My predictions and recommendations for the 2016 offseason

The past two years:

The Seahawks have tasted peril the past two postseasons. In my last article I wrote about what the Seahawks needed to do to make it to their second consecutive Super Bowl. While they did make it, the outcome was far more heartbreaking than anyone could imagine. This past season the Seahawks fought a Super Bowl hangover tooth and nail, starting off their season on a low note, but adversity had other plans.

After finishing 10-6 in the regular season and defeated the Minnesota Vikings on their frozen field, the Seahawks had a rematch with the team they had beaten in last years divisional round.

31 points in the hole is a no win situation for any other team, why would any team try and fight back? What team could hold the emphatic Carolina Panthers and their suave MVP quarterback Cam Newton to no points in the second half? The Seahawks did. With an onside kick recovery the only thing standing in their way to scoring another touchdown and tying the game, the Seahawks were not able to complete their comeback. Losing 31-24.

Now the offseason is upon us and the wheeling and dealing starts now. These are the predictions and recommendations for the Seahawks this offseason. In their quest to win another Super Bowl.

Salary Situation:

With the parting of Marshawn Lynch and the Seahawks willingness to let him keep his five million dollars in bonus money, and the 12 million dollar increase in the salary cap the Seahawks have $29,362,781.00 in cap space.


Pay Raises:

Michael Bennett just came of his best year as a professional and his new representation is working with Seattle to get him a well deserved pay raise. His earnings for this year will be seven million. Giving him a realistic raise of two million will bring his earnings to nine million dollars. So now the Seahawks sit at $27,362,781.00.

With Kam Chancellor’s holdout last season and abundance of subtweets this offseason it’s hard to say if the Seahawks will keep him around or not. Although there seems to be some bad blood between him and management I still believe that he will receive a pay raise this offseason, although not one as big as he had hoped for. His original cap hit (payment) is 6.1 million dollars, which realistically can be increased to 7.5 million. Leaving the Seahawks with $25,962,781.00 in spending money for the offseason.



Re-Sign Players:

The Seahawks have quite a few starters who will be unrestricted free agents: JR Sweezy, Russell Okung, Bruce Irvin, Jermaine Kearse, Jeremy Lane (when healthy) Brandon Mebane and Ahtyba Rubin. These players all had big roles on both sides of the ball this season for the Seattle Seahawks. However none of these players will be made a priority to re-sign, I believe all will test the open market and get bigger deals with other teams.

In a situation that had the Seahawks keeping any players in this free agent class those players would be, Jermaine Kearse and Russell Okung with a combined cap hit of 10 million dollars. However in this projected offseason I have Seattle keeping none of these players.


Free Agency:

The Carroll/Schneider Seahawks are not big spenders when it comes to free agency, they will get players that fit their scheme over big name players that demand a larger salary. So don’t expect a signing of a player who will demand eight million a year or more. (Josh Norman, Cordy Glenn, etc.)

Here are realistic signings I predict.

Kelechi Osemele: A swiss army knife of an offensive lineman, who is a good tackle but a great guard. He just had a career year so he will be paid handsomely but will not be getting the type of money Russell Okung will get on the open market because he is not a pure tackle. Left Guard will be his spot, moving Justin Britt or Mark Glowinski over to the right guard position.

Deal: Four years 40 million dollars (20 guaranteed)

Estimated salary for 2016: $5,000,000.00 with bonus incentives not immediately put against the salary cap.


Andre Smith: A right tackle coming off a year where his conditioning and ability was put into question. Be that as it may, Smith had a very good year among other right tackles in the league surrendering three sacks in 14 games started. With Smith’s signing the Seahawks will be able to move Garry Gilliam to left tackle (which is what Tom Cable has been preparing him to do) Gilliam gave up 6.5 sacks this season at right Tackle but blossomed as the year came to a close. Stone walling the Minnesota Vikings and Carolina Panthers (keeping former all pro Charles Johnson at bay).

Deal: Two Years 10 million dollars (6.5 guaranteed)

Estimated salary for 2016: $3,500,000.


Ian Williams: A standout NT for the rival San Francisco 49ers, Williams had a career year in 2015. Williams will not be the most sought after free Agent DT but will have the most to contribute to a team like Seattle. His ability to plug running lanes and get tackles in the backfield will make the Seattle D line that much better.

Deal: Three years 20 million (12 guaranteed)
Estimated Salary for 2016: $4,000,000.00

Trumaine Johnson: This is the one that i’m reaching on. Johnson is another player coming off a career year and will be paid handsomely in the open market. The appeal of playing in the LOB will be alluring to Johnson even though he was a rival of the Seahawks for his whole career. He fits as an inside and outside cornerback and that versatility will help his stats and will help the Seahawks defense as well.
Deal: Five Years 35 million (25 guaranteed)
Estimated salary for 2016: $4,000,000.00 plus bonus incentives not immediately put against salary cap.

Courtney Upshaw: Once a very promising player for the Baltimore Ravens, Upshaw hasn’t been the player they had hoped he’d be. Upshaw is not the same kind of athlete that Bruce Irvin is but he will be used in a similar role. Upshaw is a very good run defender with low pass rush ability, throwing him into the LOLB spot for the first two downs and subbing a guy like Cassius Marsh in for pass rush situations will be an ideal fit.
Deal: One Year 3 million (2 guaranteed)


Salary Cap after free agency: $7,462,781.00

​
These predictions and calculations were made with the help of:
spotrac.com and yesnetwork.com

Find original article here http://pugetpower.weebly.com/sports/the-quest-for-51

I think your hopes for free agency are highly overvalued and exaggerated. Our roster and cap situation have us in a tight spot and I don't see us signing anybody to a contract that puts them at a 5 million dollar cap hit this year. Not even one of our own guys. Probably should take a harder look at the lesser known depth chart guys that are free agents or guys that have some serious questions involving durability, off-field conduct, etc. You can narrow it down more by looking at guys were likely to target based on what kind of scheme the team runs. Does the team run a variation of the spread WCO with zone blocking? Does the defense use similar schemes to what we use and does the player have traits we look for. You can take high priced FAs like Osemele, Chris Long, Mario Williams, Matt Forte and the likes off the table. Everyone hears them talk about playing at a discount, but they fail to realize that their idea of a discount is playing for 5+million a year, instead of 8-10 million a year. I don't see us signing anyone for more than 5 million a year this year. We just don't have the cap to make those kind of plays.

Some realistic free agent targets are going to be Bradley Sowell, Tom Compton, Tahir Whitehead, Chris Chester, Senio Kelemete, Junior Gallette, Jake Long, Bryce Harris, Marcus Cooper, Shelley Smith, Pat Sims, Shiloh Keo, Keith Tandy, and the likes. The only free agent I can see us stepping a little over 5 million a year on is Mitchell Schwartz and that's only because he can legitimately start at either guard position, right tackle and possibly left tackle; making him an extremely valuable lineman that can fill in wherever we need him to and he's an Ironman that hasn't missed a snap since he entered the NFL, proving to be one of the most durable linemen in the NFL.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out for sure. This might not be a popular statement but I feel like Kam might
be the odd man out in this deal. The reason I say that is because I think he hurt his standing in the locker room, with
the coaching staff and management with the bullshit ( IMHO) he pulled this last year.

Very un-Seahawk -y ??

Anyways, you get the idea. The guy they got and finally settled on seemed to play well or should I say well enough.
I don't see them paying a SS what Kam is going to want to be paid.

But this might just be one of the many reasons I am just a fan and not a SHOT CALLA.

Considering how much this FO values compensatory picks, I can't see us being anywhere near this aggressive in FA this season. I definitely think they will kick the tires on a few FA's on the respective lines.. more than likely guys that have been cut as that doesn't count against the comp pick formula.

I think if there is a FA out there that they court it will be Alex Mack or Alex Boone. They had a lot of interest at the deadline in acquiring Mack, but the Browns pulled him off the market after no one wanted to bite on their lofty demands. Mack was also recruited by Pete, so there's that. Boone - no real way to back this up, I just get the hunch he's always wanted to play up here. So I think interest would be there.. but again, it always comes down to money.

Also Trumaine Johnson was tagged by LA .. so thats definitely not happening

One thing is for sure and that is none of us know what they are going to do. They have been great (fortunate) in the past with the draft but not so much with BIG-TIME FA'S. This isn't exactly an exact science. We have a great team but there are some weaknesses that needed to be addressed before we are a SB champion again. THAT is what I hope they concentrate on.

Okung isn't reliable enough and is going to require big money, not keeping him. Sweezy is good but not great, if he costs over 4 mil he's gone. Rubin will most likely be resigned at 3 mil or less and I expect the Hawks to look for a cheaper guy than Mebane (will most likely require at least 5.5 million and he's not worth that anymore) in either FA or draft and there are a lot of decent options available. Irvin will be way out of our price range, he's gone. Kearse clearly wants to test his luck so he's gone too. Lane is a bit of a question mark. He should be a priority signing but if he's getting Maxwell kind of money we can't afford him either.

Out of our own FAs that would mean only keeping Rubin (~3m cap hit) and possibly Lane (~7m cap hit or otherwise he might get too expensive). Then take into account a few million for draft picks, some spare change for during the season in case of injuries and a few mil for our RFAs (most of them are going to make the roster and will be more expensive than 450,000). Let's say we have 10 million to spend on outside FAs this year.

Kearse can be replaced by guys on our current roster or a late round pick. The OLB market isn't stunning this year and there some nice day 2 options available in the draft so I doubt we'll see any moves on WR or OLB. Then we're left with the Oline and Dline. I expect the FO get a replacement for Mebane in FA. That's the way they've done it so far and it works. With the draft loaded at run stuffing DTs the veteran run stuffers in FA won't have as much leverage and I can see picking up someone decent for about 3 million.

That's a (generously) estimated 7 million to spend on O-line. There are multiple ways to spend it but the best course of action in my eyes is getting one talented starter for LT, LG or RT. Mitchell Schwartz looks really interesting at RT but he might get priced out of range in a competetive market for tackles. My money would be on getting a quality starter at RG like Alex Boone or Brandon Brooks at the 5 mil range and draft an OT in the first round.

Filling all needs before the draft would be great but I don't think that's a possiblity with our cap situation.

You had me at your avatar.