The Seattle Seahawks have mostly been a better-than-average franchise since the team's inception in 1976. The 1990s weren't a great time for 12s, but many of the teams were just mediocre and not outright awful, save for a year or two. In the early 2000s and since 2010, the team has been among the best teams in the league. And some of the trades that Seattle has pulled off, like the trade sending Russell Wilson to Denver, have paid off extremely well.
But many of the trades over the decades have set the team back a couple of years. For instance, one of the trades that follows is about a quarterback who never played well in his career. Seattle gave up a first-round pick to get him, too. Who knows how things might have turned out had the Seahawks not done the trade.
I also don't have the Jamal Adams trade in 2020 on this list. There is a decent chance that the trade becomes one of the worst in Seahawks history, but that full story has not yet been told. Maybe Adams comes back and stays healthy for a few years and is really productive. Plus, he did get 9.5 sacks in 2020. But what are the five worst trades in Seattle history? My guess is the five that follow.
No. 5 - Seahawks trade for Deion Branch, give up first round pick (2006)
Branch was not a terrible player for the Seahawks, but he was nowhere near a Pro Bowler. But you know who was? The guy the New England Patriots took with the first-round pick that the Patriots got in return for Branch. Part of the problem for Branch is that he was joining Seattle when the team was beginning the precipitous fall after making the Super Bowl in the 2005 season.
Once Branch was in Seattle, the team signed him to a six-year and $39 million deal which was quite a bit in 2006. Seattle expected Branch to be a number one receiver after he had 78 catches for 998 yards for New England in 2005. With the Seahawks, Branch would never come close to those numbers. His best season was in 2006 when he had 53 catches for 725 yards. Those are the kind of numbers a decent WR3 might get, and certainly not a WR1.
Branch spent parts of five years with Seattle. He was no better in the few postseason games he played with the Seahawks than he was in the regular season. In three games, he had 8 catches on 14 targets for 96 yards. In other words, he wasn't any better in the big moments. Worse, Seattle traded Branch back to the Patriots during the 2010 season for a fourth-round choice. Meaning that if you take away Deion Branch from the equation, the Seahawks basically gave the Patriots a fourth-round pick in return for a fourth-rounder.
No. 4 - Seahawks trade Ahmad Rashad for a fourth-round pick (1976)
Imagine a potential Seahawks wide receiver group that includes a young Steve Largent and a young Ahmad Rashad at the beginning of the franchise's inception. That is what Seattle should have had, but instead, Seattle got rid of Rashad near the end of training camp. Rashad wasn't exactly a nobody when he was picked up by the Seahawks as a free agent in 1976. He had played three seasons in the NFL before getting injured and missing all of 1975.
Part of Seattle's concern was Rashad's knee. And to be fair, Rashad did fail his physical after Seattle traded the receiver to the Minnesota Vikings, but Minnesota decided to hold on to Rashad after quarterback Fran Tarkenton went to management and begged them to hold on to Rashad. But Seattle didn't simply cut Rashad so his overall health wasn't the receiver they got rid of him. The team just wanted more draft picks.
Just before the 1976 season began, the Seahawks shipped Rashad to the Vikings in return for a fourth-round pick in the 1977 NFL draft. With that pick, Seattle chose Larry Seivers out of the University of Tennessee. Seivers wasn't a bad college receiver, but he would never play a down in the NFL. Seattle so quickly gave up on him that he was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before the 1977 season started. Then with the fourth-round choice Seattle got in return for Sievers, they gave to the Buffalo Bills for Seattle signing Rashad in 1976.
Rashad, meanwhile, would go on to make four Pro Bowls with the Vikings and have two 1,000-plus receiving seasons. He also scored 34 receiving touchdowns for the Vikings.
No. 3 - Seahawks trade for Kelly Stouffer, give up multiple picks (1988)
To be clear, one of the picks that Seattle gave the then-Phoenix Cardinals was a first round choice. That should be remembered for why trading for Stouffer was such a bad idea. Add to that that Stouffer came with huge red flags after being chosen by the Cardinals sixth overall in the 1987 NFL draft. Then Stouffer sat out his entire rookie year so the Cardinals traded him in 1988 after Stouffer and the Cardinals could never agree to a deal. (This kind of thing wouldn't happen today as all the rookie contracts are slotted.)
Another issue with the deal, however, was that Seattle wasn't even going to have Stouffer be the immediate starter. Or the backup. When Stouffer was added to the roster, he was QB3. Still, the Seahawks thought it wise to give up three picks, including that first round choice, for Stouffer. Still, Stouffer managed to find himself playing by the fourth game of the 1988 season.
Starter Dave Krieg injured his shoulder and Jeff Kemp replaced him and was awful. At halftime of game four, Stouffer was put in as QB1 and, well...The end of a fairly good run for Seattle for the previous five years would start to come to a close. He ended up starting six games in the 1988 season and the team went 3-3. In the games Krieg started, the team went 6-3. The bad part was that 1988 would be Stouffer's best season in the NFL.
Between 1989 and 1992, Stouffer would start 10 more games. The Seahawks record in those games was 2-8. In those 10 starts, Stouffer threw 3 touchdown passes against 13 interceptions. He also completed just 48.1 percent of his passes. He did earn the starting job in 1992 but Seattle started the season 1-4 with Stouffer as the starter before he was injured. He was basically out of the league after the season. And to think Seattle could have still had the first-round choice they gave up for Stouffer.
No. 2 - Seahawks trade for Jimmy Graham, give up Max Unger (2015)
First off, Jimmy Graham wasn't a bad guy. He was, though, a terrible fit in the Seahawks offense and that wasn't his fault. Also, Seattle is still trying to find a replacement as worthy of a player as Unger was. So let's start there. I could have just switched the title of this slide to "No. 2 - Seahawks trade Max Unger" and the ranking here would still be valid. Getting rid of Unger and adding Graham changed the successful identity of the Seattle offense and it hasn't been as efficient since.
Unger was a beast of a blocker, especially as a run blocker. He opened holes for Marshawn Lynch to run through and then once Lynch was through, anything could happen. Without Unger, Seattle tried out different centers over a number of years - Justin Britt, Joey Hunt, Ethan Pocic, Austin Blythe - and all were somewhat successful at some point in their careers, but hardly ever while they were Seahawks. Unger played through 2018 and made the Pro Bowl in his last year. Sadly, that was with the Saints and not the Seahawks.
The Saints, though, might feel the same way about losing Graham. Between 2011 and 2014, Graham had at least 125 targets a season with New Orleans. He was a perfect fit for the Saints offense and he was a good player. But between 2015 and 2017 with Seattle, Graham never had more than 96 targets. Again, he wasn't bad. He made the Pro Bowl twice in his three years with Seattle (though his 2017 nod wasn't really deserved), but Seattle was trying to force a square peg into the round hole of the offense.
Worse still, Seattle didn't just trade Unger, they also traded their 2015 first-round pick. Sure, it was later in the first round and the Seahawks were in a stage of kind of blowing their first pick, but maybe they would have gotten 2015 right. Either way, the team would have been much better off with Unger for four more years than they were adding Graham.
No. 1 - Seahawks trade for Percy Harvin, give up multiple picks (2013)
If Seattle had known more about Percy Harvin the person, maybe they wouldn't have done this trade. Oh, heck. Who am I kidding? Head coach Pete Carroll thinks he can help fix anyone, and that's a good trait to have. Unfortunately, Harvin was terrible in the locker room with Seattle and it is a minor miracle he didn't tear the locker room apart.
In fact, had Harvin ended up with a team that didn't have players like Bobby Wagner and Kam Chancellor, he might have. It is a testament to just how talented the Seahawks were in terms of physical talent and leadership that they were able to withstand Harvin. He was a player that had tons of athletic ability, but he just didn't seem to care about committing himself to be a good football player.
Harvin was a bit like the football player in the movie Summer School in that he shows up for one game during the season, disappears again until the Super Bowl and makes a splash by running a kickoff back, and leaves people wondering, "Where has this guy been?" Only to find out that Harvin was getting into physical altercations with other Seahawks, such as Doug Baldwin and Golden Tate.
So before Harvin was doing his best to win the jerk of the year award, the Seahawks had traded their first-round pick in 2013, along with a seventh-rounder the same year, and a third-rounder in 2014. That is far too much to give up for a guy who was an excellent return guy before he came to Seattle but was just slightly better than average receiver. Seattle traded Harvin midway through the 2014 season simply because he was just too much hassle.