Who needs cap space when you won't use it to sign a guard? I kid - kind of. The Seahawks need financial freedom to do their thing, just like any of us. Happily, they have more than most NFL teams, and may be adding even more to their balance sheet.
Cap space, for those 12s who focus on the action on the field rather than off, refers to the amount of money the Seahawks can spend on their roster. Unlike Major League Baseball, the NFL has what is called a hard cap on its player expenditures. Oh, there are ways to finagle that ceiling, to be sure, but every team has the same methods available to them. So in the end, the cap is the same for every team.
As the NFL is one of the greatest money-making machines since the first lemonade stand, the cap increases every season. For 2025, the salary cap stands at $279,200,000. Yes, that's a lot of money, especially if you're only buying lemonade.
But when teams as bad as the Cleveland Browns have multiple players with contracts worth over $20 million per year, it goes fast. Thankfully, the Seahawks are in much better shape than that.
The Seahawks currently rank seventh in cap space in the league
Nothing is quite as fluid in the NFL as cap space in the offseason. Well, maybe Kenneth Walker's jukes, but not much else. It wasn't that long ago that Seattle was in desperation mode when it came to the cap. Back in January, the Seahawks were projected to be more than $27 million over the cap. That projection wasn't wrong. It simply reflected the roster at that time.
Entering March, they were still $10 million over. The first wave of roster cuts cleared $27 million in cap space. The release of Tyler Lockett the very next day, combined with the sudden trades of Geno Smith and DK Metcalf, moved their cap space up to a lofty $68.4 million.
By the time the dust had settled from the deals to keep Ernest Jones in Seattle and bring Sam Darnold, Cooper Kupp, and Demarcus Lawrence into the fold, the cap was still over $35 million.
As of this moment - let me check my watch - the Seahawks are seventh in the league with $36 million in space, per overthecap.com. That did not account for Drew Lock's contract. ESPN's assertion that it was a two-year deal for $5 million was correct. His cap number for 2025 is $2.25 million.
That brings Seattle's cap number down to $33.75 million, still good for the seventh-highest in the league. If John Schneider does his usual dealing during the draft, he could trade three or even more players away to add more picks to Seattle's coffers.
They could add another $15 million to their ledger. That would place them second in the league behind only the cash-rich (and talent-poor) Patriots. Now, if only they could get a decent guard to sign with them.