The Seattle Seahawks got a bit of a gift from the NFL when the salary cap number was about $8 million more than expected. This allowed Seattle to go from negative cap room to plus cap space. The team also rolled quarterback Geno Smith's roster bonus into a signing bonus and that helped some as well.
But Seattle still needs to make more room to sign free agents and draft picks. While new head coach Mike Macdonald should be expected to make the defense better even if the team has many of the same players as in 2023, he would probably like to bring in more talent in free agency. That might mean signing Baltimore Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen who Macdonald coached the last two seasons.
What follows are five players that Seattle should move on from. Not all of these are because of the sizes of their contracts, though. Some would simply open roster spots for players more likely to consistently help the team.
Seattle Seahawks should move on from safety Jamal Adams
Seattle seems to still be debating whether Adams is in the team's plans moving forward. This is understandable as a healthy Adams would certainly be put to good use in a Mike Macdonald defense. Imagine the situations Macdonald could get Adams in, especially in terms of pass rush. Macdonald also uses three safety sets more than any other defensive coach so Adams might not be such a liability in coverage.
The biggest issue with the positivity above is that Jamal Adams simply has not stayed healthy. Since the beginning of 2021, he has missed 29 of a possible 51 games. Plus, he played in 12 of 17 in 2021 so he isn't trending better with his health. He is an extremely expensive player to keep around for one who hardly ever plays and the team never knows when he will.
Releasing Adams before June 1 will save the team a little over $7 million. If the team releases Adams with a post-June 1 designation, that move would save the team a little over $17 million but the money saved could not be spent until after June 1 so that doesn't help immediately. At least Adams' release would open up a roster spot for a player who likely is able to play more and therefore help the team more than Adams does.
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Bryan Mone - Seahawks defensive tackle
Mone has a lot of the same issues that Adams does, though he also gets paid a lot less. There is zero reason for the team to pay Mone what his current contract says he should in 2024. The defensive tackle has a cap hit of $5,890,000 next season but releasing him would save the team $5.3 million. That is far too much savings for a player who should have never had a contract structured to pay him more than $5 million anyway.
In 2023, Mone missed the entire season with a knee injury. He will turn 29 years old during the 2024 season so he is beginning to get a bit old for an interior defensive lineman. At 6'3" and 366 pounds, Mone should at least have been a great run-stopper in his career but he has not exactly excelled at that. In fact, Mone has graded better as a pass rusher than at stopping the run in his career, per Pro Football Focus, but he still only has 25 career pressures.
Mone also has a career missed tackle attempt percentage of 13.2. That is far too high for a player in literally the first line of defense. Mone needs to eat up blockers with his size and when he does get his hands on a ball carrier he needs to take them down. The defensive tackle has not consistently done that so there is no reason to think he will get any better at doing so.
Abraham Lucas - Seahawks right tackle
This one might be unpopular and to be clear, I really like Abe Lucas. He might not have the raw athleticism that left tackle Charles Cross has, but Lucas also brings a menace that Cross does not have. Every offensive line needs a player such as Lucas who is not going to back down from opposing players. This is something that Justin Britt did during his time in Seattle in the late 2010s.
Even releasing Lucas would not save the team all that much money, a little less than $1 million in 2024. In other words, there is no financial reason to move on from Lucas either. Even in 2025, currently the final year of Lucas's rookie deal, the team only saves almost $1.5 million by the right tackle not being on the roster.
The problem with Lucas is that he obviously has a knee issue that he has been dealing with since college. He has already had two surgeries, including one that came as soon as this past season ended. Lucas was able to appear in six games this past season, but none between Week 1 and Week 13. After he returned in Week 13, he was clearly attempting to battle his way through the knee injury, had to be rotated out quite a bit, and was not nearly as effective as he was in his rookie year of 2022.
Having a healthy Lucas on the team would be a very good thing. There is no proof, however, that Lucas will be able to consistently stay healthy in his career which means Seattle better have a very good backup at right tackle because the backup will probably play a lot. At worst, the Seahawks might as well draft a right tackle to replace Lucas and have Lucas be the backup.
Quandre Diggs - Seahawks safety
Even if Quandre Diggs had been as good in 2023 as had been for Seattle from 2019 through 2022 the team would still need to think about releasing him. His contract is too bloated to keep as it is. Diggs has a cap hit of $21,262,500 in 2024 but Seattle would save $11 million by moving on from him. There is a possibility the Seahawks could work out an extension with the 31-year-old Diggs and move some of his money over the years of the extension but he has already been restructured once so he is going to be expensive either way.
Corbin Smith of All Seahawks, who I respect, tweeted this week that "Diggs is still very good and simply didn't have the interception numbers last year." This is factually incorrect, though. The issue wasn't simply that Diggs' interceptions were lower than in previous years. He was worse in almost every important way.
This past season, Diggs missed 17.5 percent of his tackles, his highest number since 2019 and the third-highest number of his nine-year career. The safety allowed 71.4 percent of passes thrown his way to be completed, his highest number since 2018. He had a quarterback-rating-allowed of 95.4 was his second-highest (and highest since 2020) since 2018. He simply was not as good this past season and his numbers were bad compared to most other free safeties in the league.
With Diggs, though, his main problem is his bloated contract. $11 million is too much to pass on at a time when the Seahawks need to create all the space they can. Seattle would have to rebuild their safety group a bit if they lose both Adams and Diggs but that would also allow Seattle to get younger and faster at the position.
D'Wayne Eskridge - Seahawks wide receiver
The question about Eskridge is not whether the Seahawks should move on from Eskridge but why he is still even on the team. Entering his fourth season, Eskridge has never produced much. His best ability might be in kickoff returns, which he showed in extremely limited fashion in 2023, that he could do. But while that skill would have been great to have 20 years ago, the NFL simply does not have as many kickoffs now so expecting a returner to consistently affect the outcome of games seems foolish.
But after those few games when Eskridge showed the shocking ability to do anything at all, he was hurt once again. That has been his biggest issue since he was taken in the second round of the 2021 NFL draft. He has missed 27 of a possible 51 games in his career. Six of those were due to a suspension from a domestic violence situation.
Maybe Eskridge was able to stick around longer than he should have because of Pete Carroll's loyalty. While that trait is great for a human being, the same can't be said for a football coach. Sometimes tough decisions must be made and Carroll probably let Eskridge hang around longer than most other coaches would have.
Eskridge, who has a total of 17 receptions for 122 yards and one touchdown catch in his three seasons, has a cap hit of $1,894,296 in 2024. The Seahawks would save $1.4 million by releasing the receiver. Based on his injury history and lack of production, there seems to be no reason to keep him around.