Charles Cross extended through 2030
How many bucks could a good "Chuck" tuck?
The Seaside Joe community has asked about Charles Cross and his value to the Seahawks several times in the past few weeks. My answer has consistently been that the Seahawks don’t need to do anything about his future anyway unless they either want to extend him this year or trade him.
On Sunday, the Seahawks decided that they do know the value of Cross to the team: 4 years, $104.4 million.
Only two left tackles in the league have a higher average, those being Rashawn Slater and Trent Williams.
I actually mentioned Slater’s deal in November when addressing Cross’s potential contract demands, noting that his agent could argue that at least Cross hasn’t missed 2 of the last 4 seasons, like Slater. Instead of waiting it out for more money in 2027, Cross’s agent tucked him just above Vikings tackle Christian Darrisaw, who has a $26m average.
Fans a bit skeptical of this contract, take some comfort in these names: Williams is old, Slater is injured, Darrisaw has missed 17 games in the last two years…and Cross is only 25.
His missed games from Week 16-18? Only the fourth, fifth, and sixth missed games due to injury in his career.
So no, Cross doesn’t have the reputation of someone like Walter Jones, or even Darrisaw really, but he’s clearly not bad or average. He’s good. He could become great. He’s younger than Troy Fautanu(!), a Steelers first round pick in 2024 who is also injury prone.
By locking in Cross through 2030, the Seahawks have now drafted Gray Zabel, extended Abraham Lucas for three more seasons and Cross for four more seasons, all within the last eight months. If nothing else, the Seahawks can completely focus their efforts on how they feel about right guard/center moving forward and nothing else on the offensive line.
Not many teams can say that. The Seahawks couldn’t say that…until now.
Here were some of your post-game comments after the Seahawks beat the 49ers on Saturday and secured the number one seed:
Top Comment
Sea Hawk Run! Hey, NFL. The Seahawks defense now gets two weeks of rest and home field. And the running game just got into rhythm. Playoff football.
The rest of the NFC was rooting for the 49ers for this very reason. Well, except for maybe the Panthers/Bucs, at the time. Seahawks 8-1 road record is awesome and all, but from an outsiders perspective opposing teams would much rather play in Santa Clara than Seattle.
I would still worry a little bit about the rushing offense against defenses better than the 49ers, but the Seahawks could easily face the 49ers in their next game. If the Packers beat the Bears, then Green Bay is going to Seattle and their run defense is totally average. Except in Week 17 when they gave up over 300 rushing yards to the Ravens. I don’t know what you call that but it’s not “average”.
Largentium: Absolutely reminds me of the decimation of the Broncos, just didn't get as many points. The most impressive part was the ball control - time of possession advantage of 38 minutes for Seattle to 22 minutes for the Niners. Just a magnificent game all around.
In the last two games, the Seahawks gave up 19 first downs and 312 yards to the Panthers and 49ers on the road. A little while back I wrote that legendary defenses aren’t actually formed until late in the year/playoffs and Seattle’s defense is rolling into the postseason as confident as ever.
If it wasn’t for the Seahawks having their worst special teams game of the season (-7.36 EPA was a season-low), Shanahan’s game plan may have shifted in a way that would have actually favored Seattle’s ability to blow them out, similar to the Seahawks’ large lead in that Super Bowl.
zezinhom400: Gotta tip my hat to you. NEVER thought that I’d ever see such a toothless offense from Kyle Shanahan. It was ridiculous how dominating we were. Holding any NFL team below 200 yds total is huge — but this was one of the highest scoring offenses in the league, and at home, with no holds barred and Shanahan saying it was more important than the first playoff game.
It’s just gotten to where I am finding it unfathomable that most offenses could score significant points against Seattle’s defense and the 49ers are actually, to me, nothing special. Christian McCaffrey would be more valuable to the Niners if Kyle Shanahan had him in a PPR fantasy league, I guess.
I won’t be surprised if the 49ers make a huge offseason move for an offensive player.
C J Watson: All the TV pundits were so disrespectful to our defense. 9ers were never going to put 20+ points on this D. This was a statement win!
Chuck Turtleman: To me, the biggest play of the game might have been on offense. The 3rd and 17 we converted by running K9 up the middle was my play of the game.
You do it once, you got lucky. You do it four times, you must be onto something.
IdahoFred: Oh the pundits were in love with Purdy and the Niners. Just like they had the man-crush on Stafford and the Rams. We probably still will not get any love. That's ok. Us against the world.
Not sure about pundits, but Seahawks were Super Bowl favorites before Saturday and certainly still Super Bowl favorites as of today.
Although as you say, we saw a lot of people pick the Niners this week and the Rams two weeks ago. I think L.A. is the only team that stands a chance of even calling the game a coin flip against the Seahawks in Seattle.
Bret: It’s an exhilarating win, and it makes me think of the phrase, “first among equals.” Seattle looked like the bully, but its victim was a wounded lion that couldn’t be taken lightly. It seemed like I held my breath every third down, because san francisco seemed like TNT, primed to explode. But the way the corners closed on passes caught and punished the receivers was emblematic of a game that was physically lopsided. It seemed like they paid in blood for every yard they gained.
I think that’s an artifact of their somewhat well-deserved reputation-- between shanahan and a number of very talented players, that the 49rs seem like they’re always relevant during the game, even though my eye test told me that the Hawks were just nonchalantly playing with their food.
BEGAW!
IdahoFred: BEGAW!
Begaw.
Charley Filipek: Long Live Seaside Joe, Seaside Jay, Clark, the Cool Dog,
‘n the Very Cool Seaside Community !
The Seahawks have Blitz and Seaside Joe has Charley. I thank you and agree. I’m happy that we’ve been sharing the Seahawks here every day for almost seven years and finally Seattle is in a great position to make it back to the Super Bowl.
As much as the glory days feel not that long ago, it hit me yesterday that the Panthers had been the one seed more recently than Seattle. The Cardinals have made the NFC Championship more recently than the Seahawks.
Ended the first streak. Now the next…
BR: Also ego free Sam avoiding any urge to play hero and "prove them wrong" and just doing what he was called for.
Now that you say that it makes me think of all the comments fans have heard in the last 20 years about how Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl and Brad Johnson won a Super Bowl. Well, maybe we have overlooked why they helped their teams win those Super Bowls (with similarly-elite defenses)…
Think of how many times Dilfer was beaten down for his failures with the Bucs. Think of what Johnson must have been through to be castoff from Washington after being a Pro Bowler. Darnold’s been through both of those types of situations.
So this season we’ve seen the very talented, deep-throwing Darnold. We’ve seen the conservative, take-what-you-can-get, avoid mistakes Darnold. The Seahawks have been winning with either version.
pskanbar: Emmanwori looks like he's already great. If he keeps improving on a typical trajectory he looks to me like he could be elite.
If you wanted to do a “gotcha!” piece on Seaside Joe for saying something stupid in the past, you could go grab my March era article about how Nick Emmanwori isn’t Kyle Hamilton.
He might be better than Hamilton.
Better news: Unlike Hamilton, he has Mike Macdonald long-term.
Bryant: Gotta love that defense and the ball control offense. Now if they can actually get points from red zone trips the rest of the league is in trouble, and perhaps they already are.
In the offseason, the Rams assessed that they needed a red zone weapon and they got Davante Adams. Great long-term move? I don’t know about that. Adams was pretty “old” outside of the red zone. Even so, in theory it’s a strategy the Seahawks might want to copy.
Cooper Kupp had as many red zone targets as A.J. Barner this season, which highlights how Seattle was running out of options as the season wore on: Elijah Arroyo had 5 red zone targets prior to his injury. Tory Horton caught two red zone touchdowns (as many as Kupp) on only four targets.
The Seahawks could come back next year with Arroyo and Horton and feel like that’s good enough with Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Barner already in the fold. But Seattle has to be a little worried about Arroyo and Horton’s chronic injury issues.
Horton isn’t coming back this year. Arroyo could be back in the playoffs. Maybe he’ll be the last-second seasons surprise that the Seahawks are looking for…and their opponents don’t need any more surprises in Seattle.
Getting Cross sewn up is a tidy bit of business. The price is about right, and will look even better when he's halfway through it and the prices have all gone up. He'll go from 3rd highest to 12-14 highest in a couple of years. He's not elite, but the money won't look like elite money in 2027, so I'm good with it. Having him and Grey continuing their play together is key.
I saw two hilarious interviews over the last couple of days, one by K9 on the field after the game, and one by Charbs on some network, I don't remember which. They were both asked the same question.....something like 'Do you think this victory changes the narrative around Sam Darnold?'. Neither one of them understood the question lol. Just goes to show, what's being talked about IN the locker room bears no resemblance to what's getting talked about OUTSIDE the locker room.
If Brady Henderson is right, then the $104.4, 4 year extension is on top of the fully guaranteed 5th year option of $17.56 million next year. That comes out to $24.4 million APY over the next 5 years. ($121.96 million) Of that $75 million is guaranteed. While I felt that was high, that was because I see him currently as a slightly better than average tackle. As you point out, he’s 25 and many tackles don’t hit their prime until their late twenties, and many can play at a very high level until their mid thirties. In JS we trust that he feels there’s untapped up side, and in three or four years, $24.4 million would probably be excellent value for an above average OT. If JS feels he can still be a pro bowl caliber tackle, that would be a steal! Go Hawks!