The Seattle Seahawks are in salary cap purgatory. The team is over the projected cap even after it was reported the salary cap would land between $277.5 million to $281.5 million. That means Seattle is over the cap by between $13 million and $17 million.
The team is going to have to let go of some veterans who have expensive contracts. Besides the players below, other cap casualties could be (should be?) Rayshawn Jenkins, Noah Fant, and Roy Robertson-Harris. Moving away from those players and the ones below would create nearly $50 million.
These moves will need to be made relatively soon as well. NFL free agency starts on March 10 as far as the legal tampering period. The Seahawks need to make space before then to try to sign other players. The first full week of March might involve a lot of Seahawks news.
Seahawks who are all but guaranteed to be cut this offseason:
Tyler Lockett
No one likely wants to see Lockett go, and if the team were in a better position with the salary cap, maybe he would stay. He would be expensive to keep as he has a cap hit north of $30 million, and the team saves $17 million by releasing him. There is an argument that Lockett has never been productive enough to be worth $30 million a season.
He has been very good, though. The issue is he never will reach the level he had from 2018 through 2022. He is definitely WR3 for the Seahawks at this point, behind fellow receivers DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The tide of this switched just before midway of this past season. Lockett had six or more targets in six of the Seahawks' first seven games. In Weeks 8 through 18, Lockett never had more than four targets in any game.
He could also choose to retire, and should not be a candidate to extend (thereby lowering his cap hit for 2025). Lockett is now 32 years old and digressing in production. Paying him a large amount of money moving forward is nonsensical.
Dre'Mont Jones
Jones was signed in 2023 to, at the time, the most expensive free agent contract John Schneider had signed a player to. His cap hit in 2025 is a far-too-high $25,645,418. Releasing him with a pre-June 1 designation would save the Seahawks $11,572,500. With a post-June 1 designation, the team would save $16 million but would not be able to use the money until the summer.
Moving on from Jones prior to free agency makes more sense. He has not been a bad player for Seattle, but he certainly has not been as productive as Schneider hoped he would be. He had just four sacks this past season, and none after Week 11. He also had just one tackle for loss in that time.
There is no way a player with the production level that Jones has had to remain on the roster at his current price. The $14 million in dead money the Seahawks would accrue would be worth it just to open a roster spot for a player likely to be more productive.
George Fant
Fant was signed last offseason to a two-year deal, mostly to provide support in case starting right tackle Abe Lucas was unable to play much. The issue was that Lucas missed the first half of the season, but Fant got hurt as well, and Seattle had to go with the third and fourth choices in the rotation. Fant appeared in just two games this past season.
Fant is now 32 years old, and Lucas should be healthy enough to be ready at the start of next season. That means Fant simply becomes an overpriced backup. He has a cap hit of $5,650,000 in 2025, and by releasing him, Seattle would save $3.8 million. That is simply too much to pass up for Seattle.
To replace Fant, Seattle could re-sign Stone Forsythe or draft a tackle. The team might do that anyway, thinking that Lucas might not be back in 2026 as his contract is up next season. The drafted tackle could then start at right tackle after Lucas leaves or start in 2025 and Lucas serves as a backup.