The Seattle Seahawks went from having no cap room to being in the top ten of cap space in a matter of a week. That seemed easy, right? What were we even stressing about in terms of Seattle not doing anything at all in free agency?
But Seattle does have a number of pressing needs that they will be forced to address both in free agency and in the 2024 NFL draft. At linebacker, tight end, and at safety, the team has one or no veteran players under contract for next season. That will need to change.
But what should Seattle do with their newfound cap room? Which players should they chase aggressively? Maybe the three that follow could be their first signings.
Seattle Seahawks sign safety Geno Stone
As interesting as it was that the Seahawks released Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs and as much as they needed to in order to create cap room, Seattle still obviously has to find their replacements. Bringing either Adams or Diggs back does not seem logical. Adams stays hurt and cannot be counted on to play much. Diggs had a down year in 2023, compared to his previous three full seasons in Seattle, and is north of 30 years old now.
Signing Stone makes complete sense for the team as well. He is fantastic in coverage, especially in the deep middle of the field, but more importantly, he played for the Baltimore Ravens for the last four years. The last two of those were spent working under Mike Macdonald when Macdonald was the defensive coordinator for the Ravens. Macdonald is now, of course, the new head coach in Seattle.
Adding Stone on the back end of the defense would instantly improve the Seahawks' communication in the secondary. That appeared to be a negative issue the last few seasons in Seattle with missed assignments, especially on crossing patterns. Seattle should be able to sign Stone for about $12 million over two years.
Seattle signs linebacker Patrick Queen
Just as with the safety group, Seattle has to address a vacancy for veteran linebackers. Seattle currently has zero on its roster heading into the offseason. Bobby Wagner, Jordyn Brooks, and Devin Bush are all free agents. Bush should not be brought back for any reason. Wagner would be nice to have back but he is getting older for an NFL linebacker. Brooks would be an excellent re-signing.
The dream at linebacker for this offseason would be for Seattle to re-sign Brooks but also add Patrick Queen. Queen was a Second-Team All-Pro in 2023 and appears to be an ascending player. There is nothing he does not do well including being very good in coverage. Maybe partly due to scheme, linebacker coverage has been a mess for Seattle for the last many years, but Queen (and the new scheme) should instantly fix that.
One aspect that Queen likely could improve a bit is with tackling. He missed 9.5 percent of his tackle attempts this past season, but he was much better in 2022 as he only missed 7.1 percent. Still, he was in on 133 combined tackles, including 9 tackles for loss. He also had 3.5 sacks.
Queen is going to be expensive, though. Maybe it helps that Macdonald coached Queen with the Ravens, but the NFL is a business so Queen is going to make as much money as he can. Who can blame him, right? Signing him might cost the Seahawks close to $75 million over four years. He will only be 25 years old during the 2024 season, though, so he should have a lot of years left to play at an extremely high level.
Seahawks re-sign quarterback Drew Lock
General manager John Schneider and coach Macdonald have mentioned Drew Lock's name too many times this offseason to think there is a good chance he leaves in free agency. The team mentions Lock as if he is already under contract for 2024. This seems odd as Lock is a free agent and after playing decently in two starts in 2023, one might think he would be offered a deal that Seattle doesn't want to match.
There also appears to be a feeling that Lock feels at home in Seattle. He and his wife recently had a baby and maybe they know Seattle well enough to keep living in the city and picking out future schools and so on. This might be a stretch, but even Schneider in a press conference brought up the Locks' child. That also seems odd.
Geno Smith is going to return to Seattle in 2024. His contract has been reworked a bit to roll his roster bonus into a signing bonus so Seattle would simply be wasting money by trading him or releasing him at this point. Financially, moving on from Smith this offseason is illogical. But would Lock be content in returning to the Seahawks as backup?
There is no way of knowing what Lock's market value is this offseason. If there is more than one team that sees him as a potential starter then his price goes up quite a bit. If no team sees him as a starter, that makes re-signing him easier for Seattle. Lock's cap hit was $4 million this past season and maybe Seattle needs to go up to $7 million in order to retain him. At least the team can afford that now.