Sitting at 16 in the draft, the Seahawks were really living on the border between “blue chip prospects” and “red chip prospects” so that would make a nervous, inexperienced GM either jump the gun to trade up or get indecisive and trade down. Honorable mention: Getting Tyler Lockett to take a pay cut That was the right person to keep and he didn’t cost as much as I thought he would. Sometimes your team needs its washes as much as its wins. That’s not who he is, even if he’s also the Seahawks best front-seven player right now.īasically, it’s a wash instead of a win. So let me repeat it: I think I would have re-signed Leonard Williams too!īut is it “the best move” to simply give a player top-of-the-market if not over-the-top-market money? No, there’s no “VALUE” here because Williams won’t give Seattle “$30 million” worth of defensive line contributions. He’s a very good player that a great defense needs, if the Seahawks ever plan to have a great defense again. I just can’t go above and beyond to say it might be the best move of the offseason when there’s absolutely no bargain to be had here: Leonard Williams is probably not a “$21 million player” as we know it, he hasn’t really proven in Seattle yet that he’s a dominant run defender and there’s nobody who thinks he will be a 10 sack guy either.

The Seahawks are low on proven impact football players and they’re running out of people worthy paying, so I understand the move. I have absolutely no problem with giving Williams $21 million per season and the argument to do it is better than the argument to not do it. Not honorable mention: Re-signing Leonard Williams Not signing Bobby Wagner was in the stars by the end of the season, so that’s not even a question. I was ready for the Seahawks to move onto a player who didn’t have the pressure of being a first round pick who didn’t live up to the projection. Jerome Baker feels like a good change of names, if nothing else, from Jordyn Brooks. Plus, the overpays of Brooks in Miami and Lewis in Carolina will give back fourth and fifth round comp picks (projected) in 2025.Īfter all the fear of “What will Seattle do now without their guards who weren’t all that consistently impressive to be real about it?”, I think that Christian Haynes, Laken Tomlinson, some competition between Anthony Bradford, Sataoa Laumea, Mike Jerrell, Tremayne Anchrum is preferable to giving Lewis $13 million per season. Pete did it at times too, but not to the degree of re-signing Shaun Alexander in 2006. There was a version of the Seahawks in the past, before Pete mostly, in which Seattle would overpay old players to stay on the team. Only that there has to be a line in the sand with regards to how much Seattle must be willing to pay them to be on the team and Brooks, Lewis got overpaid. Kind of like Diggs and Dissly, I’m not arguing that these players don’t belong in the NFL or wouldn’t help the Seahawks. Leave a comment Honorable mention: Cutting Quandre Diggs, Jamal Adams, Will Dissly

I would have supported firing or keeping Carroll, but if I would support firing a head coach then am I truly in favor of keeping him? Now that what’s done is done, I might just be excited about change and Macdonald is definitely the head coach who I was most supportive of as a replacement option.Īside from that major decision, what was the Seahawks best move of the 2024 offseason so far? So for me, Mike Macdonald can’t be the best move because he’s in a different category of “franchise decisions” and there’s nothing to really know about his value as a head coach until we see it in action.Īnd yet clearly it also felt necessary for me to open this newsletter writing about how significant firing Pete Carroll and hiring Mike Macdonald certainly is with regards to how successful Seattle’s 2024 offseason will come to be judged in a few years. This August’s first training camp will be our first good chance to gauge-not the quality of the hire because it’s still too soon to do that and there will be a lot of meaningless noise in the media based on people overreacting to minor news during his first camp-but at least to start to feel how practices are different now compared to the past 14 years. Good for him, good for us, if Mike Macdonald is anywhere close to as successful as Pete Carroll. Judging Macdonald’s value before he’s ever coached a game is like giving out immediate draft grades or writing a review on IMDb before you saw a movie that won’t be out for months. That’s great and all, but while Sean McVay was considered a questionable decision by the Rams in 2017 because of his age, Brandon Staley was cited as the premier hire of 2021 when he went to the Chargers. Plus, is hiring Mike Macdonald a good move? We are all mostly in agreement that we like it and wanted Seattle to hire him of all the available options.

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