Kenneth Walker is the most valuable Seahawks free agent remaining

Seahawks offensive and defensive film breakdowns and another free agency preview

Part II of the Seaside Joe Super Joes Q&A:

Lou Slugger: With the emergence of Emmanwori, Seattle’s base defense has been the nickel. It is pretty amazing that they can stop the run while in nickel. It is the perfect counter to the jumbo formations that are designed to force defenses into their base package and then they are susceptible to play action.

In the San Francisco game, on passing downs they actually switched into a dime package where Spoon and Nick were in the box, almost like a double nickel, Riq & Jobe on the corners with Love & Okada over the top They were still able to stop the run and they suffocated the 49ers receivers. I have seen a lot of dime packages, but I have never seen one where a cornerback and a safety are playing like linebackers (or at least I have never seen it be so effective).

Is Mike McDonald onto a new defensive formation or am I just out of date with the newest trends? It looked impenetrable.

Cody Alexander of MatchQuarters addressed this after Week 18’s win over the 49ers. Here’s a transcript of some of what he said in his podcast, which I queued up in this link:

“Where they are elite, looking at the analytics from this year, they kill you in the middle of the field, which has really been the ‘easy button’ for quarterbacks. If you talk to any offensive coordinators, they’d say we have to get the ball in the intermediate area.

(The Seahawks) are far and away the number one defense and I think a lot of that has to do with the way they play zone defense. They play a ton of zone. So all these crossing routes, these dig routes, anything that attacks the middle of the defense, you are not allowed to do that against Seattle. That’s Mike Macdonald saying, ‘I will give you fade routes’. So I’ll give you the least efficient throw in football.

So they’re the number one defense on third down. They win early by not allowing teams to run the ball, then they hold it.

I don’t think people realize Seattle’s offense is maybe 10th or 11th in DVOA. It’s really not even an elite offense. The defense is so good that it just pulls their entire scheme up. That’s what I said to those 49ers fans, bro you weren’t going to score the rest of the game. Did you not watch? That defense was locked in! The only way you win is by kicking five field goals and I don’t think they were going to be able to do that.

The Seahawks and Texans are on a completely different level in the fourth quarter. Seattle does more schematically, Houston is more of a ass-whooper scheme.”

I got nothing really to add.

I think it will be interesting to see how much the Seahawks show confidence in Macdonald’s scheme vs. paying free agents like Riq Woolen, Coby Bryant, and Josh Jobe.

Alexander pointed out that Seattle’s offense hasn’t been that good, especially recently, but he did do an Xs and Os breakdown of how Klint Kubiak exploited some weaknesses in Robert Saleh’s defense last week:

zezinhom400: This is a near-Super Bowl or actual Super Bowl team right now, and it’s young enough to stay or even improve from this level for several more years. Plus Schneider seems committed to re-signing his own draft picks, so perhaps a lot of our cap goes to those extensions. If you agree with this view, which players do you think get extended and what do you think will be the cap impact, and then how much dry powder remains after these extensions? And which players do you think fall aside?

You’ve been remarkably astute in calling these in the past (said neither Geno nor DK were keepers, well before anyone else was calling that), so I’m really interested to hear your views.

Then relatedly, since a team like this is prob going to draft BPA and therefore fill any holes via trade or FA, how would you use our remaining dry to round out the roster? And if you were going to pick one big signing, what would that be? I’m thinking WR, edge or OG but I guess it really depends on the answers to the first two roster questions above.

Answer: Why should the Seahawks prioritize keeping their own players, who are older and more expensive, over trying to find the next Okada and Drake Thomas?

I wanted to start with my answer because the explanation is pretty longwinded…

We have never seen how John Schneider handles free agency after a successful season, especially if certain breakout players under Macdonald could be overpaid by the opposition, so I think it’s difficult to predict who stays and who goes but:

Signings are investments, not rewards

If we as observers/fans want to be completely objective and totally analytical about building a long-lasting successful franchise then what’s the benefit to being committed to re-signing and extending your own draft picks? Players on rookie contracts are more valuable on a pound-per-dollar basis than veterans.

Taking the unpredictability of future picks out of it, who would be a more valuable player in the IDEAL scenario:

• Woolen for $25m/year or a rookie CB for $4.5m/year?

• Bryant for $12m/year or a rookie S for $2.5m/year?

• Jobe for $18m/year or a rookie CB for $2m/year?

You might get a lesser player, maybe even create a weakness, but you also have $20 million more cap space to spend on the rest of the roster.

I know: a fan could argue “but Woolen is THAT GUY who is going to be worth a salary over $20m/year”. Okay fine, let’s imagine Woolen is THAT GUY. Nobody’s entire roster is made up of THAT GUY guys. That’s just never the case. So Seattle has to be very selective of who they want to keep: Their 2020 draft class was by no means bad, but they didn’t keep any of them.

Why wouldn’t you keep Jordyn Brooks, Damien Lewis, and Colby Parkinson if you wanted to reward your “successful” picks? Because you drafted Anthony Bradford, A.J. Barner, and Tyrice Knight and you’ve saved $30 million per season in cap space. (I know…but the Seahawks didn’t know that Bradford and Christian Haynes would be that bad. They could still fix it later with Grey Zabel.)

The NFL is a young man’s league.

Almost 50% of the 2025 Pro Bowl rosters are players between the ages of 22-26

Over half of the Pro Bowlers are under 28. I’m only bringing this up to emphasize the fact that the engine of the NFL is not the handful of veteran stars per roster, but the cheap starters who make it possible to afford them.

The youngest upcoming free agent on Seattle’s roster is Kenneth Walker, who will be 26:

Jobe and Boye Mafe will be 28. Woolen and Bryant will be 27.

The only Pro Bowl cornerback over 26 is Denzel Ward, and he’s 28. The average age of a Pro Bowl cornerback is 24-25. If you could only pick one Seattle cornerback to pay, wouldn’t it be Devon Witherspoon?

For me, I’m not prioritizing 27-28 year old defensive backs who were molded by this coaching staff. It just tells me that the Seahawks have the ability to do it again with younger/cheaper players, similar to the Ravens parting ways with guys like Geno Stone and Brandon Stephens after they had breakout seasons under Macdonald in Baltimore. (And are all worse since leaving.)

Seahawks already paid their priorities

I’m pretty sure that at some point last year I said that the number one priority—by far—in the 2022 class was Abraham Lucas. He got paid. Number two was Charles Cross. He got paid. And the extension was only “late” because Cross had the fifth-year option.

If it’s the day before the prom and nobody’s asked you to go yet, you’re probably going stag or you’re not going…Right?

“Let’s just keep everybody” is how the Rams ended up going 5-12 in cap hell in 2022 after winning the Super Bowl. “Let’s just keep everybody” is how the Eagles ended up doubling and tripling-down on all of their free agents by giving them huge signing bonuses and now those players are in their late-20s and their 30s and Philadelphia is a barely above-average team with a lot of future problems.

So it’s not just for me personally who thinks that the Seahawks should be willing to let most of their free agents walk. I think it’s probably also Schneider who feels this way as a former Packers executive and someone who probably saw how the Patriots had 20 years of continued success by parting with stars just before they proved to be too old, too expensive.

Who will the Seahawks keep as a free agent?

My controversial answer would be nobody (Dareke Young and Chazz Surratt would be cheap though) or, and this is really unpopular, Kenneth Walker III.

He’s not that old, he doesn’t have a lot of tread on his tires (821 rushing attempts in four years), and he understands the assignment. I also thought this was an interesting find:

Walker has 3 career fumbles. THREE! When fans criticize Walker’s play style for trying to bounce the run outside or find extra yards and sometimes losing yards because of it, they overlook the thing that he never does: He NEVER fumbles. Didn’t do it in college and he has done it under one times per season in the NFL. Chris Carson was a reliable back and he fumbled more than four times as often as Walker.

Zach Charbonnet, by the way, has zero career fumbles. For a turnover-prone team like Seattle, it’s nice to have two backs you can trust.

The Rams extended Kyren Williams, who is the same age as Walker, and gave him $11 million per season. The continuity of bringing back Walker to continue his committee with Charbonnet next year has become a more enticing proposition by the week. Re-signing a running back looks very antithetical to the theory that you must replace veterans with rookies, but in this very specific case of Seattle’s 2026 free agents I think I’d rather have the 26-year-old running back for $10 million than the 27-year-old cornerback who could cost $24 million.

• On Bryant, the Seahawks have Okada now. It doesn’t make sense to me. Finding another safety seems doable.

• Jobe is good, but I don’t worry about Seattle’s Super Bowl chances if they lose him.

• This is not the team for Mafe.

As for what the Seahawks would do with their money if not spend it on these players, I’m interested to see if Schneider would make an expensive play for a guard like Alijah Vera-Tucker. He’s injury prone and that’s why he could be available, but a triceps injury isn’t the concern that a knee or Achilles would be. I’ll forgive the Seahawks if they lose Jobe and Bryant to sign AVT and he gets hurt. It’s worth the risk.

Rusty: I see Kubiak isn’t the only Seattle coordinator who is getting interviews for a HC job. Cleveland has asked to interview Durde for their vacancy. Any thoughts as to potential replacements if he chooses to go to the football hell that is Cleveland? I kind of think if he’s offered a job, he might take it since MM calls the defense here.

It’s important to emphasize why 99% of assistants will accept a head coaching offer, no matter which team it’s from: The money is insane.

Teams are usually secretive about how much coaches are paid, but someone like Aden Durde is likely going up from his estimated DC salary (this says $2m, but I don’t know how accurate that is) to potentially a fully-guaranteed $10-$15 million over four or five years. Maybe more. If Durde turns down a contract with $10 million guaranteed from the Browns, he could still get fired by the Seahawks in less than a year and get nothing more.

This league changes too fast—and is too fickle—to turn down $10 million offers.

The only exceptions we’ve seen are Ben Johnson, who was basically guaranteed to become a head coach as the full-time offensive play caller of the best offense in the league and could be picky, and highly-established veteran head coaches.

Kevin Stefanski could turn teams down this year. John Harbaugh could turn teams down. Aden Durde can’t turn any teams down. That would be very foolish unless the Seahawks offer him a raise and play calling duties in 2026 so that he can build a legit resume.

Even then, turning down the offer would be foolish. I mean, even if the Browns fire him in two years, he’s not dead in the water. He gained experience. He’s still more likely to become a head coach again in the future than if he never became a head coach at all.

Just look at Liam Coen: There wasn’t any heat on Coen, he took an offer from a terrible team, and now the Jaguars are 13-4. This one season will solidify Coen’s future even if Jacksonville is bad again next year.

As far as whether the Seahawks will lose Durde, that’s highly doubtful. Nobody else has requested an interview. Others could, it’s early, but he’ll have to be very convincing and a team would have to feel super comfortable that he can do the “Macdonald thing” on defense. I mean, I’d be still be skeptical if Seattle allowed him to call plays next year, so imagine doing that AND also he’s the head coach.

Replacements? Karl Scott was the only coach retained from the Pete Carroll staff. Why go outside if Scott was a guy Schneider really wanted to keep and he’s had two seasons under Macdonald already?

zezinhom400: Next Gen Stats just published their All-Pro teams. JSN and Michael Dickson, that’s it. A mention of Leonard Williams they chose Simmons and Quinnen Williams. Is this just east coast bias, or are we still lacking in those "blue chip" players you mentioned several months back?

Other than Leo, I don’t know who would qualify as a “snub” on that defense. And Williams isn’t a snub, it’s just that if you picked him over Q, nobody would argue against it.

Ernest Jones is not an elite linebacker. Seattle’s corners were collectively awesome, but I think the arguments for Surtain, Stingley, and Mitchell all make sense. The Seahawks don’t have edge rushers better than Myles Garrett and Will Anderson. Nick Emmanwori is a rookie, he could steal Kyle Hamilton’s spot there in the future.

Seattle had six Pro Bowlers plus alternates. Seems pretty good to me. I don’t see an east coast bias or a lack of blue chip talent. It’s just one list with a limit of one player per position and for the first time since Steve Largent the Seahawks have a legit first team All-Pro receiver.

Chuck Turtleman: Rewatching the 49ers game, I noticed that almost all of our outside runs were either to the right, or went that direction shortly after the hand off. Would you speculate that this was due to Cross being out/our O line, them attacking personnel on their defense, or something else altogether?

Fun fact: The Seahawks had 22 outside runs, the most in Week 18. The 49ers had four outside runs, the fewest in Week 18.

Seattle averaged 5.3 yards per outside run and 4.7 per inside run, which doesn’t exactly address your directional question, but I think emphasizes that the Seahawks were able to pick up chunks on the ground whenever and wherever they needed it. They weren’t dominant (they scored 13 points) but they were pretty consistent.

Seattle’s change of direction could be a combination of all those factors.

I couldn’t really do a better write-up than some of the videos being made by other content creators. This one specifically addresses those trap runs:

Paul G: We have the best record and the best team. Why should we care who wins and loses this weekend?

Most analysts are predicting the Rams to win the NFC and win the Super Bowl. Almost nobody is picking the Seahawks to reach the Super Bowl and especially not win it. I guess if you want some early satisfaction on that end, you could root for the Panthers.

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