How good will former Seahawks be with their new teams?
Will Klint Kubiak make the playoffs before he meets his maker?
When the Seahawks take the field in Week 1 they won’t actually look that much different than they did as they were beating all the fluids out of the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
Coby Bryant played the most snaps on the defense but wasn’t necessarily involved in the most plays. (Ty Okada may have had a more visible season.) Riq Woolen and Boye Mafe were more like rotational defensive assets by the postseason. And offensive coordinators are usually talked about and rarely seen or heard from.
Kenneth Walker is the most visible change so far and even he was only 10th in offensive snaps.
The Seahawks will look pretty much like the Seahawks. But old Seahawks will look decidedly different. Literally. They’ll be wearing new colors. Who will have the most and the least new success in their new digs?
Raider-Aid?
Klint Kubiak chose a ground-zero situation for an offensive coordinator. The Raiders went 3-14, ranked 32nd offensively, and will need to rebuild almost every position on that side of the ball except for Brock Bowers, Ashton Jeanty, and left tackle Kolton Miller.
Those personnel moves started with Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum and receiver Jalen Nailor (Las Vegas also picked up Dareke Young), but success really hinders on Fernando Mendoza.
In the words of anyone who wrote about Maxx Crosby to the Ravens, “It ain’t official until it’s official”. But Mendoza is going to the Raiders with the first overall pick.
In addition to keeping Crosby (for now), the Raiders added four new starters in free agency including LB Quay Walker, LB Nakobe Dean, EDGE Kwity Paye, and CB Taron Johnson for unknown new DC Rob Leonard.
NFC West head coaches:
Raiders: Kubiak
Chiefs: Andy Reid
Broncos: Sean Payton
Chargers: Jim Harbaugh
NFC West quarterbacks:
Raiders: Mendoza (Kirk Cousins bridge?)
Chiefs: Patrick Mahomes
Broncos: Bo Nix
Chargers: Justin Herbert
So do you skim those facts and think that the Raiders can make the playoffs in either of the next two seasons?
In 2026, Las Vegas’s schedule includes the AFC West six times, the NFC West, and the AFC East. Their own division has three playoff favorites, the NFC West has three playoff favorites, and the AFC East has two of their own. That alone would be 11 games against standard playoff teams.
Ownership’s probably not gonna freak this time if the Raiders go 5-12. But there are going to be winning record expectations in 2027. Is that fair? Do you expect it?
If the Raiders go 4-13 in 2026 and 7-10 in 2027, Kubiak will be on the hot seat in 2028. So even if the “three-year plan” sounds fair in theory, how often have we ACTUALLY seen that kind of patience in the NFL lately? Whereas if Kubiak leads the Raiders to the playoffs in either of his first two seasons he’s going to earn a ton of slack for his future.
Ken-sas City
The biggest threat to every team in the AFC West is a Chiefs team with a third place schedule and coming off of the first losing season of Andy Reid’s career in Kansas City, but once again retaining defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
Personnel-wise, the Chiefs might actually come out of free agency looking a little less talented overall (traded their top cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Rams) but they now have picks 9 and 29 in the first round:
In theory, the Chiefs could go into the season with the best supporting cast around Patrick Mahomes since they had Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce was young.
By signing Kenneth Walker III in free agency, Kansas City slammed the door on drafting running back Jeremiyah Love and opened up their possibilities for going with a receiver like Carnell Tate or an offensive lineman like Spencer Fano or a tight end like Kenyon Sadiq.
Dropping one of those players into an offense that already has Walker, Kelce, Rashee Rice, Xavier Worthy, Trey Smith, Creed Humphrey, and Josh Simmons could be Mahomes’ best setup yet.
But more importantly how does that make you feel about Kenneth Walker’s immediate future?
Walker rushed for 1,027 yards in 2025, his first campaign with 17 games played. His career-high is 1,050 yards in 2022. He had 282 receiving yards and a career-high 1,309 total yards and a career-low 5 touchdowns.
Do you think that Walker will have his best career seasons in Kansas City?
Kareem Hunt rushed for 611 yards and 8 touchdowns on the Chiefs in 2025. Kansas City’s most recent 1,000-yard rusher is Hunt but all the way back in 2017 (1,327 yards), the year before Mahomes became the starter.
Is this just not a team that will lean on a running back or have the Chiefs not had a 1,000-yard rusher with Mahomes because they haven’t had anyone as good as Walker?
If the Chiefs draft a receiving player then maybe Walker will just be a supplemental weapon to the offense. But if they draft a right tackle or guard Vega Ioane then perhaps Kansas City will support Mahomes by giving him a better run game in 2026.
Boye genius?
The Bengals have replaced Trey Hendrickson with Boye Mafe. Remember when every Seahawks fan was asking if Seattle could replace Mafe with Hendrickson?
Ravens sign Hendrickson 4 years, $112 million
Bengals sign Mafe 3 years, $60 million
Seahawks…announce “millionaire tax” problem in Washington
Mafe had 2 sacks in 17 games last season. Hendrickson had 4 sacks in 7 games last season.
This is basically like a $19 million prove-it contract for Mafe and given that he is getting every opportunity to rush the passer 500 times (for one of the worst defenses in the NFL) and that he’s had some success in the past, there’s a chance that he proves it.
But there’s also a chance that Hendrickson sacks Joe Burrow more times than Mafe sacks all quarterbacks combined in 2026.
Even if Mafe has 10 sacks, I don’t think it means that Seattle should have re-signed him. Mafe will be a player who could be better somewhere else than he would have ever been with the Seahawks.
Coby vs. a guy whose name ends in Q
In order to afford him this year, the Eagles signed Tariq Woolen to a contract that only has a $3.4 million cap hit in 2026 but then it goes up to $8.6 million in 2027 when he will be a free agent again.
If the Eagles re-sign or extend Woolen, I legitimately have no idea how that works. Can they bring down his cap number or does the new contract just get a +$8.6 million added to it? I tend to think the latter, like that number is unrelated to Woolen’s next contract, but if you know the answer put it in the comments.
Coby Bryant has a much more standard deal with the Bears, but Chicago is very committed and gave him $25 million guaranteed on a $40 million contract.
That’s the eighth-most guaranteed money to any safety in the league.
Julian Love has less than half as much guaranteed money on his contract. We all agree that Love is significantly better than Bryant, right?
Drafted the same year, Woolen is a much more visible player than Bryant because of his absurd athleticism and his early-career success with the Seahawks. However, Bryant’s career arc has been the polar opposite of Woolen’s and he got way more money in free agency.
Which signing do you think will prove to be better?
It’s tough to come up with an empirical comparison between a safety and a cornerback that feels fair. Bryant will probably start more games because he’s a starting safety. Woolen might be more likely to be a Pro Bowler and he could even make more money because he’ll be a free agent again in 2027. So this question will be more abstract than the others.
I’ll post answers later. So make sure you’re subscribed!
Ken Walker’s success in KC will depend on how they use him. I think one reason K9 left Seattle is he felt he deserved to play more and not need to share RB1 duties. This belief is from an interview of Gregg Bell where Gregg discusses a one on one conversation with K9 during Super Bowl week. If he gets his wish and KC decides to use him as a workhorse RB (20-25+ carries a game) he will land on IR and have a poor season. The Seahawks were doing K9 a favor by limiting his carries in the regular season to 14-17 a game. The goal was playing deep into the post season. If he does get injured, I will feel bad for him, but he would have been better off in the long run taking $10 million from Seattle and have the possibility to earn $3 million in incentives. He may wind up earning just the guaranteed money from KC vs the full amount with the Seahawks who would have used him as RB1A where the likelihood of him playing full seasons would be higher than with KC.
To answer the void years question: if the Eagles sign Riq to an extension, they can basically bundle that void cash into the new deal and use new void year(s) to spread it out (they could spread it across the normal years too, but unlikely). (My understanding of the rules anyway)
The Eagles are on the hook for, I believe, around $400mil+ in void years at the moment (might be closer to 350, could be as high as 450, it's hard to know exactly at the moment). Even the famously in debt Saints never got that high (afaik). But all of this pales in comparison to MLB void years and figures which a genuinely broken and that league is going to face some real serious problems from about 2030 (assuming the collapse of RSNs and the incoming lockout doesn't get there first).
The NFL owners have had talks about void years and their legitimacy. Expect this to be a talking point come the next CBA, as well as trying to balance cash rich teams Vs cash poor teams. Does seem to be recognition the salary cap has become something of a joke, with Void years one of the key signifiers the intent of the system is being undermined by a minority (shocking! The rich will do anything to nickel&dime the system to their benefit when they have absolutely no need to.)