The Seattle Seahawks are unfortunately not in the position to take their time on making very difficult financial decisions this offseason. The team is still well over the projected salary cap, and players are going to have to be released, extended, or traded to make more room. This isn't a what-if situation. Those moves will have to be made.
According to Spotrac, Seattle is currently $11,318,784 over the cap. That number has also come down since the team restructured defensive tackle Leonard Wiliams' contract this offseason. Otherwise, things would be worse.
While the Williams move was proactive, the current Uchenna Nwosu situation needs to be remedied. Originally, he was due to have $6 million of his $14.8 million base salary guaranteed if he was still on the roster on Friday 14. That date came and passed. According to ESPN's Brady Henderson, the date of the guaranteed money has seemingly been pushed back somehow.
Seahawks pass on making initial decision about whether to keep Uchenna Nwosu
Nwosu's cap hit in 2025 is $21,168,333. Should the team release him, it would save $2,151,666 with a pre-June 1 cut, but save $8,660,000 with a post-June 1 cut designation. Seattle needs to create any cap room it can and moving on from Nwosu at any date would save some money.
The issue is that Nwosu has been oft-injured over the last couple of seasons. He has played in just 12 games out of a possible 34 in 2023 and 2024 combined. He has only produced three sacks and five tackles for loss in those games. In other words, he has been hurt, and when he has been healthy enough to play, he has not been very productive.
There is no doubt about Nwosu's quality as a human being. He is high-level. He gives back to the community in many ways and appears to be one of the nicest guys one might run into.
He also does have talent, as his only healthy season with the Seahawks has proved. In 2022, he had 9.5 sacks, 12 tackles for loss, and 62 total pressures. There is no guarantee he can stay healthy, though.
He is also a fairly atrocious tackler for an edge rusher. In the last four seasons, he has not missed fewer than 16.9 percent of his tackle attempts in any season. Compare this to an edge rusher such as the Green Bay Packers' Rashan Gary (who missed just 8.7 percent of his tackle attempts in 2024) and one of Nwosu's most glaring weaknesses is unlikely to get better and is only hurting the team.
Still, Seattle had a date to make a decision on Nwosu's future with the team and general manager John Schneider passed. Maybe the team is working out an extension with Nwosu (which doesn't help either), and that pushed the date of the guaranteed money back. Or maybe Schneider is still thinking about what to do. He has far too many tough decisions to make this offseason to spend much time on any one player, though.