You're the GM!!!!!!

[kf3339]

Since it is just a few weeks from the start of free agency I discussed this idea with KitsapGuy and Original Poster about a new thread idea. This is going to be different than any threads to date about this off season.

We are letting YOU be the GM for the Seahawks!

So what does this mean? For those brave enough you will prepare a three part plan on what steps the team needs to take this off season from now until thru the draft. That's right... You're the boss!

Your post will have three parts:

Part 1: Any player cuts or restructures you feel are needed to increase available funds for this off season needs and goals.

Part 2: Any player trades to other teams for cap relief and additional players/draft picks. In addition any team free agents you wish to re-sign back to the team and under what terms. Last, what other team free agent targets you want to sign before the draft and under what terms.

Part 3: With the current and any additional draft picks received on trades and/or moving up or down in the draft what would be your draft plan. You can pick positions and/or specific players that you think will be at that draft position.

That's it. Original Poster is going to include the current team cap position by player and overall for the team. Keep in mind no one is going to expect numbers to be to the dollar on this. Just try your best.

One last thing that is really important. This is not a thread for you to pick apart every post, or poster. This is a positive plan to allow those who wish to come up with your total game plan for the team this off season. So negativity and one or two sentence comments are not going to work on this thread. There are a lot of other threads you can visit if that is your goal. This is for serious fans that want to play the GM role for themselves.

We have many really good posters now and many have experience as football players or coaches. We also have many former posters who were very knowledgeable but stopped posting on this site. Perhaps they are still lurking around and may enjoy participating on this thread.

So let's have fun with this idea!


So let's go GM's! Show your stuff!

Thank you.

EDIT (OP) - Here is the cap position along with cap hits for all players on the roster (currently) for 2018.

 

[kf3339]

So, here is my plan.

Part 1.
Player cuts:

Cliff Avril - Saves $7M on cap space
Jeremy Lane - Saves $5M on cap space
John Ryan - Saves $2M on cap space

Re-structuring:

Duane Brown - 3 year extension for $30M with a $10M signing bonus spread over 4 years. Base salary of $4M this year. Saves us about $3M in cap space this year.

I chose these three as we need to get younger on defense and Ryan has faded in his play and not worth $3M this next season. I think we can get better with younger players at these positions primarily in the draft. This gives us an extra $17M in cap space bring us to about $31M.

Part 2.

Our FA re-signings:

Bradley McDougal - 3 year contract $10M total with $2M signing bonus and 1st year base of $1M
Dion Jordan - 2 year contract for $10M at $2.5M first year and team option for $7.5M second year
Marcus Smith - 1 year contract $1m base salary
Luke Willson 2- year contract $1M signing bonus with first year salary at $500K

These are the players I think we can afford and should fit the goal of making the team better. I really wanted to include Sheldon Richardson, but not sure we can get him at no more than $10M per year. I would consider franchising him to see if a deal can be worked out in time. But that is not in this forecast right now.

This gives us still about $25M in cap space for free agency and the draft.

Free agent targets:

Justin Pugh OG - 4 year contract, $6M signing bonus and $2M first year salary.
Austin Seferian-Jenkins TE - 4 year contract, $6M signing bonus and $3M first year salary
Donte Moncrief WR - 3 year contract, $3M signing bonus and $2M first year salary

Not going to lie. These names have shown up on the board and I just like the idea. My plan would be to add veteran players on offense who can help RW now. These three guys would do that and greatly assist in are restructured run game. Pugh gets plugged in at LG and the left side of our Oline now looks pretty good! Jenkins and Moncrief will be a major plus in the run game and still do well in our passing attack.

What is not to like?

The only defensive guys I would go after are on the Dline if the price is right. That includes SR if things go well for us.




Player trades:

The draft is going to hinge on several things happening via trade. This is where I think we get extra picks. I would trade Bennett for a 3rd or high 4th round pick in this years draft. I also think that Earl Thomas is going to be traded, but probably not for what we want. My hope is a late 1st and maybe a late 3rd or 4th round pick as well. I saw where someone wanted to trade us Heath from Dallas and a 2nd round pick. I wouldn't do that, but would if they traded down in the 1st some and gave us that pick and Heath.

These trades would free up additional cap space and make room for keeping SR and possibly and getting a veteran RT for the right price.


Part 3.

If my plan was to happen we would have an additional late 1st round pick and a late 3rd or 4th round pick for Bennett. This gives us two 1st round picks which can be traded back for extra picks on day two. I am not a draft guy and don't really know the college players that well.

What I would like to see with our first two picks is an edge rusher and a 3 down RB who can lead our running attack. I am going to start looking more closely this next month at the draft and will edit once I have a better feel for the players. But my main goal would be to pick young, aggressive and hungry players for the defense and a stud RB to get a possession running attack that works. I think this will take pressure off of RW to have to be the only guy on offense to shoulder the load.

That's it for me.

Now you be the GM. What is your total plan?

 

[original poster]

Firstly, I am going to look at roster cuts in order to free up some cap space.

The following names are cut -

Jeremy Lane
Michael Bennett (post June 1st cut)
Cliff Avril
Jon Ryan

That leaves the team with a cap position of $33,648,861.

Now lets look at contract extensions are bringing back Seahawks who are set to be free agents in 2018.

Duane Brown gets a 4-year extension here however the way the contract is formed with guarantees and signing bonus, the 4th year is very team friendly (given he will be 36) so you can effectively call this a 3 year deal with the ability to cut him without too much harm to the cap in the 4th year.


Duane Brown
4 years
$44m contract value
$13.5m signing bonus
$11m Average Per Year (APY)



This contract extension leaves the Seahawks with $29,278,390. That’s an extra $1,625,000 in available cap due to the contract structure.

Next up, let’s assume the team wants to lock up Earl Thomas for the long haul. Many will disagree with this extension however ultimately what John Schneider and Pete Carroll decide is what matters, and Pete loves having Earl at the back of the defense.


Earl Thomas
5 years
$67.5m
$15m signing bonus
$13.5m Average Per Year (APY)



With the contract structure being pretty middle loaded the extension saves $3,500,000 on the 2018 cap, putting their, now current position, at $32,778,390.


Next up, Frank Clark. Frank has been eligible for an extension since 1st January 2018, but given he is still on his rookie contract, you could well tie this extension in with cutting Michael Bennett on 12th May to split his dead money more evenly. Frank is only going to get more expensive if the team leave it till 2019 and I’m certain he will be a player the front office wish to retain.


Frank Clark
4 years
$41m
$18m signing bonus
$10.25m Average Per Year



Obviously transitioning from the rookie pay scale to a second contract means the cap will always go down, however Frank’s extension increases progressively meaning his 2018 hit isn’t hideous, their cap space now sits at $26,222,331.


Let’s get Sheldon Richardson on prove-it part II. As per my article recently about him, I’m a big fan of Sheldon and what he did for this defense last season. Provided his stats stay on a positive path and his sack numbers increase somewhat, I’d lock him up long term next year.


Sheldon Richardson
1 year
$9.5m
$3m signing bonus



With the addition of Sheldon being on another one year deal, it takes a big hit on the cap given you can’t spread a one-year deal, however it is what it is.


Now we can give Paul Richardson a big pay day and lock him up long term over 5-years. I think the APY may be a bit rich, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the team go for it and for Paul to have a fantastic season, his chemistry with Russ really is growing.


Paul Richardson
5 years
$32.5m
$17.5m signing bonus
$6.5m Average Per Year



Cap position now Paul Richardson is signed long terms puts the 2018 money left at $12,222,331.


Next up, Seattle opts to bring back Luke Willson for 2 years. Given his price and cap hits, it would be a wise signing and he could very well prove to be superb value down the road. Even if his play does drop off a cliff, the cap damage is limited given his low contract value.


Luke Willson
2 years
$3.5m
$1.5m signing bonus
$1.75m Average Per Year



With the addition of Luke on the team for the next 2 seasons, the teams current cap sits at $10,472,331.

With the cap getting a bit low I took another look at the roster and decided that K.J. Wright is very much worthy of an extension. We saw what happened when he wasn’t on the field late last season and it wasn’t pretty. He is an unsung hero of this defense and very much worthy of a third contract, given his ability, for the most part, to stay injury free.

K.J. Wright
4 years
$28m
$8m signing bonus
$7m Average Per Year



Given K.J’s low cap hit in 2018, this puts the teams cap space up to $14,672,331.

Last but not least, I’d like to bring back Bradley McDougald to start at strong safety and also provide adequate insurance should the worst happen to Earl Thomas.


Bradley McDougald
2 years
$8m
$3m signing bonus
$4m Average Per Year



This signing puts the 2018 cap at $10,922,331.

Looking at outside free agents, the cap space is getting relatively low now (remember I've already accounted for the rookie draft class).

So I'd add -

Shane Vareen - RB - Vet Minimum ($915,000) contract for one year
Austin Seferian-Jenkins – TE - $1,500,000 contract for one year
D.J. Fluker – OG - 2-year $7,500,000 contract with a 2018 cap hit of $2,750,000
Alex Okafor – DE - $2,500,000 contract for one year

That now puts the cap space at $3,257,331 to hold back for in-season signings due to injury.

Now onto the draft...

Given the lack of trades above the team still has needs and no 2nd or 3rd round picks. Therefore I'd make a trade with Cleveland for their second round pick, third round pick and 5th round pick for #18 overall. This gives the slightest of advantage to Cleveland as per the draft trade chart, however it's so minimal it doesn't matter.

Their draft board now looks as follows -

Round 2 - #33
Round 3 - #65
Round 4 - #122
Round 5 - #140
Round 5 - #143
Round 5 - #150
Round 5 - #170
Round 7 - #226
Round 7 - #248
Round 7 - #250

With those selections, my draft selections would look something like this -

Round 2 - #33 – Interior Lineman
Round 3 - #65 – The best available running back left on the board
Round 4 - #122 – EDGE
Round 5 - #140 – Outside linebacker
Round 5 - #143 - CB
Round 5 - #150 - WR
Round 5 - #170 – S/CB
Round 7 - #226 - Kicker
Round 7 - #248 – Outside linebacker
Round 7 - #250 – Running back

 

[original poster]

Can I play twice?? I'm going to play twice...

Going to take a totally different approach to the above.

Firstly, the cuts -

Jeremy Lane
Jon Ryan
Cliff Avril
Richard Sherman

That puts Seattle with the following cap space - $38,998,861

Trades -

Michael Bennett to Tampa Bay for a 5th (#146)
Earl Thomas to Atlanta for #26 and a 4th (#128)

Cap space now sits at - $49,673,861

With the draft board looking like this -

Round 1 - #18
Round 1 - #26
Round 4 - #122
Round 4 - #128
Round 5 - #143
Round 5 - #146
Round 5 - #150
Round 5 - #170
Round 7 - #226
Round 7 - #248
Round 7 - #250

Next up, extensions for players under contract for 2018 -

Duane Brown gets the following extension -

Duane Brown
4 years
$44m contract value
$13.5m Signing Bonus
$11m Average Per Year (APY)



K.J. Wright gets this extension -

K.J. Wright
4 years
$28m
$8m Signing Bonus
$7m Average Per Year



Frank Clark gets extended, too -

Frank Clark
4 years
$41m
$18m Signing Bonus
$10.25m Average Per Year




Cap space now sits at - $48,942,802

The following players that were on the team in 2017 but are scheduled to be unrestricted free agents get a new contract -

Sheldon Richardson
4 years
$40m
$10m Signing Bonus
$10m Average Per Year



The team decides to have Bradley McDougald take over at free safety and locks him up for 3 years and gives him a nice pay rise.

Bradley McDougald
3 year
$15.75m
$4m Signing Bonus
$5.25m Avergage Per Year



Luke Willson
2 years
$3.5m
$1.5m signing bonus
$1.75m Average Per Year



DeShawn Shead
1 Year
$1.2m
$200k Signing Bonus
$1.2m Average Per Year



With the UFA's done, that leaves the ERFA's and RFA's. As it stands, we have 44 players under contract for 2018.

J.D. McKissic (RB) gets an ERFA Tender, cap hit for 2018 is $630,000

Tyler Ott (LS) gets an ERFA Tender, cap hit for 2018 is $555,000

Quinton Jefferson (DT) gets an ERFA Tender, cap hit for 2018 is $630,000

Joey Hunt (C) gets an ERFA Tender, cap hit for 2018 of $630,000

Branden Jackson (DE) gets an ERFA Tender, cap hit for 2018 of $630,000


Onto the RFA's -

Justin Coleman went undrafted originally, so you can't put an 'original round tender' on him really, so a 2nd round gets put on him, cap hit for 2018 of $2,916,000

Dion Jordan was a 1st round pick, so you can use the 'original round tender' on him for a lower cap hit. His play will cost the team $1,908,000 in 2018

That's it for players that are extended early, brought back to the team as well as ERFA's and RFA's done.

The roster now sits at 51 players under contract with $27,510,469 in cap room for the draft and free agency.

Now onto Free Agency -

Carlos Hyde (RB)
2 year
$8.8m
$3m Signing Bonus
$4.4m Average Per Year
2018 cap hit of $4,200,000

Allan Robinson (WR)
3 year
$33m
$9m signing bonus
$11m Average Per Year
2018 cap hit of $7,600,000

Austin Seferian-Jenkins (TE)
1 year
$1.5m
$500k Signing Bonus
2018 cap hit of $1,500,000

Alex Okafor (DE)
1 Year
$2.75m
$1m Signing Bonus
2018 cap hit of $2,750,000

Cap space is now $11,460,469 with just the draft class to pay and keeping some dollars held back for mid season injuries.



Draft -

I'm going to make the following trades with our collection of draft picks -

Round 1 #18 gets traded to Cleveland for their second round (#33), third round (#65) and fifth round (#140)
Round 1 #26 and round 5 (#150) gets traded to Denver for their second round (40) and third round (#71)
Seattle trades up to round 3 (#86) with Kansas City for their Round 4 (#122), round 5 (#140) and round 7 (#226)

Their draft board now looks like this -

Round 2 - #33
Round 2 - #40
Round 3 - #65
Round 3 - #71
Round 3 - #86
Round 4 - #128
Round 5 - #143
Round 5 - #146
Round 5 - #170
Round 7 - #248
Round 7 - #250

That's 11 picks (exactly the same as last year) with a draft trade value of 1,878 points. They started off with a total of 1,012 points so provided a average portion of their selections prove to be hits, not misses, the draft class could add real value to the roster.

This draft class also costs the 2018 cap exactly $8,072,677.

The Seahawks select the following players in this years draft -

Round 2 - #33 - OG Isaiah Wynn
Round 2 - #40 - RB Ronald Jones II
Round 3 - #65 - EDGE Marcel Frazier
Round 3 - #71 - WR Michael Gallup
Round 3 - #86 - CB Quenton Meeks
Round 4 - #128 - EDGE - Trevon Young
Round 5 - #143 - RB Ito Smith
Round 5 - #146 - OLB Shaquem Griffin
Round 5 - #170 - OT Brandon Parker
Round 7 - #248 - P Michael Dickson
Round 7 - #250 - OLB - Hercules Mata'afa


Their 53 man depth chart would look as follows -

Red indicates rookie
Blue indicates outside FA

Offense -



Defense -



Special Teams -




This leaves $3,387,742 for mid season signings.

 

[original poster]

Nobody else want to join in?

 

[byau]

Nobody else want to join in?

haha ..well, first, that's all really awesome up there . Love all the details and all the hypotheticals, really fun exercise!. I love reading it

For me, I don't have the knowledge or analysis to throw down here, but I am definitely anxious to read hopefully a lot more ideas in this thread. Me trying to do this exercise would be laughable. But can't wait to read other smarty folks jump in on this

 

[seahawkfreak]

Nobody else want to join in?

At first I kinda wanted to but it reminded me of my days in college when I had to do a financial analysis on a stock, which would take 40+ hours to do. For me I have rudimentary knowledge about contracts and how they work. To do this exercise it looks like you have to be very well versed with them.

 

[jammerhawk]

Interesting thread, will need to take time to post my reply.

In sunny Cancun at the moment so that might take a few days, manyana.

For now tequila.

 

[kf3339]

Nobody else want to join in?

At first I kinda wanted to but it reminded me of my days in college when I had to do a financial analysis on a stock, which would take 40+ hours to do. For me I have rudimentary knowledge about contracts and how they work. To do this exercise it looks like you have to be very well versed with them.

I think some may be overthinking how to do this project. My goal was not to have people over analyze the process, but to just pretend you're the gm and try to make decisions for the team. No one is expecting you or anyone else to put massive amount of time figuring out the cap space to the dollar. Just try your best.

That's all.

 

[chris98251]

Nobody else want to join in?

Were waiting for you to play a third time Doctor Watson

 

[EverydayImRusselin]

I love these. I'll throw my fantasy GM hat on when i have time to sit down and go through it thoroughly.

 

[original poster]

Nobody else want to join in?

Were waiting for you to play a third time Doctor Watson

I'm bloody tempted, my main interest is the salary cap and the CBA (as you can probably tell!)



Just to confirm, though, the idea isn't necessarily to go into dollar accurate deals.

If you wanted to write -

Resign Paul Richardson
5 years $40m with a 2018 cap number of $5m, that's absolutely fine.

I only broke the contracts down because I enjoy doing it, it's absolutely not a prerequisite of the thread. :2thumbs:

 

[Beren]

Great thread. Wish I had the knowledge to contribute more meaningfully.

Of those who have been the GM so far: have the moves you've made mortgaged our space in future years?

 

[original poster]

Great thread. Wish I had the knowledge to contribute more meaningfully.

Of those who have been the GM so far: have the moves you've made mortgaged our space in future years?

Most of mine were progressively loaded with pretty even increases in cap hits. You could very easily lower the prorated bonuses and adjust the P5 base salaries if you wanted though.

Assuming Jeremy Lane, Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett and Jon Ryan aren't on the roster in 2019, Seattle has $101,008,510 in cap space. Albeit with only 19 players on the roster. But assuming you can get 7 2018 rookies on the roster they will likely end up will over $90M and 26 players on the roster.

They can do whatever they damn well please next year

 

[Beren]

Great thread. Wish I had the knowledge to contribute more meaningfully.

Of those who have been the GM so far: have the moves you've made mortgaged our space in future years?

Most of mine were progressively loaded with pretty even increases in cap hits. You could very easily lower the prorated bonuses and adjust the P5 base salaries if you wanted though.

Assuming Jeremy Lane, Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett and Jon Ryan aren't on the roster in 2019, Seattle has $101,008,510 in cap space. Albeit with only 19 players on the roster. But assuming you can get 7 2018 rookies on the roster they will likely end up will over $90M and 26 players on the roster.

They can do whatever they damn well please next year

Thanks for the reply. The bit in the bold feels mindblowing given where we are now!

Surprising lack of Sherman mentions in this GM'ing so far.

 

[original poster]

Yeah it will be very interesting to see what they do with all that cap space next year.

They could easily sign anyone they wanted this season as long as they'd accept a low prorated signing bonus and low salary in 2018 with a big increase in 2019. Exciting times ahead.

 

[chris98251]

With Sherman I stated in another thread you re do his deal, give him a extension but with incentives built in he can reach easily if healthy, put a bonus out there for him and add a couple years.

If he is willing he can still earn money if healthy, if not back to form we get a better deal, we also make it easier to trade him, that's the part he may not be willing to swallow.

 

[original poster]

With Sherman I stated in another thread you re do his deal, give him a extension but with incentives built in he can reach easily if healthy, put a bonus out there for him and add a couple years.

If he is willing he can still earn money if healthy, if not back to form we get a better deal, we also make it easier to trade him, that's the part he may not be willing to swallow.

As long as I’m reading what you’re saying right that wound fall under LTBE (likely to be earned) and NLTBE (not likely to be earned).

You still have to account for both in the cap so it wouldn’t necessarily help the team, although I guess it would help them if they needed to cut him further down the line.

ETA - NLTBE actually doesn’t count towards that years cap money, if a NLTBE incentive is in fact earned, it gets taken off the following years cap spend. Had to check as I wasn’t 100%.

 

[original poster]

Incase anyone is interested, the way the league determines what is LTBE and NLTBE is based off the previous year.

For example if they added a possible bonus of $3m that if he played in all 16 games in 2018 the league would class that as NLTBE as he didn’t play in all 16 games in 2017. The team still have to account for that in 2018 cap space but would get relief the following year if it didn’t happen.

 

[chris98251]

Games played.

Pro Bowl.

All Pro.

Interceptions or passes defensed or a level of QB completion percentage against him for the season.

Making the Playoffs.

Just a few ideas.

All things he can pretty much control with his own play ability, feeds his ego, feeds his competitiveness, motivates as well as allows a trade at any time that should be cheaper in the event we draft or one of the young guys steps up and beats him out.