Geno Smith franchise tag complicates Seahawks 2023 cap space: Full breakdown

A complete breakdown of Seattle's 2023 cap space with a Geno tag: Seaside Joe 1435

Geno Smith’s best leverage for getting a long-term contract instead of the franchise tag is that if Seattle wants to keep him, they can hardly afford to pay him $32.4 million next season. My proposal for Geno’s next contract still allows Smith to get paid the same amount of guaranteed money (probably a little more) but also gives the Seahawks the opportunity to spread it out over four years.

With team options and void years, Seattle could keep Geno for another year or two but lower than $32.4 million cap hit for 2023 by at least $10 million. As you’re about to see, that’s money that the Seahawks desperately need and that’s why Geno’s agent is going to be able to push for a longer commitment and a bigger signing bonus.

In Sunday’s Seahawks fan survey, the early returns show that most of you want to build around Geno this year and to have Seattle use their first pick on a position other than quarterback. Thanks to everyone who signed up after reading that and I appreciate y’all putting up with my self-promotion again.

But the Seahawks have a very difficult cap situation to manage and it’s not because they don’t have enough money to attract free agent upgrades; Seattle doesn’t have enough money at this time to even sign their draft picks if they give Geno Smith the franchise tag.

OvertheCap.com puts the Seahawks at $31,042,644 in space going into Super Bowl week.

With Seattle having a considerable list of starters and backups set to hit free agency, look at how many positions that they will need to address this year.

Starting positions not signed for 2023:

QB, C, LB, DT, WR3, OLB, LS, “FB”

Backup Positions not signed for 2023:

QB, RB, G, C, CB, DE

Injury Situations:

Jordyn Brooks, Jamal Adams, Dee Eskridge