The NFL’s legal tampering window opens today at 9 a.m. west coast time, allowing teams to negotiate with agents for players that are about to hit the market. Teams and players can agree to deals but nothing is official until the new league year begins on Wedensday afternoon.
As for the Seattle Seahawks, they pulled off a remarkable heist last week, re-signing veteran quarterback Geno Smith to a super team-friendly deal with only a $10.1 million cap hit for the 2023 season. Now Seattle has about $20.2 million leftover to sign other free agents and pay their draft class. With the rookies taking about half that amount, they are firmly out of the market for acquiring any big-name veterans.
However, there are an unusual number of underrated options out there that could be had for a discount this year. This morning Doug Farrar at Touchdown Wire listed underrated free agents at every position. Here are six from the list that make sense for Seattle.
1
RB Raheem Mostert
“At 6-foot-0 and 235 pounds, Foreman can obviously bull through tacklers and make gains after contact (634 of his 876 yards came after the first hit), but he can also bounce outside and accelerate to the second and third levels. He might not be a bell-cow back in the traditional sense, but maybe he can be. Foreman certainly showed enough in his 2022 season to put the thought in the heads of NFL evaluators.”
2
WR DJ Chark
“Chark was on point. He caught 30 passes on 52 targets for 502 yards and three touchdowns. Chark was Detroit’s primary deep receiver in a passing game that was more short and intermediate by necessity (i.e., Jared Goff was the quarterback), catching seven passes of 20 or more air yards on 15 targets for 252 yards and two touchdowns.”
3
TE Mike Gesicki
“Gesicki isn’t a burner, but he has a great understanding of how to get open in zones, and how to press man coverage. And in the red zone, those attributes seem to magnify. Again, I’m not sure why Mike McDaniel allegedly didn’t think that Gesicki was his brand of spice, but I’d like a tight end on my team who can get open in short spaces, and maintain the play outside of structure with scramble drills.”
4
EDGE Justin Houston
“Houston has developed all kinds of veteran moves. He’s expert at shifting from the edge and sifting through inside gaps for quarterback takedowns, and as he showed against Buccaneers left tackle Donovan Smith in Week 8, he’s perfectly capable of bull-rushing any blocker into any quarterback’s kitchen. He’ll be an ace rotational signing for any team in need of more energy in quarterback disruption.”
5
EDGE Yannick Ngakoue
“Ngakoue has had at least 44 total pressures in each of those seasons, including the 44 (12 sacks, nine quarterback hits, 23 quarterback hurries) in 2022. Maybe it’s time for a team to embrace Ngakoue in a longer-term sense, as the Eagles did last year with former “earth-wanderer” Haason Reddick.”
6
CB Jamel Dean
“Dean has been an outstanding cornerback since the Buccaneers selected him in the third round of the 2019 draft out of Auburn, and in 2022, he allowed just 34 catches on 68 targets for 412 yards, 120 yards after the catch, five touchdowns, two interceptions, five pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 81.3.”
