Seahawks have lowest-paid roster in NFL (by a lot)
What to expect from Seahawks on 2026 salary cap
The Seahawks are spending $186,826,628 worth of cap space for the top-51 players on their roster going into the 2025 season, according to OvertheCap. That is a significant number, not because of how sweet it would be to win that much in the lottery for one of life’s side characters like you and me, but for the opposite reason…it’s so little compared to the rest of the NFL.
Seattle’s $186.6 million in 2025 cap spending not only ranks 32nd in the NFL, it’s $20 million less than the 49ers in 31st place at $206.9 million.
That difference of $20 million is MORE than the difference between the team with the highest number (Falcons, $271 million) and the team with the 11th highest number (Bengals, $252 million). That makes the Seahawks a rather extreme outlier for two reasons above all:
They have $67.4 million in “dead money”, the 2nd-most behind the 49ers at $81.3 million
They still have $31.2 million in cap space, the 8th-most right now
Dead money explainer: “a salary cap hit a team incurs when a player is released, traded, or retires and the remaining guaranteed money on their contract becomes a cost to the team, even though the player is no longer on the roster.”
One of the key values that I hope Seaside Joe brings to the Seahawks fan experience is preparing readers for what’s to happen in the future — especially what to expect next year — and the evidence for that is written all over 2024’s newsletters about the 2025 salary cap:
“Seahawks cap/contract situations for 2024/2025” - posted February, 2024
In this post from well before last year’s free agency, I laid out why players like Will Dissly and Quandre Diggs would be cap casualties in the near future, as well as why DK Metcalf and Geno Smith would be on the chopping block in 2025. I even added that Cooper Kupp would be a cap casualty:
Metcalf is set to have the fourth-biggest cap hit among receivers in 2025 (and it would be surprising if Davante Adams and Cooper Kupp are still on their current contracts by then, while Tyreek Hill is up in the air) so he does need to have a big season in 2024.
I also highlighted the Charles Cross fifth-year option decision, cutting Dre’Mont Jones in 2025, needing to do something about Uchenna Nwosu’s deal, and other moves.
“Seahawks have $120 million in cap decisions in 2025” - May, 2024
I got a LOT of meat out of this article and have been able to reference it many times because of how relevant decisions like trading Geno Smith and Metcalf, releasing Tyler Lockett and Dre’Mont Jones, and restructuring Leonard Williams…all moves that happened.
Really the only decision that lingers into training camp is Noah Fant and his $8.9 million in savings if the team releases or trades him. Now that the Seahawks have drafted Elijah Arroyo, it could come down to how good he looks in camp next to A.J. Barner.
My intention to remind readers of these past articles is not brag, but to build trust with you that today’s Seaside Joe about tomorrow’s Seahawks is not full of lies and fairy tales. Just as it wasn’t when I predicted Metcalf’s 2022 extension (down to the dollar) or that he would probably be traded in 2025, well over a year before he was actually traded.