A Tame Rebuild Approach
With lots of talk around huge roster churn this off season for Seattle, here's a look at a, somewhat, tame version involving minimal cuts without wiping out the DB's that many are talking about.
Seahawks cut the following players - Cliff Avril Michael Bennett Jeremy Lane Jon Ryan From those cuts, the Seahawks would have $30,173,861 in cap room. With the current draft picks, that'll eat $5,995,471, plus keeping, say $5M for in season signings due to injury, you could expect Seattle to have around $19,178,390 in cap space to sign free agents. With the cuts the roster sits at 42 players. However, assuming that 5 of the 8 drafted players make the team, that puts the roster up to 47. Add in 2 UDFA's and you're up to 49. That leaves 4 players needed for the 53 man roster. Ala free agency. I expect them to draft 2 RB's (one early and one late) as they only have 3 on the roster currently. Worringly they only have 2 DE's as well, however I expect some of the RFA's to be back as well as at least 1 draft choice and 1 free agency signing. Some points of note - Frank Clark could well be in for an extension this off season, they're allowed to extend him as of a couple of weeks ago. That will hurt the cap as his current 2018 number is $1,187,527. Sheldon Richardson is 100% gone unless the team makes some jaw dropping cuts or trades. Same applies to Jimmy Graham and Paul Richardson. If Earl does get an extension, I cannot figure a way to make his cap hit not go up by at least $2M (making the contract realistic, anyway). His current 2018 number is $10,400,000. The kicker situation can be very cheaply resolved via a late round draft pick or an undrafted free agent. If Jon Ryan does get cut, again the position can be managed via a late rounder or UDFA, very cheaply. The current roster has glaring holes at RB, TE, DE, G and OLB. I think it's unrealistic (unless drastic personnel changes are made) to expect the team to address all the needs effectively given the cap numbers available to them and their draft capital. I can absolutely imagine, if they play this relatively conservatively, that it is a two year plan to get back on track and they will, ultimately, have to accept glaring holes at one or two positions next season as they're not in a position to be able to address every problem. Either way, they absolutely need to hit on several draft picks this April to stay competitive.
