Riq Woolen trade rumors

Why the Seahawks are probably shopping Tariq Woolen and what or who could they get?

The Seahawks drafted Tariq Woolen in 2022, more than three years after this newsletter started*, and if his Seattle career ended right now he would be one of the best day three picks in the franchise’s history. That could be what happens next because when Ian Rapoport starts tweeting about your availability, it means that it is not a rumor; it is a message.

Rapoport tweets that “teams are monitoring” Woolen and that his “playing time has diminished”, which is a funny thing to say coming off of a game in which Woolen played in 92.5% of the snaps. In Week 3’s blowout, Woolen got 98.6% of the snaps.

Yes, Woolen’s playing time is related to the absence of Devon Witherspoon for two games and Nick Emmanwori for three, but it’s almost like an NFL insider is breaking that Woolen has been benched before Mike Macdonald has had a chance to do it. Rapoport is framing this report as if teams are telling him that they keep calling the Seahawks about Woolen, but between the lines it comes across as though John Schneider is the one dialing.

*Today is the 2,400th day anniversary of Seaside Joe! That’s 2,400 consecutive days in a row with at least one newsletter about the Seahawks; if you think this place is adding value to your experience as a fan, consider joining the Regular Joes club for $5 or the Super Joes club for $10. Thanks!

I was already of the mind to trade Woolen (and DK Metcalf) before the 2025 draft, one of which did happen, because now Seattle has to deal with the consequences of letting the league know that they’re trading him on a value dip. Is this happening because Josh Jobe took Woolen’s job? Yes and there’s little question that parting with Woolen right now could be a terrible idea if they were merely going to switch to Shaquill Griffin.

But Woolen is also having the worst season of his career. All of these numbers are on throws towards Woolen as the closest defender:

• 61.1% completions (worst of his career)

• 13.8 yards per completion (worst)

• 8.4 yards per target (worst, by far)

• 106.7 passer rating (worst, by far)

• 12.5% missed tackle rate (second worst)

• 6 penalties in 4 games (he had seven all of 2024 and that was already too many)

Trading Woolen in March would have meant trading a cheap cornerback with a full offseason on a new team and possibly getting back a third round pick, maybe even a second depending on how desperate the other team would be for a cornerback.

Cornerbacks are not traded every day. The Steelers traded Minkah Fitzpatrick and Jonnu Smith to get Jalen Ramsey. This entire year, Ramsey is one of only three corners who have been traded, the others being Kaiir Elam and Jarvis Brownlee, who was just traded from the Titans to the Jets for basically nothing.

Trading Woolen in March may have netted a day two pick. Today, under the impression that Woolen is being traded as a rental who has lost his job to Jobe, maybe Seattle would be lucky to get a conditional fourth.

That is if the Seahawks aren’t shopping Woolen in order to find a suitable offensive lineman, a need I just addressed on Saturday.

Jackson Powers-Johnson was a second round pick as a center in 2024, but billed as someone who could also start at left or right guard. It appears that Pete Carroll’s powers for finding interior offensive linemen not good enough to start are still with him and even extend to those who were drafted before he arrived; the Raiders have benched JPJ in his second year, barely 18 months after being the 44th overall pick.

One of the main roadblocks I see between here and Seattle trading for JPJ is answering the question of “Why would the Seahawks need to leak anything to Rapoport if all they wanted to do was make a trade with Pete Carroll?”

If Seattle just wanted to trade Woolen back to Carroll, couldn’t Schneider just call him and ask him to check with his boss Tom Brady?

There is also, of course, the possibility that Powers-Johnson is simply bad and the Seahawks question his fit with Klint Kubiak’s offense. Being a 2024 day two pick doesn’t make you a good guard and Seattle knows that as well as any team.

From where things stand today, we can argue that nothing will happen with Woolen. That he will play out his final season with the Seahawks and leave in free agency in 2026, potentially bringing back a compensatory fifth or sixth round pick in 2027. Maybe even higher than that. Maybe Seattle will even mend fences and work out a new contract with Woolen. As long as a player is on the team, he’s on the team and that means there’s hope.

But it would be much safer to assume that the Seahawks want to make sure that Josh Jobe is under contract long-term and that would mean that Woolen has to go.

If not during the season, then after it.

Are you confident that Jobe is a long-term answer at cornerback and worthy of an extension right now? Shoot me your answers in the comments:

Do I think the Seahawks will trade Tariq Woolen?

Actually, I do. Rumors are not worthy of discussion when they’re shared by most people on twitter, whether that be a person who calls themselves a “seahawks insider” or many of these also-ran Schefter wannabes (just an example would be going back to Josina Anderson’s hype that the Seahawks were almost done with a Baker Mayfield trade in 2022 or anything that Tony Pauline says before a draft) but you can book that there’s actual fire beneath the smoke when it’s Rapoport or Schefter.

Not because they are morally superior or smarter than anyone else. There’s no magic to it. It’s merely the fact that teams or legitimate team sources do contact them because they know that they’re considered genuine avenues towards inside information and that also means that Rapoport has to seriously vet what he hears and is highly aware that a bad rumor will harm his reputation. People like Anderson and Pauline do not care about being wrong, but it matters more to someone like Rapoport because he’s already made it.

I mean, he literally works for the NFL. I think the league wants teams to use him for rumors, right?

The other side of it is that the Seahawks have been parting with players who may not fit with the new regime’s program as well they did with the last regime, and Woolen has essentially had a benching for three seasons in a row. I don’t think that the trade return is going to be especially exciting at this stage of the year, but Seattle may be considering all options that lead to him being off of the 53-man roster and a trade is the one that benefits them the most.

The Seahawks could now believe that Jobe, Devon Witherspoon, and Derion Kendrick is their starting corner trio, plus Emmanwori as an option inside, and feel that Woolen is just going to revert to being a backup. Kind of an expensive one too:

Despite being a fifth round pick, Woolen is making $5.3 million this season because of performance bonuses on his rookie contract. Trading Woolen could save Seattle millions of dollars depending on the terms of the deal.

The Seahawks have a week until their next game, a home date against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Schneider probably wants to get this done before then if he has any serious suitors. If he doesn’t, then this situation could get even more awkward than it probably got on Sunday morning when Woolen saw Rapoport’s tweet.

Seaside Joe 2400