Seahawks sign versatile defensive back who was breakout player on Giants in 2022
Seattle is spending like it can't eat enough: Seaside Joe 1476
The Seattle Seahawks are uncharacteristically ripping through the first week of free agency, but managing to do so on a reasonable budget. This reminds me of recently going to the Bacchanal Buffett in Las Vegas with Seaside Jay, considered by many to be the premier all-you-can eat option of its kind on the Strip: Yes, you’re paying $80 per person for sort of a novelty meal with a 90-minute time limit.
But I’ll be damned if we don’t eat $200 worth of crab legs in the process.
The Seahawks went back for fourths on Friday, signing safety/cornerback/positionless defensive back Julian Love to a two-year, $12 million contract. Seattle has a bevy of defensive back options now, including Quandre Diggs, Jamal Adams, and soon (probably) Ryan Neal at safety, with Tariq Woolen, Coby Bryant, Mike Jackson, and Tre Brown at cornerback. Love, who met with the Seahawks on Thursday after posting a career-high 1,006 snaps in Wink Martindale’s Giants defense last season, figures to be more than just a safety under Pete Carroll and Clint Hurtt.
Love has been durable, playing in 64 games over four seasons, plus two playoff games in 2022, and he recorded 124 tackles last year as a “positionless player”, as Martindale calls all of his guys. We should expect Seattle to often have at least five defensive backs on the field on defense next season, all the moves so far would point in that direction, as well as their amount of 3-3-5 run in 2022.
Hopefully with better results this time.
The signing of Love follows the late Thursday signing of linebacker Devin Bush, which came hours after the team re-locked Drew Lock and added center Evan Brown. Pete and John Schneider have also signed defensive end Dre’Mont Jones and former Seahawks draft pick Jarran Reed. There are still rumors out there that the team would like to bring back Bobby Wagner, as other linebackers continue to sign, shrinking his market more by the day.
There’s no time limit. But the roster is getting full.
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Lock, Bush & Love will use up most of the remaining $7mil we had left on the effective cap, and frankly a really good way to spend it. Consider there's an every increasing chance Adams gets the post-June 1st cut and we still have a nice slice of money left by dipping into the total cap space and making some other cuts and restructures (waiting for the Nuwosu extension)!
I'd love another LB, ideally Tranquill. I'd love another DL, ideally Ioannidis or Gaines. And i'd love a WR, I dream of Thielen but more realistically Mack Hollins is still on the board. Maybe we could slip in a RB and another OLineman. Frankly JS seems completely ontop of things so i'll just excitedly sit back smiling and content.
I think John and Pete know that the success of last year‘s draft is statistically a pretty big outlier. So they are now emphasizing talent that is fairly well tested rather than depending on how lucky they can get in the draft again. Having said that, with some well chosen draft picks, they might indeed be able to make up for their rather poor record overall in the draft and significantly strengthen the team longer term with (maybe-maybe )a few more great young players.