season on his next contract is pretty high. The Seahawks certainly do not have that kind of money now. But according to The Athletic's (subscription required) Jeff Howe and his league source, "there's hope" that Williams will return to Seattle. Where the money is going to come from is another question, of course.

The Seahawks could release safeties Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams, tight end Will Dissly, receiver Tyler Lockett, and defensive lineman Bryan Mone and save around $35 million. But that money could not go mostly to Williams because the team has to sign their draft picks and other players, such as maybe Jordyn Brooks. We can hope that Seattle gets a deal done with Williams, but that seems unlikely.

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