Seahawks needs ...

[boogiewithstu2007]

Analysis: Ranking the Seahawks’ positions of needs as the NFL combine nears

 

[HaroldSeattle]

So the needs are almost ever where.

 

[FirebreathingMonkey]

Seattle Seahawks
1. Put a full-page ad in the newspaper thanking Earl Thomasfor his contributions. I would've preferred to write "Franchise Earl Thomas" or "Pay Earl Thomas a lot of money," but I think those ships sailed when the legendary Seahawks safety flipped off his own sideline as he was being carted off last season. It's clear the Seahawks don't want to offer Thomas a long-term contact, and the franchise tag wouldn't make either party happy.

What the Seahawks can do, though, is try to repair the relationship for the future. Put an ad in The Seattle Times thanking Thomas for his incredible run with the team. Soft-retire his No. 29 and don't give it to anyone else until Thomas retires. For whatever has happened over the past year, Thomas is one of the best players to ever wear a Seahawks uniform. Ten years from now, the stuff he did on the field is going to be his legacy. From here on out, it's about attempting to create a scenario in which both sides can feel good about celebrating that one day.

2. Franchise Frank Clark. While the Seahawks will likely look to retain several of their pending free agents -- notably D.J. Fluker, J.R. Sweezy and Justin Coleman -- Clark is the one free agent the Seahawks absolutely have to retain. In a class of edge rushers who are likely to stay on their current teams via the franchise tag, Clark will be in the mix alongside Jadeveon Clowney and DeMarcus Lawrence for extensions. Lawrence will make more because he's on his second franchise tag, but if any of these guys signs an extension, it will be with an annual salary between $18 million and $20 million per year.

Russell Wilson. The Seahawks went with a run-heavy approach in 2018 that minimized Wilson's impact on the offense -- he threw just 427 passes in 16 games after averaging 527 over the prior three seasons -- but Wilson made up for it with hyper-efficiency. He's not showing any signs of slippage at 30, and while Wilson would find it extremely difficult to toss touchdown passes on 8.2 percent of his dropbacks again in 2019, he remains one of the league's truly elite quarterbacks when not forced to run for his life before even receiving the snap.

The Seahawks have tended to favor four-year extensions under GM John Schneider, so it's likely that Seattle will hand Wilson a large signing bonus and lock him up until his age-34 campaign. With Aaron Rodgers averaging $33.5 million in annual salary and $103 million over the first three years of his extension with the Packers, the obvious number to look for here is $35 million per season. A four-year, $140 million extension is eventually where this should settle.

4. Extend Bobby Wagner too. The Seahawks probably will let K.J. Wrighthit free agency this offseason, but it's difficult to imagine them letting Wagner leave next offseason. Negotiations won't be quite as cut and dried as they are with Wilson because of positional scarcity, but Wagner is still rightly regarded as arguably the best player at his position in football.
The gold standard deal for a linebacker who doesn't rush the passer is Jamie Collins' four-year, $50 million deal from January 2017. I think the Seahawks probably will have to top that as part of a Wagner extension, given that the five-time Pro Bowler is already making north of $10 million per season on his current extension. Going to $15 million per season is too ambitious, but Wagner's new four-year extension should come in between $52 million and $56 million.

5. Sign Muhammad Wilkerson.The extensions probably will limit much of what the Seahawks can do in free agency, and unless they want to sign a free safety to replace Thomas, there aren't many great matches between where the Seahawks would want to spend money and useful players.

One logical place to target would be defensive tackle, where the Seahawks have been struggling with their decisions for years. Malik McDowell, the team's second-round pick in 2017, never played a snap for the team after reportedly suffering serious injuries in an ATV accident. The injury led the Seahawks to trade a second-round pick and Jermaine Kearse for Sheldon Richardson, who left for the Vikings on a one-year deal in free agency. Shamar Stephen left something to be desired next to Jarran Reed, and while Poona Ford has flashed in brief moments, the Seahawks should add at least one veteran to their rotation.

Wilkerson, who looked good for the Packers last season before going down with a serious ankle injury, is probably going to settle for a one-year deal in the hopes of rebuilding his value. He would make sense as the latest Seahawks transplant on the interior.

 

[JMR]

Continue to invest in the trenches on both sides should always be a top priority. Together, the lines represent about 1/3 of the active roster, you play a handful of them on pretty much every snap, and they get hurt a lot.

 

[Wolverine830872]

this would be a good year to have a lot of draft picks

 

[Screamin12th]

CB/S first need, DE to pair with Clark and OLB 2nd, Young WR 3rd, thats 5 need positions. 4 picks means you got to look at the biggest need. Oline should slide Ifedi back to Guard plug Fant in as full time RT and you got Jones who looked solid ( better than solid some times ) as a rookie before getting injured. Jones can play both sides ( RT/LT ). Jones showed that Solari can coach up a sub par player into someone more than capable of playing AND starting on the Oline. This is not Cable.

I myself believe the DT will get better and they did do better over the corse of the season. Missed tackles and assignments was the main issue with the big runs. Young Guys make mistakes and there were more than enough mistakes to derail a run D that at times looked very stout. Youth tends to lend itself to growing pains we saw it in the Young DT group.

 

[Screamin12th]

Why a in the box Safety is huge and will do more to improve our rush defense than a DT? lol easy lets take a look.

Here’s another thing to consider. Earl Thomas played in Seattle’s first four games. Thomas is not the best run defender, but he is by my estimation the best center fielder to play safety since Ed Reed. Reed is the greatest safety I’ve ever seen and arguably the greatest safety of all time. Thomas’s extreme range allowed Seattle to concentrate force closer to the line of scrimmage. Tedric Thompson has taken over since Week 5 and Seattle has understandably been more inclined to protect Thompson.

Rush defense with Thomas starting: 3.34 extra points added a game. Rank: 1st, just ahead of the Bears who average 3.32 EPA a game.

Rush defense without Thomas: 1.55 extra points lost a game. Rank: 27th, exactly where Seattle currently ranks

Ok I know some of you will say Earl was not a in the box Safety, and you would be right but his ability on the back end let the Hawks put a safety IN THE BOX. When Earl was hurt they did not do it as much only like 50% of the time compared to how they played before.

 

[MrS]

this would be a good year to have a lot of draft picks

the rams got TWO third round comp picks

 

[Wolverine830872]

the rams got TWO third round comp picks

dayum, from who?

 

[MrS]

trumaine johnson and sammy watkins

we kind of blew it by signing so many low end free agents, we could have gained a 4 and a few 5s.

 

[boogiewithstu2007]

So the needs are almost ever where.

It appears we have a few needs... But I don't think were far off from being seriously competitive again...

 

[boogiewithstu2007]

Why a in the box Safety is huge and will do more to improve our rush defense than a DT? lol easy lets take a look.

Here’s another thing to consider. Earl Thomas played in Seattle’s first four games. Thomas is not the best run defender, but he is by my estimation the best center fielder to play safety since Ed Reed. Reed is the greatest safety I’ve ever seen and arguably the greatest safety of all time. Thomas’s extreme range allowed Seattle to concentrate force closer to the line of scrimmage. Tedric Thompson has taken over since Week 5 and Seattle has understandably been more inclined to protect Thompson.

Rush defense with Thomas starting: 3.34 extra points added a game. Rank: 1st, just ahead of the Bears who average 3.32 EPA a game.

Rush defense without Thomas: 1.55 extra points lost a game. Rank: 27th, exactly where Seattle currently ranks

Ok I know some of you will say Earl was not a in the box Safety, and you would be right but his ability on the back end let the Hawks put a safety IN THE BOX. When Earl was hurt they did not do it as much only like 50% of the time compared to how they played before.

Any chance you think Seattle keeps Earl ?

 

[boogiewithstu2007]

this would be a good year to have a lot of draft picks

2019 draft picks

• Round 1: Seattle
• Round 2: None
• Round 3: Seattle
• Round 4: Seattle
• Round 5: Seattle
• Round 6: None
• Round 7: None

Seeing that second not there stings, for sure... my guess is we trade down outta the first, grab a second rounder, only having 4 picks is not acceptable ...

 

[Wolverine830872]

2019 draft picks

• Round 1: Seattle
• Round 2: None
• Round 3: Seattle
• Round 4: Seattle
• Round 5: Seattle
• Round 6: None
• Round 7: None

Seeing that second not there stings, for sure... my guess is we trade down outta the first, grab a second rounder, only having 4 picks is not acceptable ...

couldn't agree more. Trade out of the 1st, and get hopefully a 3rd 4th and two other late picks

 

[jerseyhawksfan79]

Any chance you think Seattle keeps Earl ?

No. He be paid by GB or someone else. Sounds like Dallas wants him but might not have enough in the bank to get him.

 

[Screamin12th]

Yeah Earl is gone, he burnt his bridge here. Plus he has been injury prone for a few years now be it just bad luck or age who cares. Hawks will need that Tag to keep Clark here and he is a much younger player with most of his prime years still ahead of him. A stud Edge rusher in some ways is better than a injury prone older safety. Sure losing the best Safety in the NFL sucks but it was going to happen sooner or later. We started seeing Bennett and Sherman mentalities rub off on people :/ to bad they didn't trade Bennett before giving him a new extension. He was worth a 2nd if they would have traded him his final season before they extended him.

 

[jerseyhawksfan79]

Seems like Pats will FT their kicker. I was hoping they let him test FA since that's a need.

 

[MrS]

i still think we need to pay clark what he wants, and then tag and trade earl for maximum benefit.

we need picks NOW, not next year.

 

[seattlefan75]

We don't get a comp pick for Earl? I really do not think we are as far off as we think. I feel our offense mirrors a lot from our super bowl winning offense. Basically it was RW making plays, an elite run game, and solid receiving corp.

What we really need to do is figure out what we want to do on defense its crazy how much better Jarran Reed has gotten we always thought him to be a run stopper getting 10 sacks is awesome.

Its clear if we want to get back to where we once were we need to beat the Rams and each time they played us this season they lit our defense up and Todd Gurley was running every which way in those two games he ran for almost 200 yards and 4 TDs. IF we cant get our defense top 3 or 5 again we are back in the super bowl hunt

 

[Screamin12th]

We don't get a comp pick for Earl? I really do not think we are as far off as we think. I feel our offense mirrors a lot from our super bowl winning offense. Basically it was RW making plays, an elite run game, and solid receiving corp.

What we really need to do is figure out what we want to do on defense its crazy how much better Jarran Reed has gotten we always thought him to be a run stopper getting 10 sacks is awesome.

Its clear if we want to get back to where we once were we need to beat the Rams and each time they played us this season they lit our defense up and Todd Gurley was running every which way in those two games he ran for almost 200 yards and 4 TDs. IF we cant get our defense top 3 or 5 again we are back in the super bowl hunt

Maybe next year as long as the Hawks don't sign a qualifying FA so no i would say we wont get any Comp picks for Earl in 2020.