Seahawks initial practice squad
Seahawks put 15 players on their intial 2024 practice squad, but lose 2 others to claims by the Panthers: Seaside Joe 2006
“Nothing good gets away”
John Steinbeck may have been referencing romantic love when he wrote that sentence, but it could also apply to most cases of a player getting claimed after final cuts. The Seahawks had two cut players claimed on Wednesday, both by the Carolina Panthers.
Fittingly, a former NFL linebacker who also worked in Seattle’s front office after his playing days has claimed two Seahawks linebackers for the Panthers neverending rebuild: After missing the cut Tuesday, Jamie Sheriff and Jon Rhattigan are on a 53-man roster today.
If you have any negative feelings about that news whatsoever (ex: “Ah, the Seahawks lost a good one!”), I would suggest turning them into a positive by simply rooting for one or both of these players to succeed because I assure you that the odds of either having a sustained impact in the NFL continue to be stacked against them. That’s not me criticizing Sheriff or Rhattigan with any specifics, it’s just an observation of how few players in history have been undrafted, then cut, then claimed (or not claimed), prior to then having significant careers.
One of the best players in Seahawks history to not make the team’s initial 53-man roster and then got claimed by another team, running back Justin Forsett, still spent the majority of that season and the next three years with Seattle.
Sheriff and Rhattigan are on the Panthers today. They are not guaranteed to be on the Panthers in Week 18, or even in Week 1. But if you really, really think that the Seahawks let a good one get away, I’d say just root for him even if it’s not with the Seahawks. It’s a very tough blow to be released by an NFL team before you’ve even had a career, and getting claimed by a new team can sometimes only add to the obstacles in front of you because now they must prove themselves again to a new coaching staff and Carolina could waive Sheriff and Rhattigan at…any…time.
I’d say that at least one of them won’t make it through a full season with the Panthers.
For example, the Panthers claimed an NFL-high six players on Wednesday. The team to do that last year was the Arizona Cardinals, claiming six players in 2023. Of the six, three remain on Arizona’s roster as backups, but three didn’t make it and two of those (Ilm Manning, K’Von Wallace) were in Seahawks camp this year; of course, Wallace made Seattle’s final roster.
So don’t curse the Seahawks for waiving Sheriff (it seems the team was ultimately more comfortable with Trevis Gipson, a somewhat known commodity with four years of NFL experience, over rolling the dice on a player without any), bless the players who got claimed because they’re going to need all the support they can get in order to sustain the careers that supposedly “got away”.
If they’re that good…they might come back.
Practice Squad
The Seahawks had to make a 16-man practice squad by Wednesday and so they did:
*Burns is expected to be called up for Week 1’s game against the Broncos
^Max Pircher is in the International Pathway Program, so I believe what everyone has said all year is that he would not count against Seattle’s practice squad limit (the only reason I’d be unsure is that this is Pircher’s fourth year of being a practice squad player in the IPP, and I believe that exception expires at a certain point). Regardless, the Seahawks only have 15 players on the practice squad right now.
Jack Westover: Injury Settlement (season over if he goes unclaimed, reverts to Seattle’s IR)
Seahawks practice squad
RB George Holani
WR Easop Winston
OT Garret Greenfield
OL Raiqwon O’Neal
TE Tyler Mabry
T McClendon Curtis
T Max Pircher^
WR Cody White
DL DeVere Levelston
S Marquise Blair
LB Patrick O’Connell
DT Kyon Barrs
CB Artie Burns*
S Ty Okada
LB Michael Barrett
There were reports on Wednesday morning that the Seahawks were bringing back OLB Tyreke Smith to be on the practice squad, but as you can see he’s not listed in the announcement.
SEA MORE COMMENTS:
- 16 players per squad * 32 teams = 512 players who are on practice squads as of tonight. Of course, give or take a few...there will be IPP exceptions, there will be teams that don't carry 16 players tonight, but maybe we call it about 500 players, right? And then between now and the end of the year, how many guys not on practice squads today will be added to a practice squad? I have no idea. I had to even guess. But it's quite a few, right?
What I'm getting at is that out of the 500 or 600 or 700 guys who will be on a practice squad this year, the percentage who will be starting for an NFL team by 2025 or 2026 must be a really low number. Maybe someone in the comments has some more facts/stats on this, I'm not sure if anyone outside of the NFL or NFLPA has ever studied it. In my experience of annually writing about guys who got cut or who made the practice squad dating back to 2011, I could probably count the number of future starters on two hands, if not one hand.
Chances of going from playing high school football to college football: 6.8%
Chances of those same HS players playing Division-1 football: 2.6%
Chances that a draft eligible college player will be drafted: 1.5%
Chances of going from playing HS football to being drafted into the NFL: .023% (roughly 230 per 1,000,000).
A guy like Jamie Sheriff is already waayyyyyyyy beyond the point he was ever supposed to get to as a football player and he wasn't even drafted. But even defying those kinds of odds, he's still got so much further to go before any NFL team will say, "You start for us now. You're one of our starters."
Wish him well, wish him luck, hope for the best! Even if it's not with the Seahawks. But probably give some of that luck to players on the Seahawks PS, they need it too.
Also, maybe I’m wrong, but it’s a feel-good moment for me when our cuts get picked up on the 53 of another team. Helps bolster my belief that we are really strong and deep.