Good sign(ing)s for Walker, Woolen?

When is the next Seahawks extension coming and for whom?

If the Seahawks started a rebuild when they traded Russell Wilson in 2022, then extending Abe Lucas on Thursday was one of the first steps towards Seattle solidifying their belief in the players they acquired in the wake of that move. Aside from the kicker and punter, the 2021 team is gone including the entire coaching staff, but picking up the fifth-year option on Charles Cross and extending Lucas is John Schneider’s way of saying…

“We actualy love how we handled the aftermath of trading Russ.”

(Remember when the un-criticizeable Bill Barnwell wrote that the Seahawks had the worst offseason of any team in 2022?)

Schneider loves his 2022 so much that other extensions could be announced within weeks, if not days, as the Seahawks start to form a 2026-2028 roster that they hope will resemble the team that they have right now in 2025.

K Man, who I swear isn’t me, left this comment on the Abe Lucas news post:

“Hopefully they can extend Woolen and Walker to reasonable deals as well.”

Funny you should mention that…

“If Abe, why not Ken?”

First of all, I hope that Kenneth Walker does talk in the third person. Second, it’s a fair point to bring up in negotiations:

The Seahawks just extended a player who has missed 21 of a possible 34 games in the past two seasons. Walker on the hand has played in 26 of a possible 34 games in the same period of time. Lucas and Walker are both expected to start on Sunday. Should Seattle be trying to take advantage of this window when Walker’s value is on a dip but he’s healthy?

Lucas accepted a team-friendly deal because of his injury history, so is Walker at least getting offered something—even if it’s a lowball?

Abe Lucas contract clarification

When I post breaking news like on Thursday, my main objective is to get an alert to you ASAP and to deliver the facts as we know them up until hitting “send”. There are often going to be times when an update to that news happens moments or hours after the fact…and just to be clear so far nothing has changed about the Lucas contract details from Thursday.

But there were some questions about the details of the contract and the AAV, so before we move forward with Walker let me address those:

“Did Abe Lucas tear up the last year of his contract?”

Smells Like Bean Spirit (great username) mentioned a report that said Lucas did not extend his contract to tack on 3 more years but that he tore his rookie contract up and is starting anew with a 3-year deal that begins now.

I also saw that report, but now I can’t find it and I’ve checked the reports from every single person who covers the Seahawks, including the team’s own John Boyle, and I can’t find anyone mentioning anything like this. They all say that he signed a 3-year contract extension for $46 million and incentives, which is exactly what you would expect because that’s always what happens.

I honestly don’t even know if you’re allowed to tear up a rookie contract with one year left on it and I’m not sure what the point would be for the team or the player. I could be completely wrong, I’m not an agent or a GM, but I can’t find anyone reporting this and you’d think that they would because such a move would seem unprecedented. If you have anything to say otherwise, please let me know:

“Isn’t his AAV actually more like $12 million?”

While Smells Like Bean said the AAV would be over $21 million if he tore up his previous contract, Isaac B asked if this was really more of a four-year, $50 million contract and a $12 million AAV.

I totally know what you mean Isaac, but that’s just not how all the websites track AAV. They track the new money on the extension and don’t factor in the fact that Lucas was set to make $3.7 million in 2025. If we re-worked the Lucas extension to read as a four-year deal and a $12.5 million AAV, we would also have to do this for every other player in the NFL who we didn’t do that for previously and Lucas’s position wouldn’t change much in the overall rankings.

Here are the only things that really matter about the Lucas extension anyway:

What is his cap hit in 2026 and 2027? What are the incentives? What is his guarantee?

As of posting this on Friday afternoon, the details haven’t been released yet. It’s a safe bet that if Lucas plays in most of the snaps in 2025 and makes the Pro Bowl, he’s going to see his compensation go up enough to be among the highest paid right tackles.

Is Kenneth Walker next?

If the Seahawks can overlook Abe’s injury history enough to extend him, shouldn’t Walker look like Superman by comparison?

In Buffalo, the Bills extended James Cook to a 4-year, $46 million contract with $15.3 million guaranteed at signing. Cook’s side-by-side with Walker doesn’t give him nearly as much of an advantage as you might assume:

In fact, Walker has had more career rushing attempts and nearly as many receiving yards despite the two backs having much different reputations as receivers. However, Cook has averaged 4.9 yards per carry in his career, which is 0.7 better than Walker, and I have no problem admitting that Cook has been the better player, especially lately.

Just last season, Cook led the NFL with 16 rushing touchdowns and had a success rate of 53.1%, compared to a pedestrian 44.4% for Walker.

• 2023-2024: Cook 54.5% success rate (4th in the NFL)

• 2023-2024: Walker 45.7% success rate (27th in the NFL)

But there’s more….

Last season, Cook averaged 2.6 yards before contact, the 11th-best mark in the NFL for a running back and just above the league average of 2.5 YBC.

Walker averaged 1.7 YBC, the third-worst mark in the league for all qualified running backs ahead of 1.6 YBC for Rachaad White and Alexander Mattison.

James Cook gained nearly a full yard before contact more than Kenneth Walker. This distinction puts the 4.9 to 4.2 Y/rush in a much different light!

What I see is that Walker is a superior runner to Cook (Walker is still on a different level in forced/missed tackles) but Cook is probably more of a versatile weapon and better for Buffalo’s offense than most other backs. However, Walker is now stepping into a Klint Kubiak blocking scheme — with an improved offensive line — and there’s a chance for the tide to turn back in his favor in 2025.

If that happens and he’s healthy, the price tag for Walker in 2026 could be in the $14 million+ range. If the Seahawks extend him now and risk the possibility that Walker won’t be fully healthy — or that Zach Charbonnet could just be better — his price might not even be $10 million per season.

If we compare Walker to Carolina’s Chuba Hubbard, that’s a four-year, $33.2 million contract ($8.3m/year) with $12 million guaranteed. It’s essentially the same as the Seahawks saying “We’re going to pay Walker the same amount of guaranteed money in 2026 as he would get on a franchise tag, but we’re still gonna have the option to release him in 2027 if he doesn’t perform up to the deal”.

That’s all that a $12 million guarantee would do.

Walker’s argument should be that if Lucas got an extension, then he should be next. But if Seattle prefers Charbonnet or they just don’t want to pay a running back while they have Charbonnet under contract through 2026, then maybe this is all moot. It’s possible that the Seahawks haven’t wanted to keep Walker long-term since the injuries started mounting.

But if it’s still a “maybe” to them and keeping Walker past 2025 is feasible, then they have to be exploring the “low-value” discount option.

Tariq Woolen’s number

You seriously cannot get a better contract comparison for Tariq Woolen than this: The Bucs just extended a cornerback who was drafted in the same year and the same round as Woolen:

The Bucs draftd Zyon McCollum 157th overall in 2022, 5 picks after Woolen, and extended him to a 3-year, $48 million contract on Friday. That $16 million average ties McCollum with D.J. Reed for the 21st highest AAV by a cornerback.

McCollum didn’t become a full-time starter until 2024 and he had two interceptions on 108 targets in his direction. Woolen had 3 interceptions on 68 targets, a much lower number that does emphasize the possibility that the Seahawks have the superior cornerback; Woolen has allowed just 5.9 yards per target in his career compared to 7.6 for McCollum.

In both cases, you have young, athletic cornerbacks who play for defensive-minded head coaches and who are expected to be shutdown players opposite a team’s WR1 X. I don’t know McCollum’s reputation that well, but I do think that Woolen’s biggest question surrounds the lack of tackling effort that shows up in games from time to time and the subtle hints from both Pete Carroll and Mike Macdonald that they’ve lost a little bit of trust in him.

Woolen is set to make $5.3 million in salary this year — a lot more than he made in his first three seasons combined — so how eager is he to sign a contract that could carry a $35-$45 million guarantee?

If Seattle senses a lack of impatience to secure his entire future, maybe now would be the time to extend him for $16-$18 million AAV if they can do it. If Woolen bets on himself, he might be angling for $25 million+ AAV as a free agent in 2026 knowing that the Seahawks most likely won’t franchise tag him.

But the Seahawks also know that there’s a Devon Witherspoon pay day coming in the future (probably 2027) and might feel that the best option is to get as much out of Woolen this year as they can and then move on.

Is Coby Bryant actually next?

Brady Henderson reported that the Seahawks have had talks with Coby Bryant about an extension:

ESPN reports the Seahawks have had talks with Bryant but have yet to reach an agreement.

Asked last week about the possibility of extensions for members of the class of 2022, Schneider said talks are “always going on.”

It is very unusual for safeties in Bryant’s assumed value range to be extended by their original teams, but it would be weird to have talks if the team didn’t want to re-sign the player.

How unusual?

So the top-5 paid safeties in the NFL were extended by their original teams: Kyle Hamilton, Kerby Joseph, Antoine Winfield, Derwin James, and Budda Baker.

However, 5 of the next 6 were all free agents who left their original teams (Moehrig, McKinney, Bates III, Holland, Bynum) and the exception is Minkah Fitzpatrick, who was traded to the Steelers by his original team. Then you’ve got Kyle Dugger, who the Patriots now want to trade just one year after they extended him. Then another free agent exit, Talanoa Hufanga.

Julian Love would be another example as a player who left the Giants in free agency to sign with Seattle.

It does happen sometimes (Grant Delpit of the Browns, for example) but generally it seems like NFL teams see safeties as being very replaceable with the exception of the All-Pros.

That being said, if Henderson is able to get intel that the Seahawks are talking to Bryant about an extension then it is probably true and probably something that they would like to get done sooner than later.

Seahawks 2027 roster

By extending Lucas, the Seahawks now have 7 veterans under contract in 2027, not including Michael Dickson. Although we shouldn’t expect all 7 players to last that long:

• Sam Darnold

• Cooper Kupp

• Demarcus Lawrence

• Julian Love

• Ernest Jones

• Jarran Reed

• Lucas

Lucas, Love, and Jones will still be in their 20s in 2027 and Darnold will only be 30. These names are under contract in addition to the entire classes of 2024 and 2025, plus the fifth-year options of Witherspoon and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Leonard Williams is not under contract for 2027 yet but he will most likely be extended in 2026 if he’s good this year.

As Seattle extends more players, the Seahawks will have a nucleus of a roster that could compete for Super Bowls and continuity unlike anything they’ve seen for a decade. That’s assuming that a lot of things go right but if one thing will be made clear in the next six months it’s this: We’ll know if the Seahawks think that they’ve picked the right players since hit the restart button.

3 players ruled out for Sunday

The Seahawks ruled out Uchenna Nwosu, Jake Bobo, and Dareke Young. Christian McCaffrey is being listed as questionable.

Seaside Joe 2377