Heading into the 2024 offseason, our blueprint called for the Seahawks keeping mostly the same core defensively and seeing what new head coach Mike Macdonald could get out of them calling the plays. Thankfully, general manager John Schneider had other ideas. Rather than running it back with the same personnel he chose to blow it up and shed all of the heavy contracts on the back end of that defense.
To begin, Seattle cut starting safeties Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs. The team ate a ton of dead money between them but also saved a massive amount of cap room both this year and in 2025. Next, the Seahawks allowed veteran linebackers Bobby Wagner and Jordyn Brooks to leave in free agency – both at prices they easily could have afforded given their cap space. LB3 Devin Bush is also now gone, having signed with the Browns.
The most significant outside free agent signing the team has made so far is adding former Jaguars safety Rayshawn Jenkins on a two-year, $12 million deal that’s very similar to the one Julian Love signed last year. Those two will now be slated to start at safety.
At linebacker, the Seahawks have effectively replaced Wagner and Brooks with former Bills linebacker Tyrel Dodson and former Dolphins linebacker Jerome Baker. Financial details for Dodson’s one-year deal have not been disclosed as of yet, but we know Baker has a one-year, $7 million deal.
On the other side of the ball, Seattle allowed left guard Damien Lewis to walk – avoiding another huge investment at a non-premium position. Lewis signed a massive new deal with Carolina worth over $20 million per year. Needless to say, matching that number would have been an atrocious use of cap resources.
Fans should expect the front office to select another guard, as well as a linebacker and a safety at some point in the 2024 NFL draft, but it’s clear already what the team’s strategy is this offseason: clear the dead weight and reset with an eye on really making a jump in 2025. That means they will likely be taking a step back next season – but the important thing is they’ve set themselves up to compete much better in the future.
That’s the correct move, because in case you haven’t noticed this team got decimated by practically every contender they faced last season with the exception of the Lions, whose number they just seem to have. The one that matters most is the 49ers, who have won five straight matchups against Seattle in dominant fashion. No matter what the front office did this offseason they were unlikely to close that rather sizable gap in just one year. That means hitting the reset button and rebuilding the roster with a more modern approach is right.
It will take more time to get their course totally corrected, but the Seahawks have made significant progress in that department these last few weeks.
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