John Schneider has worked with the Seattle Seahawks since 2010. He has been the general manager for that entire time, but he recently was promoted to President of Football Operations. While Seattle has not been great over the last several years, the overall success since 2010 has been better than most other NFL teams.
Seattle's early success was built through draft gems such as Richard Sherman, Russell Wilson, and Kam Chancellor. The team also got lucky with undrafted free agents Michael Bennett and Doug Baldwin. Schneider also pulled off a couple of wily trades.
But with 2024 free agency approaching, let's take a look at some of Schneider's worst signings. Unfortunately, there are a number more not on this list. Still, let's leave it at five (with a bonus thrown in as well) and hope this year's class of signees are all winners.
Five worst free agent signings by the Seattle Seahawks under general manager John Schneider
No. 5 - Tight end Greg Olsen (2020)
Olsen is number five on this list as much for what he did after he left the Seahawks as he did with the team. To be sure, however, Olsen stole Seattle's money. Maybe that was not completely his fault because, by the time he signed in 2020, he was washed up. In fact, he never played in the NFL again. Not because he did not want to, probably, but because no team wanted to throw money at him.
Between 2008 and 2016, Olsen stayed healthy and productive for the Chicago Bears and then the Carolina Panthers. He went to three Pro Bowls in that time. But in 2017, injuries began to set in and he never played another full season. Seattle gave Olsen a one-year deal for $7 million but $5.5 million was guaranteed. Olsen turned that money into just 24 catches (with a catch rate of only 64.9 percent which is low for a tight end), 239 yards, and just one touchdown. He played in 11 games.
Yet after leaving and eventually retiring after the season, Olsen decided to throw shade at the Seahawks. In 2022, he said he felt like he was playing with a JV roster offensively with Seattle. Of course, if Olsen is correct (and he isn't) then he would have been one of the worst JV players. Instead, he simply became a talking head during NFL games who thinks he needs to say ridiculous things to make a name for himself because he is not a good enough commentator to earn real respect.
No. 4 - Both centers in 2022 and 2023
Seattle never has fixed the issue the team created at center after Seattle traded Max Unger to the New Orleans Saints in 2015 as part of the deal to bring tight end Jimmy Graham to the Seahawks. Unger had been a Pro Bowler in 2012 and 2013 and became one for the Saints in 2018. Meanwhile, Graham could never be the same tight end with Seattle that he had been with the Saints because the offenses were completely different.
Because of that issue and the years that followed, I am cheating with this choice as one of the worst free-agent signings. Let's call this a twofer. Seattle's centers have recently been the same kind of carousel that Harry Potter had with his defense against the dark arts teachers. Each year is different and not any better.
In 2022, Seattle brought in Austin Blythe who was undersized for an NFL center and he often got run over. I don't even mean while pass-blocking because he was decent with that. He was atrocious as a run-blocker, however, often needing help to keep defensive tackles away from his running backs. Instead of signing Blythe, Seattle could have drafted Tyler Linderbaum who made the Pro Bowl this year for the Baltimore Ravens.
Evan Brown was signed to a one-year deal last offseason and after being OK for the first two games was terrible afterward. Between Week 3 and 18, Brown allowed multiple pressures in every game except three. He was also penalized seven times from Week 3 on, including five holding calls. Seattle could replace Brown with Olu Oluwatimi (whom Seattle drafted in 2023), but with a new coaching staff involved, anything is possible other than Brown likely does not return to the Seahawks in free agency.
No. 3 - Offensive lineman Luke Joeckel (2017)
John Schneider or head coach Pete Carroll had a thing for the 2017 NFL draft for some reason. Of the top 13 picks, six of them at one point or another eventually spent some time with Seattle. This issue was none of them were overly good with the Seahawks. Joeckel was probably the most head-scratching signing with Seattle not because of the position he played but because of the money the Seahawks tossed his way.
Joeckel had been drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars and spent four years with them. He was only healthy in one season (2018) and kept getting moved around the offensive line because he was not very good at any one position. In 2017, however, Seattle was still in the mode where they could fix almost any player and thought they could remake Joeckel into something very good.
But the money was ridiculous. Joeckel's agent must have been a great salesperson and might have gotten Schneider thinking other teams were interested because how else would one explain Seattle giving Joeckel a one-year contract for $8 million with $7 million being guaranteed? Heck, why not just make the entire contract guaranteed?
Joeckel proved that a chance of teams was not what was plaguing him, though. He once against failed to play a full year appearing in 11 games for Seattle at left guard. He allowed five sacks in those 11 games which was the sixth-most among all guards in the league that season. Seattle wisely chose not to re-sign Joeckel and no other team signed him either. 2017 would be Luke Joeckel's final season in the NFL.
No. 2 - Running back Eddie Lacy (2017)
Whatever Seattle was thinking in free agency in 2017 was not smart. The Seahawks were coming off the great years of the mid-2010s and maybe Schneider and Carroll thought the team was closer to getting back to being a Super Bowl contender than they really were. In many ways, the 2017 offseason was arguably one of the worst in team history.
No player that Seattle took in the 2017 draft remains on the roster. In fact, the team's first choice that year was Malik McDowell who never played for Seattle. Chris Carson was the team's best pick and he was a seventh-rounder whose career was cut short because of a neck injury. In free agency, the Seahawks signed Lacy and Joeckel, but they also brought in kicker Blair Walsh who was a disaster.
I am not sure what Schneider and Carroll thought they were doing with Lacy. He began his career with two straight 1,000-yard rushing seasons, but then he dropped to 758 in 2015 and 360 in 2016. Plus, he only participated in five games in his final year with the Green Bay Packers. When Lacy joined Seattle, he was so out of shape that the team gave him bonuses for simply losing weight.
He never seemed healthy or capable of helping the team, and he started only three games in 2017 for Seattle. He ran for 179 yards, zero touchdowns, and had an average yards-per-carry of an atrocious 2.6. Like most of the players ahead of him on this list, Lacy never played in the NFL again.
No. 1 - Cornerback Cary Williams (2015)
This was the most greedy signing for Seattle under John Schneider. The team had just gone to back-to-back Super Bowls and the secondary was set except for the cornerback opposite Richard Sherman. Schneider and Carroll must have seen Williams and thought he could be the last piece in the puzzle to make the Seahawks secondary unquestionably the greatest in history.
The fact that the Seahawks missed so many red flags with Williams, however, is extremely disappointing. He was turning 31 years old, had never made a Pro Bowl, had played for three teams seven seasons, and was not exactly a turnover machine. Seattle looked at all of that and must have thought, "Oh, not only can we fix Williams but we can make him into Richard Sherman 2.0!"
Even though he was 31, Schneider gave Williams a three-year deal (which would have made him an even more ancient 34 years old at the end of the deal) for $18 million with $7 million guaranteed. This does not sound like much in 2024, but in 2015 that was good money. The bad fact is that Williams's first game with Seattle was his best (and still was not good) and he recovered a fumble and ran the ball back for a touchdown.
He then got torched in coverage over the next nine games until Seattle finally benched him in favor of Byron Maxwell. Instead of leaving Williams on the roster, though, he had been so bad that Seattle simply released him. Still, Williams had to be happy with the $7 million guaranteed he never earned.