5 Seahawks entering 'prove-it' season under Mike Macdonald
The cases for and against Geno Smith, Uchenna Nwosu, DK Metcalf, and others to stay with team past 2024: Seaside Joe 1858
How the Seattle Seahawks will approach a re-imagination of the franchise in the post-Pete era is as much an evaluation of who should be on the roster in 2025 as it is who should be with the team in 2024. The Seahawks seem to be taking more of a two-season approach with John Schneider and Mike Macdonald before deciding which players will be most valuable to them as they are trying to be better than they’ve been for the last five or six years.
I’m sure that Macdonald and Schneider want to be better in 2024, that they want to win the division and surprise those who are skeptical that Seattle can do more than earn a wild card berth in “the weak” conference, but those efforts to improve now can’t come at the sacrifice of long-term health.
They can’t just take a shot for ailments that require therapy.
As it stands, the Seahawks salary cap issues this year (only the Jets are lower on space right now) figure to be just as complicated, if not more so, in 2025. For that reason, we should expect Seattle to part with a significant number of vets next year to be compliant with the cap and to get better in areas where they can improve. That means that 2024 is an audition for all vets, especially the highest-paid, so I wanted to take a break from the NFL Draft and get back to looking at players who are actually on the Seahawks. For now.
Every Seahawks player is going to be re-evaluated with the fresh eyes of a new coaching staff, but these were the first five to stand out to me as I was going over the roster this week.
P Michael Dickson
I’ll start with a name and position you did not expect because as I wrote the other day, it is all too common to overlook special teams. Dickson is the highest-paid punter in the NFL, he has the highest AAV ($3.68m) and he has the second-highest cap hit in 2024 ($3.85) and highest in 2025 ($4.25) for the position. The numbers seem small enough by NFL standards to think it is silly to bring it up, but Dickson’s cap hit this season is higher than George Fant, Darrell Taylor, Mike Jackson, Pharoah Brown, and Nick Harris. The Seahawks are essentially saying, “Our punter is as much of a weapon as our third pass rusher, our second tight end, our potential starting center and cornerback.”
I’m going to say something rude and then apologize for it: Michael Dickson is a really good punter, but I’ve seen better.
Sorry, Mike.
Dickson saw 12.1% of his punts last season go inside the end zone for a touchback, which was the second-worst rate in the NFL. Only 37.9% of his punts were pinned inside the 20, which ranked 15th. Punter stats are difficult to quantify because of the variables at play, including how many times Dickson was asked to punt from midfield relative to his peers, but I do find those numbers to be representative of the Michael Dickson I’ve seen in recent seasons.
He can make a really amazing play and put the ball exactly where you want it to go within a grass blade, but then he can be slightly frustrating for the next five punts in a row. When I think of the highest-paid punter in the NFL, I expect the punting version of Justin Tucker, a kicker who is simply too good to believe he’s real. Instead, I think that since his outstanding rookie season in 2018 that Dickson’s just been a really good punter. Not great, not outstanding, not the best. He’s really good.
Will the Seahawks address if “really good” is really good enough in 2025?
Perhaps the addition of Jay Harbaugh as special teams coordinator can give Dickson, clearly one of the most gifted punters in terms of tools to work with in the league, a new perspective that leads him back to the All-Pro conversation. Harbaugh and Mike Macdonald do know Tucker’s coaches very well at least.
Prediction: If anything, I’d expect Dickson to be extended in the 2025 offseason over being released. There’s little doubt in my mind that Dickson has another 10 years left in the NFL, at least, and I’m looking for his consistency to improve inside the 10 with a new coaching staff. His touchback rate in 2022 was only 4.5% so I’d think he kind of splits the difference from his 12% this past season and is at least back in the Pro Bowl conversation.
Don’t take the Dickson segment as an indication that I think Dickson is a problem punter. It’s just that when you are rewarded as the highest-paid player in the league at any position, the standards are different.
WR DK Metcalf
The DK topic was heavily addressed during Monday’s episode about his probable trade value, simply my attempt to curb any fantasies of Seattle trading Metcalf for a first round pick and getting cheaper, better, faster, younger. Plenty of people are younger, including newborn babies. Few are better at football, only a handful are faster (although the talent in the draft pool seems to be challenging the rarity of a sub-4.4 receiver), but DK’s main challenge to overcome in the next eight months will be to prove that the last thing the Seahawks will want to do at receiver is become cheaper.
Right now, there are only four receivers in the NFL who are set to have a higher cap hit than DK Metcalf in 2025:
1-Davante Adams, Raiders, $44.1 million
2-Tyreek Hill, Dolphins, $34.2 million
3-Tyler Lockett, Seahawks, $30.9 million
4-Cooper Kupp, Rams, $29.8 million
First, Lockett will never make it to that salary. Seattle re-did his contract this year so that they could keep him and actually save more money than they would have just by releasing him. The 2025 year is there for show and I fully expect the Seahawks to part ways with the 33-year-old to save $17 million next offseason. So that means Metcalf’s cap hit would now rank fourth.
Second, Adams won’t make that much money either. The Raiders put two ridiculous years at the end of his contract at $36 million in salary each so that the deal could break records or whatever. They won’t pay Adams a $36 million base salary ($0 guaranteed) in 2025. The Dolphins did a similar deal with Hill and it’s 50/50 that he actually plays for Miami beyond this season.
Third, I bet Cooper Kupp could be entering his final season.
You see what I’m getting at now: Is DK Metcalf really about to become the HIGHEST-paid receiver in the NFL in 2025?
For that statement to make a ton of sense, Metcalf needs to be more than the receiver he’s been for most of his career. To put it in rudimentary, not totally fair but easy to grasp terms, Metcalf is a less-good Mike Evans. Though Metcalf tested as significantly faster than Evans (about two-tenths of a second at their respective combines) they are same-sized receivers who don’t necessarily live downfield. Their jobs are big boy chain-movers and maybe only 15 lbs and an early career decision to not take blocking classes are what separate them from playing tight end.
Yet Evans would seem to have a higher ceiling and a higher floor up to this point of Metcalf’s career. Can DK take it higher?
Prediction: DK’s season challenges John Schneider’s willingness to turn down day two trade offers.
I have no idea how DK Metcalf is going to play in 2024. If you look at the season that Rome Odunze just had for Washington (92/1,640/13 in 15 games) then you could imagine offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb attempting to put Metcalf in a similar role for the Seahawks and funneling the passing game through him in a way that Seattle didn’t do with Shane Waldron.
But with a $30 million cap hit, $22 million in savings if he’s traded, and entering a contract year in 2025, the Seahawks will need to use next season as the final litmus test for DK’s peak value as an NFL receiver. He could be the second or third-highest paid player at his position in the league*, if not the highest paid, and that is a really challenging placement to defend if you’re not one of the top-five receivers in general.
*Justin Jefferson will be the highest-paid by total contract, Ja’Marr Chase will get a lot too, as will Brandon Aiyuk, just speaking for the 2025 season cap hit.
As I said Monday, I don’t expect the Seahawks to get a first round pick in exchange for DK Metcalf now or in 2025. However, Seattle’s cap challenges and the mere fact that the team is going to be evaluating everyone on the roster under Macdonald’s new staff is likely to inspire changes from all angles, even unexpected ones like this.
OLB Uchenna Nwosu
I think few pass rushers in the past two years have benefited more for being “the best edge on their team” than Uchenna Nwosu has after his short time with the Seahawks. But just being the best outside linebacker on Seattle’s defense is no longer going to be good enough when Nwosu is staring at the 2025 offseason and that’s for one simple reason: Right now, the Seahawks don’t owe Nwosu any money after this year, but that changes on February 10, 2025 when $6 million of his $14.5 million base salary becomes guaranteed. En total, Nwosu is set for a $21.5 million cap hit in 2025 and he will have 17 opportunities to earn the right to keep it.
If he is only good in 6 of 17 games, he won’t earn it.
If he is injured again, he won’t earn it.
If he plays like he did before he got to Seattle, he won’t earn it.
If the Seahawks realize they’re getting as much or more from bargain edge rushers in Macdonald’s defense, he won’t earn it.
To earn the right to call himself a top-12 paid edge rusher in 2025, Uchenna Nwosu will need to be irreplaceable. In the word of Hollywood agent Barry Katz, a quote I use often, “If you’re undeniable, you can’t be denied.”
But Nwosu’s place on the roster as “undeniable” seems heavily influenced by the first nine games of his tenure with the Seahawks: Nwosu had seven sacks, 15 QB hits, two forced fumbles, and eight tackles for a loss in the beginning of his Seattle career. Then he had 2.5 sacks (all against the Rams) in the final nine games of that season, with 11 QB hits and four tackles for a loss.
In six games in 2023, Nwosu had two sacks (both against the Giants, the worst pass protecting unit in the NFL), six QB hits, four tackles for a loss, and two forced fumbles prior to going on IR with a pectoral injury. So in his last 15 games with the Seahawks, Uchenna Nwosu has 4.5 sacks (which means he had zero sacks in 12 of 15 games) and they all came against the worst OL of that particular season, 17 QB hits, and 15 tackles for a loss.
To put that in perspective, 17 QB hits would have ranked 44th last season. The 4.5 sacks against “easy” competition, that’s basically who Nwosu was with the Chargers and the reason he was readily available to Seattle in free agency. Even Jordyn Brooks had 4.5 sacks last season and he’s not a pass rusher.
You can say a LOT of good things about Nwosu and give countless reasons for why he’s a valuable member of any roster. But Nwosu’s situation is similar to Will Dissly’s and why I kept saying that the Seahawks would release him after last season: You don’t pay a blocking tight end like he’s a receiving tight end. Teams pay more for receiving tight ends, that’s just how it works. And you don’t pay an edge setter, a locker room leader, a good communicator like he’s a pass rusher who gets 12-15 sacks per season. Teams pay more for sack production and if you’re overpaying any one player then you’re stealing money that could go to improve other positions.
Prediction: This is likely Uchenna Nwosu’s final season with the Seahawks unless he is so happy in Seattle that he takes a reduced salary to stay in 2025.
If that is controversial because Nwosu is a popular fan favorite, I would just add that Nwosu was just as popular with Chargers fans but they didn’t riot when the team let him go in free agency two years ago. Nwosu has really one year in his football life that is an outlier—the second half of his 2021 contract year with the Chargers and the first start of his prove-it season with the Seahawks—but outside of that he’s just not a hugely impactful player from the edge rushing position. What value he does have, it fits more into the contract he was paid in 2022 than the bump he’ll get to $21.5 million in 2025.
I think it is almost the Mandela Effect to look back at Nwosu’s short time with the Seahawks and be convinced he’s just wrecking the edge play after play, but I didn’t notice his presence in the second half of 2022 or his short stint in 2023. In addition to now missing most of the last season, Nwosu has to come out and not only be healthy, he has to wreck the edge like he’s never done before to solidify his place on the roster after the year.
The Seahawks would save $8.5 million with $13 million left in dead cap space if they release Nwosu before his bonus payment in 2025.
And one more thing, in case you’re expecting him to have a breakout with Macdonald: Jadeveon Clowney had a better year with Macdonald in 2023 than Nwosu had with Pete Carroll in 2022, but Clowney only got a two-year, $20 million contract in free agency. Kyle Van Noy, who was also arguably better in 2023 than Nwosu in 2022, is still a free agent. If anything, Macdonald’s presence will increase skepticism if Nwosu has 10+ sacks next season based on how the league has proven to have low expectations of Clowney and Van Noy.
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