Why the Seahawks Deserve an A+ for Their 2026 Offseason
National analysts gave Seattle poor grades. Here’s why they’re evaluating the offseason all wrong.
I finally understand why the media is so bad at evaluating the Seahawks. It’s not the writers that are the problem. It’s their worldview. Many of them are still stuck in the dark ages when it comes to how to build a great football team like the Seahawks. They think:
“Draft a lot of players…and do it early.”
“Spend a ton of money in free agency.”
“Make trades in the dead of the offseason so we have something to do.”
Now it makes more sense why the Rams have been getting straight-As for their offseason. They spent a lot of money in March, they drafted someone early (bonus points for it being a quarterback), and they brought the media out of hibernation last month when they traded for Myles Garrett.
The Rams aren’t being praised because they made their team better. They might have made their team better but that’s not why L.A.’s offseason is hailed as a masterpiece.
The media’s just thankful that the Rams have once again given them something to do when the clicks are down.
But the Seattle Seahawks don’t care about clicks. That’s why…
NFL.com’s Matt Okada gave the Seahawks a D+ for their offseason moves:
Unfortunately, the offseason has done very little to make me more confident in the Seahawks going back-to-back. They lost Walker -- who just earned Super Bowl MVP honors -- as well as Mafe, Bryant and Woolen. They didn’t make any major free-agent additions, although they did re-sign CB Josh Jobe and WR Rashid Shaheed, while also extending Smith-Njigba.
An excellent draft would have offset the lack of free-agent additions, but I viewed taking Price in the first round as a major reach. Seattle’s draft haul earned my colleague Gennaro Filice’s fourth-lowest ranking in April. The roster is still strong, so this is a prime example of bad grade doesn’t mean bad season, but considering the grade the Rams earned, it might be very tough for the Seahawks to maintain their edge in 2026.
No matter how many times the media fails at their ability to grade Seattle’s moves with any thoughts that go deeper than a puddle, from the famously bad marks they got after the 2012 draft to ESPN’s Bill Barnwell ranking the Seahawks as having the worst offseason in 2022, I still find myself amazed when inevitably another person makes the same mistake with every new year.
And I’m not mad about it.
What excites them is trades and overpaying for free agents and drafting Ty Simpson two rounds too early. What excites me is bad movies, Michael Scott doing improv, and grades that don’t age well.
It’s all narratives anyway, so watch this: I’m going to use my writing skills as a member of the media to show how easy—and defensible—it is to give the Seahawks a perfect A+ grade for their 2026 offseason moves.
Seahawks Offseason Grade: A+
Seahawks avoided $155 million in cap space commitments
As I wrote before, “You can’t lose what you gave away” and the Seahawks didn’t want to keep any of these players so why does everybody in the media keep acting like these were losses?
Boye Mafe ($17m 2026, $60 million total)
Coby Bryant ($6m 2026, $40 million total)
Kenneth Walker III ($5.7m 2026, $43 million total)
Riq Woolen ($3.4m 2026, $12m total)
If Seattle had signed these exact contracts (call it “for argument’s sake”) then they would have had to create $32 million in cap space just for 2026.
Okay, so let’s review Matt’s (and many other’s) opinion that the Seahawks should be docked for not re-signing these four free agents. What they’re saying is, “Seattle didn’t re-sign these players, therefore I have to give them a worse grade because they should have signed those players,” right? That has to be the implication.
The Seahawks have $25.5 million in total cap space per OTC:
We can’t even have a conversation about retaining these four players without creating at least $7 million in 2026 cap space. What do the Seahawks have to do for that to happen?
Not something Matt “Not Ty” Okada considered, did he?
—Do the Seahawks cut Uchenna Nwosu and/or Cooper Kupp?
—Do the Seahawks restructure Sam Darnold’s contract?
—Do the Seahawks rush to extend Leonard Williams?
Nothing regarding the salary cap is ever done in a vacuum. Every move has to fit snugly next to every other move like puzzle pieces. So the “well just sign everybody!” argument is always either illogical or bad business.
By the “Do whatever it takes to get everybody under the cap” principle, the Eagles face cap hell for many years and a roster of players over 30 who they can’t afford to cut or trade. Instead of doubling down on their Super Bowl roster, Philadelphia should have been getting rid of overpaid players over a year ago.
I blame fantasy football. I blame Madden video games. I blame sports betting.
If more members of the media regularly updated their core beliefs about roster building, instead of repeating the same narratives every year, the ones that only satisfy common sense at the most base, GM 101 level like “just spend a lot of money”, it would be so easy to look at the downfall of recent Super Bowl winners like the Rams and Eagles and see results that couldn’t be more obvious if they were tattooed on A.J. Brown’s face:
You don’t win the next Super Bowl by repeating what you did for the last Super Bowl. You win it by doing something different.
Not only will the Seahawks be a little bit different, and harder to predict by “running it forward” instead of running it back, they also have more cap flexibility and they didn’t have to cut someone or trade someone or change someone’s contract to get it.
Grade for NOT signing these players: A+
Read next: 5 Seahawks training camp moves that could shock you!
Seahawks added 5 2027 draft picks
Although free agent compensatory picks are not guaranteed until next year, we can still practically guarantee them for Seattle. Four of them actually:
By not re-signing any of those players, and not signing any qualifying free agents with a corresponding dollar amount, the Seahawks are set to receive the maximum of four 2027 comp picks:
4th round
5th round
5th round
5th round
I say “maximum” but that’s not all. Because the Vikings hired Nolan Teasley as their general manager, Seattle will also receive:
3rd round pick in 2027
3rd round pick in 2028
Sorry—did I miss it or did literally no writer in existence mention this when they were handing out offseason grades for the Seahawks? John Schneider strategically navigated the offseason with the intention to receive four comp picks, but the reigning Executive of the Year got zero benefit of the doubt from writers who couldn’t think past “first-round…running back?!?!”
Do I think that Jadarian Price was the best possible choice in the first-round? Not especially.
But did these writers forget about the draft picks, not know about the draft picks, or not care about the draft picks? I’m not sure which of those answers would be worse, they’re all pretty bad if writing about football is your job.
Schneider also used this haul to his advantage when he felt it necessary to make a move, trading a 2027 fourth-round pick in order to draft Beau Stephens because he knows Seattle is in for a massive day three pick infusion next year. Schneider’s “lack of moves” in March—which is just par for the course if you’ve been paying attention to Seahawks free agency at all for the last 15 years—leads to a flurry of moves later on.
Are we the only ones who made that connection?
Grade for draft pick infusion: A+
Turned 4 draft picks into 8 draft picks
And didn’t even need to trade out of the first-round to do it. This is not an illusion or a magic eye trick. The Seahawks entered the draft with four picks and ended with this class:
Seattle even retained their original picks at 32 and 64, but Schneider was still able to double the size of the class with a handful of subtle and under-appreciated moves, mostly on day three when most writers have already gone back to playing video games.
Sure, half of these players may not even make the 53-man roster, but even if that’s the case, that would still leave them with the same number of picks that they had prior to the draft. And the other four would likely end up on the practice squad, which may not have been the case without these picks.
So when you see writer’s grade moves like this:
And then give Seattle a D+, it’s easy to see that they’re not able to look beyond the top-10 picks of the draft. They don’t factor in variables like how bad a team has to be to fire the head coach, trade away a star player, and pick in the top-five of the draft. Some people can only appreciate the types of moves that are obvious, like drafting a great prospect early, and not the ones that take far more work because in the NFL teams are punished for success.
Grade for doubling the class: A+
Signed Josh Jobe for $8m/year
Overlooking the Jobe contract isn’t too surprising, given that Seattle really didn’t get that much credit for managing to re-sign Ernest Jones IV at $9.5 million per year in 2025 either.
Jobe’s two most-recent notes at NFL Pro highlight dominant statistical performances against the 49ers in the divisional round and the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Drake Maye threw at Jobe 11 times and got 20 yards.
Jobe’s $8m AAV salary ranks 37th among all cornerbacks. But sure, give the Seahawks an “F” because they didn’t re-sign a worse cornerback for more money.
Grade for signing Jobe instead of Woolen: A+++
Didn’t lose John Benton
When Klint Kubiak went to the Raiders, he took quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko and consultant Rick Dennison with him, but he didn’t get offensive line coach John Benton. I would rather lose Kubiak and keep Benton than lose Benton and keep Kubiak.
Benton was the one coach who Seahawks fans should have been legitimately afraid of losing and Seattle kept him against all odds. Did that make the grades…ANYWHERE?
Grade for keeping John Benton: A+
Kept Special Teams together
The Seahawks matched Jake Bobo’s contract with the Jaguars and extended Brady Russell, the latter of whom could be next season’s All-Pro representation for special teams. As I wrote last week, not only was Seattle’s special teams elite last season but they’ve also set themselves up to be even better in 2026.
Of Seattle’s top-25 players in special teams snaps in 2025, TWENTY-FOUR are still on the roster!
They did not just retain Bobo and Russell, they also re-signed Rashid Shaheed, traded for Irvin Charles, brought back D’Anthony Bell, added Rodney Thomas II, and drafted or signed several undrafted free agents who specialize in special teams.
The Shaheed contract is a bit rich for me as a receiver ($18m/year) but he did put the Seahawks in position to win multiple high-stakes games with return touchdowns.
We already know that most writers don’t even realize that football has a third phase, let alone that special teams propelled Seattle over their competition, but this is a heavily-weighted variable in my grades.
Grade for improving special teams: A++
Signed VALUE free agents, not Flashy ones
My wife and I are watching The Wire (I’ve seen it before, she hasn’t) and in season two there’s this character “Ziggy” who makes every mistake in the book, like flashing his cash around town and predictably getting punked because he thinks money gives you power; but sometimes money just makes you a mark to be used by the powerful.
That’s what I think of teams that spend all their money in free agency. They’re the Ziggys of the NFL.
The Seahawks never do this. In the rare instance when they do, like signing Sam Darnold last year, it’s only when the opportunity is too good to be true and even Darnold was cheaper than he should have been.
But despite how consistently the Seahawks win, they rarely get credit for the value moves that help them win. I have no idea how these players will perform, but Seattle is repeating the formula:
RB Emanuel Wilson
OLB Dante Fowler
CB Noah Igbinoghene
S Rodney Thomas
TE Harrison Bryant
S D’Anthony Bell
OT Bobby Hart
The combined 2026 cap hit of all those players? $10.8 million—less than just having Woolen—and that’s just total money. Not guaranteed money. Seattle took almost no risks on the guarantees and some of those players will not make the team anyway. It’s more probable than not that Schneider found at least one great value in that bunch. I’ll guess that it’s Igbinoghene.
Think of how valuable Eric Saubert was last season when the Seahawks signed him to a one-year, $1.4 million contract. Certainly more valuable than Noah Fant, who was making $7.5 million in his last year with Seattle!
Grade for being smart (Nicky), not stupid (Ziggy): A+
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Extended Jaxon Smith-Njigba
The Rams traded a first-round pick for Trent McDuffie and a first-round pick, Jared Verse, and more for Myles Garrett, and will have to pay out many tens of millions for those two. Seattle already had Jaxon Smith-Njigba and they signed him before Puka Nacua or any other receivers got extended and raised the price.
Nobody’s mentioning that the Seahawks actually got a discount by extending JSN before any other receivers got extended.
Added Brian Fleury
Not sure how this one will work out.
Grade for new OC: Incomplete
So let me see, I’ll need to add up these grades and figure out what the average is, I have no idea how this will turn out…hmm…carry the A, divide by +, grade on a curve…Wow! When this exercise started, I thought the Seahawks would end up with a F, maybe a D-. I can’t believe this: