In the span of just a few days, John Schneider took the Seattle Seahawks from a solid team with a quality quarterback and a deep wide receiver room to a rebuilding team who sold two of their best players for pennies on the dollar.
Right after quarterback Geno Smith was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders for a 2025 third-round pick, wide receiver DK Metcalf saw his trade request granted when he was sent to the Pittsburgh Steelers in exchange for a 2025 second-round pick and a swap of both sixth-round and seventh-round selections.
The Seahawks are moving into rebuild mode, but they seem to have forgotten the long-held belief that the best way to conduct a retooling of this magnitude is to load up on draft picks. Smith and Metcalf could have helped them retool, but Schneider didn't milk a ton out of those deals.
The Seahawks have now traded their starting quarterback and No. 2 wide receiver who would be a No. 1 on about half the teams in the league, and they didn't land a single first-round pick. If the Seahawks are rebuilding, it will be tough to do so with some very limited assets at their disposal.
DK Metcalf trade is a bad look for Seahawks, John Schneider
The Seahawks currently have just three wide receivers under contract, two of which are Jake Bobo and Dareke Young, who have 34 career catches between them. The 2025 NFL Draft has proven to be somewhat thin at wide receiver, and the free agent quarterback market isn't much better.
If Schenider and Mike Macdonald wanted to blow the roster up after hitting a proverbial wall, that's one thing. Doing it now, when the lack of capital could come back to bit them and the number of high-end replacements is fairly thin, could turn out to be a serious problem for Seattle.
Smith could take a Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly-led Las Vegas team to new heights after bringing in a new regime, while Metcalf and George Pickens could provide enough offensive pop to keep Pittsburgh in the playoff hunt. Meanwhile, Seattle is looking rudderless with no quarterback or skill position talent.
Schneider can change hearts and minds if he lands a high-end starting quarterback or replenished the holes left by Metcalf and Tyler Lockett in the wide receiver room, but these two trades bringing back unsatisfactory returns may not be the start to the offseason fans wanted.