Agreed. I wonder if the offense would improve by subtraction. I do like DK and what he can bring but if we can get some good draft capital for him then maybe? There were a lot of awful throws to DK so he was not at fault the whole time but he wasn’t getting much separation either. Decisions like this make me glad for my day job and not coaching in NFL.
If the Seahawks were to trade Metcalf this season, it would have to be before the next game. He would then have been on the Seahawks roster for eight weeks of paychecks, and would be on some other team's roster for ten weeks. That means the Seahawks have paid Metcalf $978K of his $2.2M salary, and the acquiring team would get him for ten games for his $1.22M in remaining salary. It would then be able to keep him next season for his $13M salary, which is currently not guaranteed at all and only becomes fully guaranteed if he's on a roster five days after the beginning of the 2024 waiver period. The acquiring team would also be able to keep Metcalf in 2025 for $18M if it wanted. His 2025 salary is not at all guaranteed, and will only become fully guaranteed when the 2025 season starts if Metcalf is on a team's 53-man roster (and that's only because all vested veterans' contracts become fully guaranteed for a season when that season starts).
The Seahawks would have $11.5M of dead money on their 2023 cap (but that was part of Metcalf's 13.72M cap hit for this year, so the Seahawks would actually be getting $1.22M in cap savings for this season) and $23M of dead money on the 2024 cap.
That $23M hit for 2024 makes this a really bad move for the Seahawks. They'd be badly hurting their cap in 2024 for a player not on their roster, who would then be playing at a very reasonable price for some other team. How badly? The Seahawks currently have only 40 players under contract for 2024, and they have just over $17M in cap space. Without Metcalf, that would be only 39 players under contract and about $6M in available cap space.
For that to be worthwhile for the Seahawks, the other team would have to give up more draft capital than I think any team in the league is going to be willing to give up.