Four Seattle Seahawks who have already earned contract extensions

Boye Mafe needs to be a Seahawks player for a long time

If I live to be 100, I will never stop bragging about how I called Boye Mafe's ascendancy before almost anyone else. Hey, I cop to my prediction for the unqualified success of Eddie Lacy at least twice a year. I figure I'm entitled to my few accurate prognostications. Anyway, it was waaay back in June that I predicted Mafe would blow up in 2023, and he certainly came closer than anyone else expected until the season was well underway. Oh, and by blowing up, I mean get a lot of sacks and QB hits, not blow up the same way Lacy did.

No, Mafe didn't quite hit double digits in sacks, but considering that he got four of his nine sacks with Uchenna Nwosu on the field isn't exactly a coincidence. Nwosu was lost for the season before the half of Game 6 versus the Cardinals. Mafe's sack rate dropped from 2.01 percent of his snaps with Nwosu to just .81 percent of his snaps after Nwosu went out. For those of you who are somewhat mathy-challenged, that's less than half of his previous rate. Had he been able to sustain his rate with Nwosu in the lineup, he'd have added 12 more sacks, not five. I'd say a 16-sack season could be called a success.

Sure, that's speculation, but it's far more likely than not, given his success in the early part of the season. With Nwosu back, there's no reason that Mafe won't improve on last year's numbers. Oh, and there's that little extra help he'll get by being coached by the guy who was the mastermind of last year's most ferocious defense.

You know, young guy, Mike, something. Yeah, Mike Macdonald. His contract is valid through 2025, but do you really want to negotiate a deal for a guy with back-to-back seasons of 15+ sacks at that point? The Seahawks better extend Mafe now, before his contract numbers blow up more than his pressures.