The Seattle Seahawks are in strange territory in terms of their 2025 cap space. According to Spotrac, Seattle has nearly negative-$2 million next offseason. Clearly, something will have to change because even if Seattle signs no free agents (and they will, of course), they would still have to spend money on draft picks and the practice squad. Most likely, an expensive veteran will be released or restructured.
Seattle has a good reason to not have much cap room, though, and this was something they would have foreseen for the last two years. The team has a large number of players still on their rookie contracts and veterans who are signed through next season. In fact, Seattle only currently has ten players set for free agency and potentially only one is a player the team must try to re-sign.
This lack of high quality among the Seahawks' free agents also shows up in a recent ranking by ESPN of 2025 free agents. No Seattle players are listed in the top 32 impending free agents. This is good news because there aren't one or two extremely high-end Seahawks set for free agency that the team would have to pay top dollar to try to bring back.
Seattle Seahawks have reasons to love and hate new ESPN ranking of 2025 free agents
The bad news is that of the ten free agents Seattle will have, none are considered big targets next offseason. Only defensive tackle Jarran Reed has produced consistently this year, but he will be 32 years old when next season begins and that is a little aged for an interior defensive lineman. Still, he has been good enough over the last couple of years that he is worth taking a chance on re-signing.
The other free agents Seattle will have are as follows:
- Wide receiver Laviska Shenault, Jr.
- Tight end Pharaoh Brown
- Left guard Laken Tomlinson
- Right tackle Stone Forsythe
- Defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins
- Linebacker Ernest Jones IV
- Safety K'Von Wallace
- Edge rusher Trevis Gipson
- Cornerback Tre Brown
None of those players are must-haves beyond this season, with only Jones and Tomlinson playing with some level of goodness in 2024. Still, because the Seahawks are hamstrung by what they have in cap room in 2025 and the number of players already under contract, what 12s see from this team in 2024 might be what they get next year, too.
There is a chance that Seattle could create a bunch of cap room by releasing Dre'Mont Jones, Tyler Lockett, and Roy Robertson-Harris, among others, but losing Lockett would hurt the offense. If the team released quarterback Geno Smith, Seattle would save $25 million but that would mean drafting a quarterback and likely not competing for the playoffs again until at least 2026.
So, yes. Not having a free agent that is going to cost a lot to re-sign is great for the Seahawks, but they still have to create cap room. In other words, Seattle will probably be forced to create new free agents, and a couple of those players are going to be missed.