4 fourth-year Seattle Seahawks who desperately need to prove themselves
By Lee Vowell
The Seattle Seahawks have drafted well in the last two years. Well, we at least assume the 2023 class will be close to how good the 2022 version was. If that happens, Seattle is once again going to be a playoff team.
But whether the team makes a deep run in the postseason or not might be dependant on how well a few veterans play. And I'm not talking about the three guys Seattle took in 2021. It's almost difficult to believe that after what Seattle has done in the draft the last couple of years that they basically took a pass three drafts ago.
The four players that follow will hit free agency after the 2023 season. They have a lot riding on how well they do this season, but so does the team. If all play well, Seattle is going to win a lot of football games. If even two of them fail this year, the team will be held back some.
Seattle Seahawks left guard Damien Lewis
Lewis is an underrated left guard. He was graded as the 11th-best guard in the NFL in 2022, per Pro Football Focus (they require you to subscribe). While the Seattle offensive line had lots of issues at some spots in 2022, left guard wasn't one of them. In fact, Lewis probably made rookie left tackle better by next to him. Lewis allowed just 3 sacks and 19 total pressures in 634 pass-block snaps last year.
But Lewis needs to be just as good for Seattle's offensive line to be better this year (assuming whoever plays center and right guard are upgrades over 2022), and he needs to be great to help himself next offseason in free agency. The highest-paid 13 guards in the NFL this year will all make at least $10,132,000. The highest-paid guard overall is Kansas City's Joe Thuney who will make a whopping $22,116,250 in 2023.
I think that the Seahawks need to find a way to extend Lewis for a few years beyond the coming season. But it is going to cost the team a lot of money if Lewis is just as good in 2023 as 2022. Maybe Seattle will wait to see if Lewis can be very good again, and hopefully he is. But if he performs well, his asking price is going to be a lot but it also means he made the Seahawks better.