Spin Doctor
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Russell's contract was part of that though. When such a huge portion of cap is taken up by one player you have to adjust somewhere. The Seahawks didn't want to break up their defense so we let go of depth players, and we chose not to retain our offensive lineman. We went from having one of the highest paid lines during our Super Bowl run to having one of the lowest paid lines. The QB salary DEFINITELY did play a huge role here. There were defensive contracts, but we also had a large portion of our cap tied into just one player. Wilson's contract definitely did play a part.Ad Hawk":2jilzfhv said:Spin Doctor":2jilzfhv said:We also let go most of our lineman. We let Carpenter, Breno, Sweezy, and Okung all walk. I'd argue that this is how our team decided to compensate. They believed in Cables ability to turn nobodies into lineman, and they thought that they could get away with letting our talent on offensive line walk.
And let's not pretend that the only cap space issue was O-linemen competing with RW's contract. We had a number of big, fat Defense player contracts to fulfill, too. Pete believed the O-line could be patchworked and still function. I don't like it, but that's where he robbed from to pay both RW and the D, which are his focus.
Hopefully this year will create more stability on the O-line, and even if Russ gets paid, we can keep the rookie contracts coming.
Every team has to make this kind of decision when they sign their Quarterback to a huge contract. We decided to keep our defense together, and pay our offensive line pennies. Most other teams seem to go all in on the offense and neglect the defensive side of the ball all together, or one area of a defense will be good and all other aspects of the defense will be cobbled together.