Seahawks have golden trade opportunity to make Mike Macdonald's first year a success

The Seattle Seahawks have the offensive weapons to succeed. The side of the ball has not been the major issue with Seattle being stuck in mediocrity for the last couple of years. The issue has been terrible run defense, failing to get teams off the field on third down, wretched tackling, and poor linebacker coverage. The hope - and expectation - is that Mike Macdonald can fix all that.

Judging from Seattle's first preseason game, the defense already looks better. Of course, that is before teams start scheming for each other and before there is much nuance to the alignments. Things could come apart quickly once real games begin. This is especially true for a bunch of players in a new system.

Seattle has made a move to improve the offense recently. Connor Williams was signed to play center. That should make the offensive line a lot better overall.

Seahawks should reach out to the Patriots about trading for Matthew Judon

Still, Seattle knew what they were likely to get from the offense. To win at a high level in Macdonald's first season, the defense could be added to as well. The defense line should be a strength and set with Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Jarran Reed, and Dre'Mont Jones. The cornerback group got bigger and faster when Seattle chose Nehemiah Pritchett in the 2024 draft.

One area where Seattle might add a player is at edge rusher. In fact, Seattle could add a productive player while losing a player that is terrible in one aspect of the game. The idea - and one that is extremely affordable - is for the Seahawks to acquire Matthew Judon from the New England Patriots. Judon is a free agent next offseason and he has already implied he won't come back to the Patriots.

Judon's contract pays him a base salary of $6.5 million in 2024. He does have a per-game roster bonus, however. For a player that has averaged .8 sacks a game over the last three years. That is obviously extremely high-end production that any team would covet.

The Seahawks are set at the top end of the depth chart with Boye Mafe and Uchenna Nwosu. Derick Hall has had a great training camp but needs to turn that into regular-season production. Darrell Taylor gets hurt too much and is a terrible run defender. Taylor is also set to make $3 million this season.

Still, Taylor has proven to be an inconsistently productive pass rusher that other teams might want to take a chance on. Should the Patriots decide to move on from Judon since he might not be likely to re-sign with them, Seattle could offer Taylor and a draft pick for Judon. Potentially even a second-round choice.

This would give the Seahawks Nwosu, Mafe, and Judon on the edge and Judon's versatility and athletic ability would be a perfect fit in Macdonald's defense. Judon isn't a fantastic run defender but he is certainly better than Taylor so he is capable of playing on all three downs. Adding the edge rusher from the Patriots would make Macdonald's defense dangerous enough to potentially push Seattle into the playoffs and be a threat to make a deep run once there.

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