$342,600,000. That’s how much money the Seattle Seahawks spent this year on extensions for players who they drafted in 2023, and it so easily could have not gone that way if the team had a weaker front office that was as quarterback-obsessed as most of the NFL.
As Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Devon Witherspoon, and Derick Hall helped lead the Seahawks to a win without Sam Darnold, it’s worth remembering how many people would have rather seen John Schneider trade up for Anthony Richardson — or never trade away Russell Wilson — than have these players. That’s not a criticism, it’s just a fact. It’s what many people wanted, or were told they should want by quarterback-obsessed Seahawks writers.
But the Seahawks have rarely acted as a franchise that believes a team only goes as far as its quarterback and that philosophy continues to work for Seattle in moments when the only place their quarterback is headed was Harborview Medical Center.
Instead, the best quarterback performance through two games is not by reigning MVP Matthew Stafford or runner-up Drake Maye. It’s not even by Darnold.
It’s not a stretch to say that most general managers would have caved to Wilson’s contract demands in 2022, not traded him. Look no further than Baker Mayfield, a quarterback with zero career achievements now making $55 million per season (two playoff wins in eight years) because the Buccaneers are afraid of life without him.
If the NFL shuttered tomorrow, Daniel Jones will have made at least $60 million more in career earnings than Darnold.
And I know many of you are fans of these quarterbacks, like Mayfield and Jones and C.J. Stroud, as well as Darnold. I’m a fan of Darnold. I think the Seahawks probably should and will extend Darnold after the season.
But if the results of the post-Russ trade universe aren’t evidence enough to us that Seattle doesn’t have to be strong-armed by a quarterback in order to succeed, nothing ever will convince you of that.
The Seahawks turned Wilson’s contract demands into two first-round picks, two second-round picks, Drew Lock’s allegiance, an immense amount of cap space and spending cash, and a Super Bowl championship. It’s a success story still mostly centered around Schneider’s phenomenal work in the 2023 draft with two picks in the top-20 and four picks in the top-60.
A story of the players who they drafted, but also the ones who they didn’t. Let’s look at just how much differently — and worse — the 2023 draft could have gone.