Seahawks pitched to make a trade by NFL pundits that will make 12s sad

The Seattle Seahawks now have a new head coach in Mike Macdonald. Now Macdonald and general manager John Schneider have a lot of work to do to make the team better. Seattle has quite a bit of talent, especially young talent, and the expectation should be that Macdonald is able to mold Devon Witherspoon, Boye Mafe, and friends into a good unit.

But what is going to make Macdonald's and Schneider's jobs more difficult is that the team has no cap room right now. According to Spotrac, Seattle has $-799,027 in cap space currently. Clearly, that has to change because the team would not even have enough room to sign its 2024 NFL draft picks. Seattle will probably release a couple of players that are taking up a lot of cap space.

Bleacher Report has a different idea of how the Seahawks can create some cap room, though. Instead of releasing three players - wide receiver Tyler Lockett, tight end Will Dissly, and safety Jamal Adams - Seattle could entertain trades for them. Dissly is paid like one of the better tight ends in the league, however, and he simply is not very productive and that makes a trade less likely.

Seattle Seahawks are unlikely to trade Tyler Lockett

I am not sure why any team would want to trade for Adams due to his lack of production the last three seasons coupled with his massive cap hit of $26,916,666. If I was a fan of a team that traded for Adams this offseason, I might question why I am a fan of that team. Seattle could release Adams with a post-June 1st designation and save $16.5 million.

This is probably why much of B/R's write-up of which Seahawks to trade focuses on Lockett. While Lockett had his worst season since 2017, he is still a valuable receiver. He normally does not drop more than a couple of passes a season (he had 5 this year) and knows how to get open in the middle of the field.

Unlike many other players listed in the article, B/R does not have a team in mind that would trade for Lockett. There is probably one expensive reason for this. Lockett carries a cap hit of $27,845,000 in 2024 and he will turn 32 years old during the season. Unless a team is just one good receiver away from winning the Super Bowl and has a lot of cap room then making a run at Lockett makes little sense.

One option for the Seahawks instead of releasing or trading Lockett is to sign Lockett to an extension. He is signed through 2025, but should Seattle add a couple of years beyond that they could convert some of Lockett's $31,650,000 in base salary over the next two years into bonuses. They could then spread out Lockett's cap hit over several years. However, that is just pushing Lockett's cap hit problem forward into seasons when Lockett is simply an old receiver.

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