The Seattle Seahawks have a cap space issue. They are currently over the cap for the 2024 offseason. Seattle is 24th in cap space heading into the offseason with $-4,027.
That means Seattle is going to have some tough roster decisions to make to open up some cap room. As cap space stands right now, the Seahawks do not even have enough to sign their 2024 draft picks. Several players will likely be released or have their contracts re-worked.
The four players that follow are cap casualty candidates. They would certainly save the team money if they were released. But will they be?
Seattle Seahawks will probably bring Quandre Diggs back
Prior to 2023, Diggs was a very good player for the Seahawks. He had made three straight Pro Bowls and had multiple interceptions in every season he had played in Seattle. But this season he simply wasn't as productive and was graded as the ninth-worst safety in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required). He was only one ranking better than Jamal Adams and Adams was too injured to run well.
The biggest problem with Diggs is his contract, however. His cap hit is $21,262,500 which is third-highest in the NFL heading into 2024 at this point. Only Adams and Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick have higher cap hits. What makes matters even worse is that if Seattle were to keep Diggs on his current deal, the team would be passing up a potential cap savings of $11 million by not releasing him.
In fact, Diggs' contract is a worse problem than his play was in 2023. Seattle needs to find cash somewhere as the team currently has negative cap room heading into the offseason. Contracts can be re-worked, of course, and the cap hit can be kicked down the road, but that doesn't solve the problem forever. Letting Diggs go just makes too much sense financially.
Seahawks will probably have Darrell Taylor return
Darrell Taylor is a restricted free agent who can be signed elsewhere and if the Seahawks put a tender on him then Seattle would get a draft pick back for Taylor. That is the best-case scenario when it comes to the edge rusher. If the Seahawks do place a tender on Taylor, because of his potential to get to opposing quarterbacks some team might choose to sign him. But any team interested might look at Taylor's inconsistency and inability to stop the run and say, "No, thanks."
Taylor doesn't seem to work hard enough to get better against the run either. He appears to be happy just trying to chase down quarterbacks with the moves he already has. The issue is that Taylor should have worked on developing more pass rush moves and improving his overall game. Maybe he is simply getting advice from someone saying he will get paid by attacking quarterbacks and doesn't need to worry about the other stuff. That would be bad advice.
Taylor had 9.5 sacks in 2022. But NFL teams do their due diligence and look what's underneath the numbers. Yes, Taylor's sack number was good, but he was extremely inconsistent. In 2023, Taylor had just 5.5 sacks while getting more snaps. Teams are going to notice that, too.
Giving up on a player like Taylor who has his pass rush potential is tough. But the Seahawks have learned that in most plays he is on the field he isn't really going to help the team. He gets run over when teams run the ball and he will go stretches without quarterbacks pressures. But because he is a restricted free agent, he will probably be back in Seattle.
Seattle will probably bring back Tyler Lockett
First, I want Tyler Lockett to come back. He has been an excellent receiver for most of a decade in Seattle. He helps take the pressure off of DK Metcalf and will help teach Jaxon Smith-Njigba how to be a good pro. Lockett has also many times come up with huge catches at the end of games that helped decide the outcome in favor of the Seahawks, though this seemed to happen a little less this season.
Lockett had his worst year since 2017 in terms of receiving yards, touchdown catches, and catch rate. He had his second-highest number of drops in his career (5) and second-highest drop percentage (4.1). But he still put up decent numbers if just not the numbers Seahawks fans (and Lockett himself) have become accustomed to.
The biggest issue with Lockett, though, is that his cap hit gets enormous in 2024 and 2025, but Seattle very likely might get diminishing returns from a smaller receiver who is also aging. In 2023, Lockett's cap hit was $11,060,000 but next season that number will be $26,895,000. Should Seattle release Lockett, the team would save $7,105,000. If the Seahawks release Lockett with a post-June 1 cut, Seattle would save $17 million which they can spread out over a couple of years.
The hope is that Lockett does return, but he will probably only do so if he and the Seahawks can agree on re-working his current deal so that Seattle can save some money. Hopefully, the team and the player have built up enough good will over the years to make this happen.
Seahawks will probably keep Will Dissly
Either general manager John Schneider or head coach Pete Carroll had a lot of love for Will Dissly. No doubt that Dissly is a team-first player willing to do whatever is asked of him to try to help the team win. But the first time he was going to be a free agent after the 2021 season, Dissly far overpaid for him and Seattle seemed to be bidding against themselves for Dissly's services.
Dissly is a fantastic blocker and showed earlier in his career that he could catch passes and run decently well. But giving Dissly $24 million over three seasons before the 2022 season seemed insane unless the plan was for Seattle to use Dissly a lot more in the passing game. Instead, his numbers have fallen in that area.
Maybe none of that is Dissly's fault, of course. Should someone offer me a contract for that amount of money, I am going to jump at it too. Dissly might want to catch more passes as well, but he had his fewest number of targets (22) than in any other year except his rookie season when he only played in four games because of a season-ending injury.
Should Seattle release Dissly, the team would save $6.97 million with only $3.1 million in dead cap. That is a chunk of change to save on a player who is more of an extension of the offensive line than a danger in the pass game. Seattle will likely just re-work Dissly's deal, pay him less in 2024 but keep him on the roster for another few years.