Why a Devon Witherspoon Trade Is No Longer Impossible
The NFL is changing too fast for anyone to be able to predict what crazy move will happen next
The last thing the Seattle Seahawks want to do is stop being the team that employs Devon Witherspoon. Those players that blend elite athleticism with an attitude that is positive in the locker room but violent on the field are rare, so much so that ones like Witherspoon are typically only found early in the first-round.
The Seahawks were lucky to be able to draft Witherspoon fifth overall thanks to the returns they got from a previous trade and even more fortunate that he’s lived up to the hype, saving perhaps his best career game for his first career Super Bowl win.
However, football is a sport and the NFL is a business. Sometimes the NFL side gets in the way of the football side. Will the Seahawks be forced to trade Witherspoon over the difference between how much he values himself compared to how much the team wants to pay him?
That’s the first topic in today’s round of Super Joes questions.
Super Joes are just like Regular Joes except that every week they receive a separate newsletter asking for questions about the Seahawks. If you’d like to submit your Seahawks questions and comments next time, upgrade to Super Joes for an extra $5 per month. That’s less than your modern cup of coffee, right?
Just slam this button to get started:
Will Seahawks trade Devon Witherspoon?
Nelly: A question regarding Devon Witherspoon. Whether or not he signs his extension sooner or later, do you see him being traded mid-contract for multiple picks? I love him to death, but MMs defense seems able to operate at a high level with decently competent versatile players.
Bret: By my recollection, you were the first to float the idea of trading Witherspoon some time ago. With the latest rhetoric that is swirling, have you gotten any stronger sense of that possibility, such that you might call it a likelihood?
Whether you’re 18 or 80, we’re living in a different NFL world than the one that any of us grew up in.
Maybe 20, 10, or even five years ago, it would have been easy to predict that the Seahawks would not trade Witherspoon in the next 12 months for any amount of compensation that a team would reasonably offer. But nine months ago, the Cowboys traded Micah Parsons to the Packers, and seven months ago, the Jets traded Sauce Gardner to the Colts.
These moves aren’t the same as the Eagles shopping A.J. Brown or even the Jets trading Quinnen Williams.
Parsons and Gardner are young, franchise cornerstones who had yet to reach their fifth NFL season. Those trades represent the same type of roster-building shift that happened five years ago when the Lions traded Matthew Stafford to the Rams; it was the first of its kind, really. Since then, many more franchise quarterbacks with many expected career years left have been traded.
It is therefore now possible to imagine the Seahawks trading Devon Witherspoon for two first-round picks if they end up in a stalemate over contract negotiations. Brady Henderson predicts that eventually Witherspoon will sign an extension before the season, and I would agree … although I remember when Bob Condotta predicted that the Seahawks would not be able to trade Russell Wilson in 2022, and I agreed with him then too.
Wilson was traded maybe only a few days later.
The ideal team to trade Witherspoon to would be the New York Jets because they have three first-round picks in 2027 already:
Their own (which should be high)
The Colts
The Cowboys (the Jets get the higher of the two picks between Dallas’s own first rounder and the one they got from Green Bay for Parsons)
And when you look at New York’s depth chart you can see that they don’t have much talent at cornerback since trading Gardner, which is strange for a team whose head coach is a former star cornerback.
The Jets have all the cap space to extend a player like Witherspoon, but you have to wonder if they’re motivated to get better. Would they trade first-round picks in 2027 and 2028 for a cornerback when they aren’t likely to win more than seven games next season?
That’s why the ideal time to trade a player is between the end of the season and the start of the draft.
Seattle would be stuck trying to figure out how to trade Witherspoon to a contender who wants him that badly, but that they won’t be helping their rivals beat them next season, and also not ending up with a really late first-round pick instead of a top-10 pick. Knowing that Dexter Lawrence was just traded for a top-10 pick, the Seahawks should want a return that’s at least as good for Witherspoon.
The Cowboys traded Parsons to the Packers and then in the regular season their game ended in a tie! Can you imagine Seattle trading Witherspoon to the Chargers and then they lose to the Chargers by one point?
And the Jets only traded Gardner and Williams because they were tanking. The Seahawks aren’t going to be able to hold out for the excuse that they’ll trade Witherspoon once they’re out of the playoff hunt. They won’t be out of the playoff hunt at any point.
Trading Witherspoon would be complicated, but then if he decides to holdout he’s potentially leaving John Schneider with no other choice. As I wrote last week, the Seahawks have shown no willingness to negotiate with holdouts.
That’s why the easiest prediction is the one that is simple: Seattle extends a really good young player.
However in the modern age, NFL customs change so rapidly that there is no such thing as an easy prediction anymore.
What are K-Balls and does it matter?
Scott M: Are kicking balls fair? Do they need an asterisk? All of a sudden everyone can kick 5-8 yards further...come on competition committee! SSJ, what do you think?
Ray: Is a kicking ball fundamentally different than a regular ball? Same ball with different air pressure? What?
To answer your first question on the fairness of balls designated for kickers, we must break down how these balls are different. The short answer is that kicking balls are fundamentally the exact same as all the others. The only difference is how they are handled prior to kickoff, which from 1999-2024 was essentially that they came right off of the factory line — and that was probably unfair.
From the NFL rule book, each team goes into a game with 25 footballs, three of which are specially designated for kicking:
Each team will make 12 primary, 12 backup, and three specially marked kicking balls available for testing by the Referee no later than two hours and 15 minutes prior to the starting time of the game to meet League requirements.
These are “K-balls” and prior to last season, teams did not receive these footballs until shortly before kickoff, due to a rule change in 1999 that addressed concerns that teams over-manipulated the balls to make them travel longer distances. This includes accusations of steaming footballs in saunas, cooking them in ovens, and even filling them with helium.
Teams had just one hour before kickoff to prepare K-balls. That is until Resolution G-2 passed last year and now teams can work the footballs however they want to days before the game, so long as they pass an inspection two hours and 15 minutes prior to kickoff.
Coincidentally for us, the person who got the new K-ball resolution passed is Ravens special teams coach Randy Brown, someone who Mike Macdonald would have spent his entire Baltimore career with as a colleague under John Harbaugh. Every team except for the Chicago Bears voted to pass the rule.
It was so unanimous that NFL vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said the discussion lasted “10 seconds” among the competition committee.
"When you have a collective group of clubs that said, 'We think this could be good,' that makes all the difference in the world," Vincent said.
According to this ESPN article from last year, writer Kalyn Kahler investigated the claim by Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio that the new “K-ball rules” were dramatically helping kickers with accuracy and distance, but there’s still not enough data to really say for sure. What’s clear is that the difference is monumental for coaches, equipment staff, and kickers:
The coordinator and another special teams coach told ESPN that the condition of the K-ball is so important that losing the first two could even shrink a team’s field goal range within a game.
The allowed materials (water, towel, brush, sponge) remain the same, but this season, NFL kickers are no longer seeing their footballs for the first time minutes before the game. Equipment staff can prepare the K-balls whenever they wish without any time constraints (the same process as the Q-balls), and kickers can practice with the balls they will use in the game and better know how the football will feel coming off their foot on game day.
"The big difference is now the prep of the footballs is already done -- to perfection," a second special teams coordinator, who was also not authorized by his team to speak, said in a text.
Ultimately, the answer to your question is that the K-ball advantage depends on the team and the kicker. Smart ones will take advantage of it, others will continue to go about their lives as if nothing has changed. How obsessed are they with their jobs? Bill Belichick didn’t win six Super Bowls because he’s just the best coach. He is, if anything, most renowned for knowing the rules better than anyone else in the league and bending them to his advantage.
He’s not just a coach hated by most non-Patriots fans. He’s a six-time Super Bowl winning head coach hated by most non-Patriots fans.
Like most anything else — and this is good news for Seahawks fans because Jay Harbaugh is obsessed — the K-ball rule helps the teams that care the most. And disadvantages the ones (like the Rams) that don’t.
Danno: Can I give you a couple of poll ideas to choose from to gauge the SSJ community on the Seahawks?
Sure!
These are surveys by Danno:
For the record on this first one, here’s who the Seahawks drafted: RB Jadarian Price, S Bud Clark, CB Julian Neal, G Beau Stephens (5th round), WR Emmanuel Henderson (6th round), CB Andre Fuller (7th round), DT Deven Eastern (7th round), and DB Michael Dansby (7th round).
It’s not just that the day three picks have to have a good offseason and training camp. It’s also managing to unseat someone else on the roster for one of only 53 coveted spots.
Let’s see what people say. Add your thoughts in the comments too: