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Time to Tamper (Legally)
25 Plays2 days ago
Miles talks about the free agency scramble, the Seahawks not matching expensive deals for outgoing free agents, and how football is hard to predict even for football players.
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Transcript
Introduction and Free Agency Discussion
00:00:00
Tristan Amundson
Folks, welcome in to the world's only Seahawks podcast. This is Miles Ray flying solo today talking about free agency. A lot has happened. We're still in the tampering period.
00:00:15
Tristan Amundson
Technically, all teams are doing is tampering right now. Before I get into the free agency stuff, there have been a few stories that have come out of the Seahawks in the time since our last episode when we reflected on that beautiful Super Bowl parade. So I'll get into those stories first, and then I'm going to move through chronological order What's happened in free agency so far?
00:00:41
Tristan Amundson
It's about 830 in the morning on Tuesday on free agency week. I have hermetically sealed myself off on the internet for now. Anything could be happening during this small slice of time that's totally changing the Seahawks. But I think I got a pretty good grasp on what has happened with the team up until now.
Seahawks Ownership Speculations
00:01:04
Tristan Amundson
We have learned that the Seattle Seahawks are actually up for sale. There was a bit of a bizarre back and forth during Super Bowl week with the team denying that it was about to be for sale despite the reports. And it turns out that they actually are for sale.
00:01:23
Tristan Amundson
I don't know what to do with this news for now. This process can take a really long time, and it is possible. I'm curious if this has ever really happened in NFL history.
00:01:36
Tristan Amundson
It does seem possible that Jody Allen could simultaneously be trying to sell the team and actually emerge as the Super Bowl champion next year and get that trophy from Roger Goodell next year. I'm not counting on it, but we got to acknowledge there's a healthy percentage slice chance that this could um actually be what happens, which which I think would be – it would be something.
New Offensive Coordinator's Philosophy
00:02:06
Tristan Amundson
Also, since then, we have met new offensive coordinator blind Brian Flory. He's up in Seattle. He did his introductory press conference and did some other interviews My first thought was a superficial one.
00:02:21
Tristan Amundson
And for me, it was nice to see somebody who actually does look a little bit tired in the grind of the NFL, especially looking at Coach Mack and then Pete before him.
00:02:33
Tristan Amundson
you hear about these NFL coaches and that they are in their beds and just generally in their houses for about four or five hours each day during the entire NFL season and working pretty much every other hour is what it seems like.
00:02:48
Tristan Amundson
And I can't believe how fresh-faced a lot of these guys are considering that's their schedule. i honest I can't believe a human can get through that schedule for more than a couple weeks at a time. And it seems like ah that's just life as normal for these guys. And it was it was just nice to see somebody who looks like, yeah, that is that is the kind of grind he's putting in.
00:03:13
Tristan Amundson
on ah On the real level, though, ah it was immediately noticeable that Brian Fleury, much like Clint Kubiak before him, even like Ryan Grubb before him, and much like Adon Dirde on the defensive side,
00:03:28
Tristan Amundson
In these hiring processes, Coach Mack is looking for somebody who's like him in that he's looking for a more quiet, cerebral guy. He's looking for somebody who has totally thought the game of football all the way through on a really detailed level and somebody who's going to lead basically with their thoughts and not being an intense critic of their players, a you know somebody who's really going to work his players into the ground and and try to get the best out of them that way. I think he's really looking for people and it was successful with Clint Kubiak. It was not as successful with Ryan Grubb.
00:04:10
Tristan Amundson
He is looking for people who have just totally thought the game all the way through. There was something that Fleury mentioned in his press conference that Seems so simple, it almost is not a thought. At the same time, i don't think I've ever heard anybody from the NFL mention this before.
00:04:29
Tristan Amundson
But Fleury got a question about his scheme. And, were you know, big, big important thing with offensive coordinators, what's your scheme going to be? And his thought was that he really values the teaching of execution over having a specific type of scheme.
00:04:47
Tristan Amundson
And on the one hand, duh, you know, what what's the point of having this playbook with all this beautiful stuff that you've worked on all offseason and If you actually get to the season and your players aren't actually doing what what's in the playbook, your scheme doesn't look like much.
00:05:08
Tristan Amundson
And that also seems to be a good philosophical fit just with how the Seahawks played offensive football, especially towards the end of the season. it got a lot more simple. It got a lot more focused on the run.
00:05:22
Tristan Amundson
Anyway, it's it's a very interesting philosophical thought to me. I don't know what that actually means in terms of what Seahawks offensive football looks like next year, how it could be different from this last year or anything like that. But I thought it was a very interesting thought. And I appreciate that the Seahawks and Coach Mack continue to search outside of their personal networks to find these people who...
00:05:50
Tristan Amundson
I really have some philosophical alignment, I think, and feel great about it.
Von Miller's Decision and Its Implications
00:05:56
Tristan Amundson
Another small story that came up was Von Miller, the veteran edge rusher, been in the league for a long time now.
00:06:05
Tristan Amundson
I'm pretty sure a Hall of Fame caliber player. It came out that at this time last year in free agency, Von Miller and John Schneider were talking about bringing him to the Seahawks. Von Miller instead, yeah it's okay if you don't remember this because it was a very obscure story.
00:06:23
Tristan Amundson
year for him. He instead decides to go to the Washington Commanders. You could see that Vaughn was seduced by the results of last season with the Seahawks missing the playoffs, the Commanders getting to the NFC Championship game.
00:06:40
Tristan Amundson
and this might have been a pretty tough year for Von Miller to get through seeing the Seahawks succeed. The Seahawks literally came into Washington in the middle of the year and had a really nice blowout.
00:06:53
Tristan Amundson
Washington finishes, I think four and 13, something like that, and a kind of astonishing bad year. And of course the Seahawks are Superbowl champions. What I take from this story is it's hard to predict football.
00:07:05
Tristan Amundson
It's hard to predict from the outside, and it's even hard to predict from the inside because you just know there's no way Von Miller would do the same thing again with the benefit of hindsight. But he made his decision because football is hard to predict. It made me think about J.J. Watt when he was...
00:07:24
Tristan Amundson
a free agent from the Texans, he really took a long time to make his decision. And he said he had some funny tweets about like, I take a long time to look at a menu in a restaurant. You know, I'm not going to make this decision in a couple hours.
00:07:38
Tristan Amundson
And he really thought about it and and ends up with the Arizona Cardinals, which doesn't go well. And I don't, you know, I also would just file that in in a category of, Football is hard to predict. These are all-time great players.
00:07:52
Tristan Amundson
They made these decisions about the teams they want to go to when they had a lot of knowledge, already had established their Hall of Fame credentials, and it really wasn't close to working out in either situation.
00:08:06
Tristan Amundson
All right, time to move on to actual free agency. I'm going to move in chronological order, and I'm actually going to get started with something that happened last week on March second This comes up first in the chronological order, and I'm just going to really get into the weeds here with, I think you could say, the second half of the roster.
00:08:27
Tristan Amundson
You know, it's funny, the Seahawks were looked at as a team in this free agency season. that were able to keep their core together and pretty much keep the same unit going from 2025 into 2026 and just be in really strong position to make a Super Bowl run.
00:08:45
Tristan Amundson
i understand that's how it how it feels like from the outside, from the national media, but I think being inside and following the team as closely as we do and really understanding you know even the guys who are coming up from the practice squad and back on a week-to-week basis,
00:09:03
Tristan Amundson
There really are a lot of changes that are happening, which which I'll get into. And it's, it's it you know, when you really look back and you think about it, you do see, yeah, there's a lot of pillars of this team that are still there. But there still is a lot of, you you know, you don't keep all 53 guys or all 70 guys, as John Schneider has referred to it more and more, as the 70, the 70-man roster with with your ready squad included.
00:09:32
Tristan Amundson
There's just a lot of, especially a team like the 2025 Seahawks who were so deep and just had so many valuable contributors. You just do not get to keep everybody year to year.
00:09:43
Tristan Amundson
And there's just the nature of the business in the NFL. I mean, I don't think it's possible to keep everybody. It's it's just been a bit of a sobering week in that aspect. Just like,
00:09:55
Tristan Amundson
Yeah, it's not going to be the exact same group of guys. And there's still a long way to go in assembling the 2026 Seahawks. seahawks Anyway, John Schneider gets his offseason started in earnest last week on March 2nd.
00:10:10
Tristan Amundson
And what he did was he, I'm to explain this in a second because I needed a a a bit of a deep dive as well. He tendered exclusive rights free agents Tai Okada and George Helani.
00:10:26
Tristan Amundson
Now, John Boyle of Seahawks.com had a great article that explained this contractual maneuver just a bit. So basically, the Seahawks were at a decision point with a lot of their undrafted players who were coming up at the end of their contracts.
00:10:43
Tristan Amundson
And there's a lot of those guys. There's undrafted players who have made great contributions to the Seahawks. That does include Tai Okada, and that does include George Helani. yeah i'll I'll quote from John Boyle here about exactly what happened.
00:10:57
Tristan Amundson
He wrote, once tendered a one-year offer, which is based on that player's credited seasons, an exclusive rights-free agent cannot negotiate with other teams.
00:11:10
Tristan Amundson
That's the end of the quote. So this is a part of the collective bargaining bargaining agreement that works to the team's advantage when they find an undrafted contributor like these players.
00:11:23
Tristan Amundson
The team, in this case the Seahawks, can offer a one-year off-tender contract a contract to these players which the team did with Ty Okada and George Helani and that prevents them from being able to negotiate with any other team Now, for the moment, those players are not members of the 2026 Seahawks.
00:11:46
Tristan Amundson
There still does need to be a contract that's agreed to between the player and the team, but they cannot negotiate with any the other team. So the Seahawks are at the front of the line, and I would expect both players to be brought back, Tai Okada and George Helani.
00:12:02
Tristan Amundson
Now, what this means is there were some other players the Seahawks could have done this with, but they elected not to. That includes wide receiver Jake Bobo and the fullback special teams man Brady Russell.
00:12:17
Tristan Amundson
So Bobo and Russell warden were not tendered this deal. They are still not unrestricted free agents. They are restricted free agents. So that means they are able to negotiate with other teams and But the Seahawks are able to match those offers. That's very different from how most free agency works, where it's just free negotiation and, you know, you get a contract and you sign it.
00:12:44
Tristan Amundson
This would allow the Seahawks to be able to match offers for Jake Bobo and Brady Russell. And anyway, that's the business at the end of the roster there. Thanks for sticking with me. It it felt important to me.
Strategic Signings and Roster Management
00:12:56
Tristan Amundson
Those are important guys. It feels like, I mean, obviously we're not talking about Pro Bowls with those types of players, but you watch everybody over the course of the year. Those feel like important players that you want to have back on the team. And that's the progress with that.
00:13:13
Tristan Amundson
Next move comes on March 5th, couple days before free agency. The team, before free agency starts, they agreed to a two-year, $8 million dollars deal with linebacker Drake Thomas.
00:13:28
Tristan Amundson
I really felt like this was... Pretty much a perfect piece of business. I looked back at it before this season, when again, Drake Thomas is a starting member of the dark side, the defense that goes out and wins the Super Bowl.
00:13:44
Tristan Amundson
Before this season, Drake Thomas had 41 defensive snaps across his first two years with the Seahawks. This guy really came out of nowhere this year. he won a Super Bowl.
00:13:58
Tristan Amundson
He created a place for himself in the NFL. And it was one of the many stories of of Mike McDonald using the practice squad, the ready squad, his entire depth.
00:14:09
Tristan Amundson
And just finding the right players, the smart defensive players, the aggressive defensive players. Thomas feels like a smaller player out there at his position.
00:14:20
Tristan Amundson
I kind of feel like other teams wouldn't know how to use him as well as Coach Mack knows how to use him with the Seahawks. And this just felt like it just felt it just felt like a win around.
00:14:35
Tristan Amundson
A win for Drake Thomas, ah some life-changing financial security, and a win for the Seahawks to create continuity and may retain a starting player for a relatively low amount of money.
00:14:49
Tristan Amundson
It was all quiet for a few days. Now we get into yesterday, Monday, March 9th, the start of the league-wide tampering period where things really flew around.
Contract Planning during Tampering Period
00:15:00
Tristan Amundson
know the Seahawks entered into this period with a lot of cap space. To me, that cap space felt quite imaginary.
00:15:12
Tristan Amundson
We saw a really big extension being given to Charles Cross at the end of the regular season. And to me, it just felt like that was going to be the start of a long train of really large and well-deserved second contracts given to recently drafted players.
00:15:31
Tristan Amundson
The Seahawks draft record in the last four years is just absolutely stellar. I mean, that's just just between Jackson Smith and Jigba, Devin Witherspoon, and Nick Emanwari, it does feel like the Seahawks are due for market-setting extensions basically like each of the next few years.
00:15:55
Tristan Amundson
I think John Schneider had that in mind and kind of knew that this week was not the time to push in a lot of chips.
00:16:05
Tristan Amundson
As painful as it might have been, you you kind of needed to save save space for those for those deals. Even, you know... Sam Darnold is only on a three-year contract, and it seems like a decision point is going to come up on that very soon. So I think that was the backdrop to explain this week and yesterday, which is where we saw a lot more exits than entries into 2026 Seahawks roster.
Notable Player Departures
00:16:38
Tristan Amundson
We get started in the morning with Kenneth Walker going to the Kansas City Chiefs on a deal worth three years and $43 million. dollars Now, in the weeks since the Super Bowl, the the thing that's really stuck with me from that game that Tristan and I talked about was the stat I found where K-9 had the same number of yards in the Super Bowl as Lin Swan had in his Super Bowls, which was tied for the 10th most offensive yards from any player in any Super Bowl.
00:17:11
Tristan Amundson
Lin Swan is just one of those those just legends of the game, just a totally unimpeachable legend. And for K-9 to match that in the Super Bowl is...
00:17:24
Tristan Amundson
Really crazy. it's really It's really taken a long time to sink in with me. I think K-9 will always be welcome in Seattle, and we really have to thank him for this ring. That game against the Patriots, you didn't have to sweat it very much.
00:17:41
Tristan Amundson
And a big part of that was it was pretty much the best game of K-9's career. he He really played a big part in shutting the door.
00:17:52
Tristan Amundson
With that being said, this is the fourth largest contract to any running back in the NFL. Pretty much however you slice it, the total value of the deal, the annual value of the deal.
00:18:05
Tristan Amundson
And it made me think over time, although we had this we had the best part of K-9's career, at the most important parts of K-9's career in this postseason,
00:18:17
Tristan Amundson
It did make me think a lot, though, about over the years, as Tristan and I have done this, what's come up a lot of times is a relatively low percentage of his success rate on a week-to-week basis.
00:18:32
Tristan Amundson
Pro Football Reference has created this stat, success rate, and it's just kind of tracking, okay, is the running back getting a big chunk of yards on either first down or second down, and are they converting third downs or and fourth downs?
00:18:46
Tristan Amundson
That's how they create success rate. It's not nothing as far as the stat goes. And among qualified rushers this year, and that includes a lot of quarterbacks in addition to running backs.
00:18:59
Tristan Amundson
Among qualified rushers this year, K-9 finished 65th out 71 qualified runners. it's a pretty low It's a pretty low number, and it is just a really big investment to make him the fourth highest paid running back.
00:19:16
Tristan Amundson
I think John Schneider and the team absolutely would have wanted him back, but I also don't think they weren't going to challenge another team that offered this much money to K-9. I think this is one of the the bittersweet things about winning the Super Bowl is your roster will get plundered by, you know, there's One team out there can overpay each guy pretty much is I think what we saw yesterday. And, um, yeah. So, I mean, it's kind of a bittersweet end. Canine gets his money.
00:19:48
Tristan Amundson
He deserved it. He earned that money with an absolutely stellar performance on the biggest stage possible. At the same time, you know that's the end of his Seahawks tenure. I got the feeling he wanted to stay with the Seahawks as as the kind of Super Bowl celebrations unfolded. And that's part of it. Sometimes you've got to move in order in order to get that money.
00:20:12
Tristan Amundson
Now, out of everything I'm going to talk about, everything that happened with the Seahawks, what I feel like hurt the most is the lack of a move to follow this up. Elsewhere in the NFL, we saw Tyler Algier move from the Falcons to the Cardinals on a two-year deal worth $12.25 million.
00:20:32
Tristan Amundson
We also saw Rico Dowdle move from the Panthers to the Steelers on a contract that was worth exactly the same. I really would have liked to see the Seahawks win.
00:20:43
Tristan Amundson
Even surpass those deals slightly. i think the Seahawks are in a much better situation than even either the Cardinals or the Steelers. Maybe the exact same contract would have won that negotiation. But even exceeding those numbers a little bit, I would have felt comfortable if the Seahawks did that.
00:21:01
Tristan Amundson
We do not know when Zach Charbonnet will be healthy after tearing his ACL in the playoffs. It could be most, maybe even all of the 2026 season that he's out. you That wouldn't be a surprise necessarily. Maybe yeah obviously he'll do everything he can to be back as soon as possible, but yeah.
00:21:23
Tristan Amundson
At the moment, you you just don't know how that's going to happen. And I think Algier and Dowdle are both really capable starting running backs. When you look at who else is available, I'm not quite excited about the other options. And it feels to me like the Seahawks might have missed a window there.
00:21:44
Tristan Amundson
Chris Steininger, Another thing in with these guys going out the door is the Seahawks do earn compensatory draft picks for the 2027 draft. Chris Steininger, So i'm looking at over the CAP COM i'm not sure if they're projecting or if it's a hardcore formula where this is absolutely confirmed but.
00:22:02
Tristan Amundson
With K-9 leaving to the Chiefs, that looks like a fifth round compensatory draft pick for the Seahawks in 2027. That is something nice about this. At this time last year, the Seahawks were cutting players.
00:22:13
Tristan Amundson
You did not get compensatory draft picks for players you cut. And this is something nice that will be coming back to the team eventually. Next move also saw ah player go out the door. It was Kobe Bryant to the Chicago Bears for three years and $40 million. dollars I felt like this was similar to the K-9 deal in that the Seahawks absolutely wanted him back, ated ah but at a certain number. i don't think they I don't think they really wanted to challenge the Bears to pay this much to Kobe Bryant.
00:22:49
Tristan Amundson
I think we talked about it a bit on the podcast at the end of the regular season. Missed tackles were really a problem with Bryant, especially compared to everybody else on the defense.
00:23:01
Tristan Amundson
He did miss the last two games of the regular season with an injury. And even then, he had the most missed tackles on the team, 18 missed tackles. And that stat starts to look even shakier when you look at the missed tackles just as the proportion of total tackles made.
00:23:20
Tristan Amundson
So Bryant had 18 missed tackles and 66 made tackles in total. You go down to the player with the second most missed tackles on the team.
00:23:30
Tristan Amundson
That was the linebacker, Drake Thomas. He had 13 missed tackles, but he also had 96 tackles made, just a much better percentage. And, you know, with Kobe Bryant being in the secondary, those missed tackles tend to come with huge chunks of yards attached to them.
00:23:49
Tristan Amundson
So while I don't think the Seahawks were looking to retain him at anywhere near this number, the stat that I was interested in at the end of the year, those two games that Kobe Bryant missed, we had two games total where Ty Okada and Julian Love were the starting combination at safety the last two games of the regular season.
00:24:10
Tristan Amundson
And in those games, the Seahawks allowed an average of 80 passing yards across the entire game. It did make me wonder who was going to be the starter in the playoffs.
00:24:22
Tristan Amundson
It ended up being Bryant. Okada did not play very much on defense in the playoffs, mostly just special teams. But that's pretty serious. 80 passing yards the playoffs. two entire NFL games.
00:24:36
Tristan Amundson
I do think the Seahawks will look to have Okada as the starter alongside Julian Love next year. In the meantime, it is also a compensatory fifth round pick coming from, coming towards the Seahawks for losing Bryant to the Bears.
00:24:55
Tristan Amundson
Next move. Seahawks finally keep somebody on the team. Don't have somebody coming going out the door. It was announced that cornerback Josh Jobe is retained for three years and $24 million. dollars I mean, looking back at it, feels like Jobe has been around for a while now, but this is maybe the first success story of Coach Mack pulling somebody from the practice squad.
00:25:19
Tristan Amundson
giving him more playing time, and he has only solidified himself into a starting NFL quarterback I also think it shows what a great deal that it was last year.
00:25:31
Tristan Amundson
This time last year, Job was a free agent again, and the Seahawks signed him to a deal worth one year and $2 million. dollars I think that's exactly the type of monster value you kind of have to have in order to win the Super Bowl. You just have to have some of those monster value deals together.
00:25:50
Tristan Amundson
Somewhere on your roster. For three years and $24 million, dollars I think Job is is a i mean he's a very important member of this team. and don't think you could say the monster value anymore.
00:26:01
Tristan Amundson
And hopefully that's something that John comes up with in the coming days here. New additions to this team that are just just way just just diamonds in the rough that they found.
00:26:14
Tristan Amundson
Next move, another guy going out the door. I think this is also very similar to the K-9 and Kobe Bryant deals. We have Boye Mafé going to the Cincinnati Bengals for three years and $60 million. dollars I feel like i missed out on a prediction here way back over two years ago, I think, on the podcast.
00:26:38
Tristan Amundson
I said that I felt that Boye Mafé was a ah man for Seattle, a lifelong Seahawk. I sensed that wasn't quite correct. He came up in some rumors at the trade deadline this season, and here we go. he's not He is not a lifelong Seahawk. He's over in Cincinnati.
00:26:56
Tristan Amundson
This was a pretty shocking, a shockingly big number to me. Three years and $60 million. dollars um You kind of think about Sam Darnold earned $30 million this last year, and now you're going have Boye Mafé earning $20 million.
00:27:12
Tristan Amundson
In 2025, Boye Mafé went from a starter to a more rotational member of the defense. Now, he was still he still played 50% of the snaps on the best defense in the NFL, the Super Bowl winning defense. But compared to what he had done earlier, he's really one of the only players on the entire defense who you could say had a down year compared to his past production.
00:27:38
Tristan Amundson
His total snaps were cut by 10%. And he also had career lows in sacks and tackles. So I really think that the Bengals were just... They obviously had the worst defense in the NFL last year. And I think they were just...
00:27:56
Tristan Amundson
This almost feels like they were seduced by the brand name a little too much of like the Seahawks defense. And, you know, they they were getting somebody who was was, yeah, more in the rotational mix than a locked-in starter.
00:28:09
Tristan Amundson
And they're paying him huge starter money. So again, but saying the same thing here as with K9 and Kobe Bryant, obviously a situation where the Seahawks would have liked to keep him in the building, but not at this number. And this deal will earn the Seahawks a compensatory fourth round pick next year.
00:28:30
Tristan Amundson
All right, we're here at the very last deal so far, at least before I went into my internet-free zone here.
Rashid Shahid's Future Role
00:28:37
Tristan Amundson
And that is the team bringing back Rashid Shahid for three years and $51 million.
00:28:43
Tristan Amundson
million dollars Now, if I heard that Rashid Shahid earned a three-year, $51 million dollar contract, I would have thought that it was in the category of another team paying him that much and the Seahawks also, again, having one of these bittersweet goodbyes.
00:28:59
Tristan Amundson
I had heard that Rashid's deal was going to get up into this over-15 million-year contract.
00:29:07
Tristan Amundson
over $15 million dollars per year range. And I had come to peace with the fact that we had one of the great three-month Seahawks of all time. Last time out, both Tristan and i had different plays made by Shahid as are plays of the entire year.
00:29:26
Tristan Amundson
i think it was a very smart move. I mean, it was a brilliant trade deadline move to just kind of put the cherry on top of a Super Bowl winning roster. I viewed him as essential in helping win the Super Bowl.
00:29:39
Tristan Amundson
And to me, that was worth the fourth round pick and the fifth round pick traded to the Saints in order to get him. And I was just kind of at peace with the whole thing. So it's really interesting to me that with with all these guys sent out the door, that Shahid is the player that the team decides to invest in.
00:29:58
Tristan Amundson
And it's interesting to me, not because... The team never really figured out how to use him as a wide receiver. Obviously, the special team special teams game, the returning game, was absolutely electric. Really glad to see that. I don't think you earn $17 million dollars a year in the NFL, though, just with being one of the great returners at the time.
00:30:25
Tristan Amundson
So Rasheed Shahid had been with the Saints for three and a half seasons before coming to the Seahawks. And he averaged, and then as an undrafted player, he averaged 48.9 receiving yards per game.
00:30:38
Tristan Amundson
Coming over to the Seahawks, even though you could argue he's almost a more important player, he only averages 22.1 receiving yards per game. And i' I view that number not as like a sign of Shahid's production or or a decline in in his ability because obviously he's so electric.
00:31:00
Tristan Amundson
But it seemed to me like it was just there was just so many timing issues between Darnold and Shahid, and the team never really quite figured out how to harness his speed in the offense on a consistent basis.
00:31:17
Tristan Amundson
22.1 receiving yards per game. That's awfully close to the, like, you know, what is it? 17-ish million dollars per year. You don't want those numbers to be that close together, the number of million dollars per year to the receiving yards per game.
00:31:31
Tristan Amundson
So hopefully this means that Shahid is due for just an absolutely gigantic role in the team's offense and that he provides a much more consistent vertical attack than this team even had winning the Super Bowl last season.
00:31:45
Tristan Amundson
I really hope that's what that means because if it was exactly as last year went, then I think this qualify as a gigantic overpay. But yeah, hopefully we we see Shahid set a career best in receiving yards per game at, you know, 50 or 60 receiving yards per game and be close to a thousand yard receiver because because that's what this contract is is basically looking for.
00:32:13
Tristan Amundson
As we move forward, it's pretty clear to me that running back and cornerback are the team's two really major holes to fill. The running back position does feel... I'm not really sure how they're going to do it.
00:32:28
Tristan Amundson
Again, i don't feel super excited by many of the free agents available. Maybe there's somebody I'm overlooking that the team brings in and you look into their past and you you can really see something developing.
00:32:40
Tristan Amundson
I've heard that it's a very kind of odd-shaped draft class at running back. You got one player projected to go in the top 10 picks overall, and then basically nobody is going to go until like the third or fourth round is the projection at that position. So not really sure what the options are. That's why the Algier and Dattle deals felt like such missed opportunities to me. i I'm not sure where else you'd go once those doors have closed.
00:33:10
Tristan Amundson
With cornerback, um Tariq Wollin is still a free agent. He's sitting out there, and we don't know which which way it's going to go, whether it's the Seahawks or another team signing him. You could imagine it being very similar to a Kobe Bryant deal where another team signs him to a big number that the Seahawks were just not tempted to match.
00:33:33
Tristan Amundson
Either way, got to bring somebody in. You got to bring somebody in, and... Maybe that's a position that the team will focus on in the draft. Another thing I'm looking for, and I'm not sure if the Seahawks could possibly you know consider this all with this kind of more emotional point with with all the deals and numbers flying around, but I would be interested in a very experienced veteran of the Demarcus Lawrence type, maybe not quite as expensive as Demarcus Lawrence was,
00:34:09
Tristan Amundson
But a Demarcus Lawrence type who hasn't won the Super Bowl before and could could still come in as kind of a team leader. I think I could just add a really interesting emotional component where this guy could come in and kind of keep everybody on a productive edge and say, okay, you got you guys won the Super Bowl last year.
00:34:28
Tristan Amundson
i haven't won the Super Bowl. Just in general, the Seahawks have not brought in a new player at at any level on the roster so far. And I'm kind of hoping it's a more experienced guy.
00:34:40
Tristan Amundson
I think a little bit. The Broncos cut Dre Greenlaw. He's had two very injury-plagued seasons the last couple years. I'm not sure if that's the right fit on the field and with his health. But I think that's the kind of stature of player I'm thinking about. Dre Greenlaw on the 49ers for a long time, made it to the Super Bowl twice, lost it twice.
00:35:02
Tristan Amundson
Broncos obviously got very far last year. He's been a part of of a lot of winners, but has not won the Super Bowl. And there's there's also an interesting, you know, division thing happening there. If you bring in Greenlaw.
00:35:15
Tristan Amundson
Anyway, just a thought. Thank you, John, for taking in that feedback. Thank you for joining me, running everything down with free agency.
00:35:25
Tristan Amundson
I'm about to publish this episode, get back into the great big internet, and see what else has happened with the Seahawks. Depending on how the rest of the week goes, I could join you later this week. I think there's a lot of work to be done.
00:35:39
Tristan Amundson
you know Despite all these players going for... contracts that it would be ill-advised if the Seahawks matched all of them. You still have more talent going out the door than coming in the door this week, and you you know that's not how John Schneider and the Seahawks going to leave it.
00:35:57
Tristan Amundson
So we'll see what happens. Thanks again for joining me, and go Hawks.