Will Seahawks hand out any extensions during the season?

Should DK Metcalf or Geno Smith be extended? That and more in this week's Q Everything: Seaside Joe 2041

The Seahawks should not extend Geno Smith during the 2024 season. Mike Macdonald needs to fix Seattle’s run defense and Ryan Grubb needs to run the ball more. The Giants won’t bench Daniel Jones for Drew Lock until it’s absolutely necessary and financially sensible. The Seahawks were SMART for going for two against the Lions. And the Vikings defense is for real.

What’s my reasoning for all of these statements? Find out the answer in Week 5's “Question Everything” segment, answering questions from Super Joes subscribers.

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Rusty: Who on the current roster do you think will be the first to get a contract extension from John Schneider?

We’ll start by listing the players who could be extended: QB Geno Smith, WR DK Metcalf, DT Jarran Reed, C Connor Williams, LB Tyrel Dodson, CB Tre Brown, OT Stone Forsythe

I guess technically anyone could be extended as long as they were not drafted by Seattle in 2022, 2023, or 2024 (hence, nobody in the Charles Cross class can be extended until 2025), but these seven names stand out to me as five 2025 free agents and two (Geno, DK) are veterans I’ve been writing about as extension candidates for months.

A recent signing like Dodson, Williams, or Jerome Baker might end up doing so good during the season that the Seahawks decide to lock him down early. I don’t really anticipate that happening though because I can’t think of anything that would compel John Schneider to act early when he doesn’t have to; if the Seahawks really want to keep Williams, I see no reason they couldn’t re-up him in March, as that’s when most teams do it.

I know Forsythe comes as a bit of a shocker, but if the team starts to feel good about him as a utility swing tackle then maybe they can fold him in with a two-year, $8 million extension because believe it or not he might get something like that or more in free agency. Forsythe has now made 11 starts since last season and with offensive linemen sometimes all it takes is experience to become popular on the market. Is it worth $3 or $4 million next year to have a backup right tackle that you’ve already been working with for four years? But this or Tre Brown is also something Seattle could wait on.

I guess the only two situations that could be described as “urgent” are Geno and DK. However, I still don’t think that either of these players are as cut and dry as say, how fans would feel if we were talking about a 25-year-old Bobby Wagner or a second-contract Richard Sherman. Back in the day, the Seahawks had some no-question extension candidates. They might also have a few next year like Cross, Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker, and Riq Woolen.

With Geno, I don’t think he’s going to be any cheaper now than he would be next year. So for me, any contract with Geno now would be an overpay; if he’s motivated to play well for the rest of the season because he knows what a good season would be worth on a 2025 contract extension, why do anything to screw that up when Seattle’s under no obligation to do so? Extending Geno Smith—a quarterback who the team hasn’t necessarily defended in the media over the past three draft cycles—four games into this season, or eight games into this season, would serve no purpose.

If he’s asking for $52 million per year today, he’ll still be asking for $52 million per year in 2025. If he wins MVP and the Super Bowl and he asks for $60 million per season, I’ll be too distracted by those happenings to give a shit what his future cap hits are going to be.

Geno is under contract in 2025, so I can’t imagine there’s a reason to do it until next offseason when the Seahawks will have at least 4x as much data and information on how he performs with the new coaching staff.

That only leaves us with DK Metcalf. Also under contract for 2025, DK knows how underpaid he is relative to his peers of a similar caliber but he didn’t holdout because it’s a year too soon. I have some questions about DK’s overall value, I would have to assume that the Seahawks have those same questions (but Schneider also has something none of us have, which is the ability to gauge what DK is worth on the trade market), and yet I also have to say that DK Metcalf is one of the most amazing players that Seattle has ever drafted.

The reason the Seahawks would extend DK during the season is that if they’ve already determined that he’s going to be a “career” player (few players ever spend their entire careers with one team but I’d say anyone who spends more than seven years with one team is essentially there for his whole career) then it lowers his 2025 cap hit ($31.9 million) and checks off a box that will be very distracting in Seattle if they don’t settle it prior to next year’s training camp.

Justin Jefferson makes $35 per year, CeeDee Lamb makes $34 per year, and Ja’Marr Chase is likely waiting out until 2025 when he will probably re-set the market over Jefferson. If DK is hoping to have a career-year (and he’s tracking that way) then he’s probably not going to happy just topping A.J. Brown’s deal ($32m AAV) by just $100k. He’s probably going to ask for more like $35 million.

The numbers all sound very insane, but given how rapidly the receiver market value has gone up recently it’s not out of the question to suggest that extending DK now could save the Seahawks several million per season.

However, if the Seahawks think receivers are being overpaid (and there’s a valid argument to be made that they are) and that Metcalf will be worth a first round pick in trade (no player has been traded for a first round pick in over two years), waiting it out until 2025 is the only option. I can’t see the Seahawks extending any players during the season, but the two that standout to me for different reasons would be Connor Williams and DK Metcalf.

zezinhom400: (Description of Seahawks defensive starters/injuries in Week 4). Trying to figure out why so many people want to bail on the 'Hawks after the Detroit game, in light of Seattle's injury situation

I can’t really speak to what so many people are doing. Is that the case? From the podcasts I listen to and posts that I’ve seen online, I’ve only heard people (not Seahawks fans) argue that the Seahawks were “legitimized” in their eyes based on how they played in Detroit. Just the first example that came to mind was from The O-Line Committee’s breakdown of the Lions offense:

The hosts are essentially saying, “I was skeptical of the Seahawks 3-0 start, but now I know they’re for real”.

Could there possibly be a middle ground that everyone agrees to meet on, which is that the Seahawks have things they still need to get a lot better at with their preferred starters + also the defense wasn’t at full strength in Week 4?

I see nothing wrong with saying that the Seahawks starters dominated weak opponents, and the Seahawks backups were dominated by a strong opponent. I think fans should give it at least another 13 agames before we say with 100% certainty “how good” or “how bad” the Seahawks are in 2024.

MTSeahawkFan: With the Seahawks-Giants game coming up, do you think we will see our good friend Lock at QB any time soon?

I see that the Giants didn’t just sign Drew Lock, but also the Seahawks fans hoping to see Drew Lock start.

When the Giants officially throw in the towel on Daniel Jones, they’re essentially also throwing the towel on Lock. I can’t see a team believing that Lock is their franchise quarterback after Jones; it would be that Lock is just an alternate patsy quarterback. So is New York motivated to bench Jones? I don’t think so.

I think of it this way: The only things that the Giants have done in 2024 is make moves that GM Joe Schoen and HC Brian Daboll believe are going to save their jobs in 2025. For example, Malik Nabers is obviously a great football player, but I think drafting him was more about having a rookie who they’d be able to manipulate into having a great rookie season because with a good receiver all you have to do is throw him the most passes and then Schoen goes to Mara and says, “Look at who I drafted!” Four games into the season, Nabers leads the NFL with 35 catches on 52 targets. (Nabers is not looking good to play this week, which is the backfire of giving the rookie such a huge target share.)

If they can convince the Mara family that all of the problems go back to Daniel Jones—a QB that they extended, but didn’t draft—maybe they can convince Mara to let them pick the next QB. The last thing that I think Daboll and Schoen would want to do is bench Jones for Lock and lose just as badly with him as they do with Dimes, because then Mara would say, “It’s not Danny, it’s YOU!”

My prediction is that if healthy, Daniel Jones will start every game until maybe the last two or three, at which point the Giants will do a “Russell Wilson” or “Derek Carr” and deactivate him to keep him healthy. He’s 100% guaranteed to be released in 2025 but if he gets injured, that does complicate things, as $25 million of his 2025 salary is guaranteed for injury. So that could be the only reason I’d see Daboll benching him this season. He’s already been as bad as any QB in the NFL and they didn’t bench him for that, so why start now?

Grant: Is Brian Flores' Vikings defense actually doing something unique that allows them to generate pressure and/or cause turnovers at a higher rate than other teams, or does he just have good players that know his system well? The little bit that I've ready sounds a lot like the same kind of defensive philosophy that MM preaches (disguising formations, positional versatility, etc.). The media make it sound as though Flores is doing things no one has ever seen before, and he's obviously good at his job, but I suspect this is also just media hyperbole. Is the Viking defense actually schematically unique, or are they simply executing at a high level with good play-calling?

Seahawks-Vikings, Week 16, in Seattle, by the way for anyone wondering. Minnesota will be coming off of a short week, as they have MNF in Week 15, but the Seahawks will be going into a short week as they face the Bears on TNF in Week 17.

I often ask myself the same question, Grant. In the same way that I’ll wonder, “Well, why not make all the plays go to Justin Jefferson until the defense doubles him and then you go to your next best option?” (Mildly sarcastic and also almost all the passing plays do go to Jetta.)

Brian Flores has been interesting to me because he wasn’t a coordinator prior to being hired by the Dolphins as head coach, and then I think he got super overrated when he was fired by the Dolphins—a lot of coaches have been fired after not making the playoffs in their first three years, even if Flores did better than most of those other examples—and now he’s building a resume that’s much better than the one he had when he was hired in Miami.

Is the reputation warranted? (I know none of this is related to the question so far.) The Vikings beat the Giants 28-6, the 49ers 23-17, the Texans 34-7, and the Packers 31-29 in Green Bay. If Mike Macdonald holds the Giants to six points this week and beats the 49ers on Thursday, Seattle’s going to be dancing in the streets. So I’ll give Flores his props for a fourth-ranked scoring defense, top-3 run defense, second in turnovers forced, and top-10 third down defense. But only time will tell if the Vikings pass defense (mediocre?) holds up for 17 games like the 2023 Ravens or if it crumbles like the 2023 Eagles.

As I mentioned to you in the other article, I will highlight what Jon Gruden said about Brian Flores in last week’s preview of Vikings-Packers (queued up here to describing his blitz packages):

“There are so many different things that coach Flores does, it’d be hard to explain them all, but one of the things that he does is he uses safety Harrison Smith as a blitz threat a lot during the game, and sometimes he won’t disappoint you—POW! He’ll blitz. A lot of times he’ll buzz into coverage and he’ll play a three-deep zone, but one of the things that they do that’s really exotic, is there’s times where they’re going to blitz Smith off the edge, then they’re going to slant the defensive end and loop the defensive tackle and contain with the other. And this corner over here rotates and disrupts this receiver and Bullard, the strong safety, cuts all the way over to one half. So essentially they’re playing a rotation coverage to the side of the blitz and it’s driving quarterbacks crazy…and I know a lot about driving people crazy.”

It’s hard to find someone on the Internet, if there is one, who is going to do a better job of describing Flores’ defense and blitz packages than Gruden. Except for Bill Belichick.

Another wrinkle of the Flores defense that I’ve heard is about how the defensive linemen shade the offensive linemen. Gruden:

“What makes the Vikings unique is the shades that they play with up front and by that I mean line shades. You might see Harrison Phillips, their nose tackle, playing head up on the center. The next snap, he might come out and be cocked favor in the snapping hand. The next, he’s over here. That goes for a lot of these guys in the front so if you’re a guard or a tackle, you might be blocking a guy that’s head up on you. Then he’s inside of you. Then he’s outside of you. Then there might be nobody, you have to go find your guy. They continue to mix up the shades, mix up the stances, and the best thing the Vikings do is they stem their front. All four. They all line up in a position where they’re not going to end up. Blake Cashman says “MOVE!” and they move to another position. They caused three false starts last week, the Texans jumped offsides three times in a row, I’ve never seen that before and I hope to never see it again, but the stemming is driving people crazy. The different shades, the different stances, everything is changing all the time. The disguises are mesmerizing and so well choreographed. We all know it’s an all-out blitz, then everyone retreats and they only rush three men. Is it all out blitz or all out bluff?”

I don’t think it can be described better than that and I’ve learned a lot more about the Vikings defense because you asked the question, so thank you! I also think these points about Flores are relatable to Macdonald and will be a factor in Seattle’s season.

Flurb: A reflection - Pondering 🤔 the bold 2 pt attempt - I thought it was called to unnerve the opponent, messaging “offenses can’t relax, Seahawks attack!”

Sucks that the out of bounds call wasn’t reviewed (sometimes refs & commentators don’t believe what they see). Our offense was moving effectively. One can say Day-twahs’ 🦁 running game could’ve converted a 2 pointer but our move, even from behind, heaped pressure on them. I predict (and I’m a really good guesser) we’ll see that again and fall in love with the strategy (unless analytics nerds confiscate it, claim they invented it).

This is one that unfortunately I think analytics got right. In some situations, being down 14 points on the road should compel the team to go for two if they score a touchdown. In Seattle’s case, I feel strongly that given how difficult it was for the Seahawks to even keep up with Detroit after the DK fumble, Macdonald’s best scenario would be to find any possible way that the team might manage to finagle a lead at the very end.

If the Seahawks convert (and in reality, they did), then they’re down 6 and an unanswered touchdown should give them the lead.

If the Seahawks don’t convert, they have a second opportunity to convert if they score another touchdown. If that conversion is good, you have the same tie that you would have had with two extra points.

And if the Seahawks fail both conversions, which is less likely than converting one of two opportunities, then they’re down 2 instead of being tied. Well, even if the Seahawks tied that game in the fourth quarter, they’d still have to go play defense again—and the Seahawks couldn’t play much defense on Monday.

There were not many paths to winning on Monday after it was 14-0, so going for two made complete sense to me. The Packers did the same thing on Sunday against the Vikings, converted, and cut the lead to six. Had they stopped the Vikings on the next drive, they would have had a much better shot at winning the game than if they were down by 7.

Let’s just hope that the Seahawks are never down by 14 points again.

Loaf Bench: I wonder, do you think the new playbook is being unpacked in stages/chunks as the season goes on? I would presume so, as to not show our hand for the tougher games ahead. With games like the upcoming Giants, having a fairly standard/vanilla gameplan that is functional enough for a win with a few explosives peppered in, while the following Niners match up see’s a more bombastic, unleash all hell plan employed. Pump the brakes, gently gently, then boom. Repeat throughout the season until it crescendo’s into an unstoppable all powerful beast on both sides of the ball, in time for the playoffs!!!!

What do you anticipate, if possible, both sides of the ball looking like in the latter half of the season? That’s a tough one! I’m having so much fun with this team

I think what you’re saying about Seattle’s “playbook” being unveiled in bits is accurate. I would add that’s probably the case for most teams.

In the NFL this season there are 15 new offensive coordinators. Some of them, like Shane Waldron, are not first-time offensive coordinators. But almost half of the NFL’s teams have changed their offensive coordinator since last season.

There are also 17 new defensive coordinators. That makes 32 new offensive or defensive coordinators in the NFL in 2024, and this doesn’t take into account head coaches like Mike Macdonald as Seattle’s defensive play caller (while Aden Durde counts as “a new DC”) and Brian Callahan as Tennessee’s offensive play caller.

It would be easier to name the teams that don’t have a new playbook than teams that do. Or what about teams that have the same playbooks and new players? The Dolphins can’t run the Tua playbook; the Browns have to abandon the constantly failing Watson playbook; the Colts are never sure if they have Anthony Richardson or not and he’s the most unique quarterback in the NFL, you can never do with another QB what you regularly do with AR-15.

Essentially, what I’m driving at is that most or all of the NFL has plays and designs and tricks to “unveil” and in that way the Seahawks are not unique, even if they did change the entire coaching staff, which is unique to them.

I’m also having fun with this Seahawks team and as far as what they’ll look like in the second half of the season, I can’t wait to find out. Usually what I anticipate is that teams tend to kind of get better at what they suck at, but worse at what they’re good at, so for Seattle they need to clean up the run defense (again) and try to not let it negatively impact the pass defense. Offensively, that depends on the health of the starters and the consistent availability of Walker. But running the ball more and passing the ball a lot less, that’s something I feel I can practically guarantee will happen.

If you’re reading this and you have a different take on this or any of the other questions, please share it in the comments:

If there’s time for it, I’ll try to resurrect last year’s series highlighting some of Seaside Joe’s top community comments each week.