What is the most painful free agent loss in Seahawks history?

We find out what Seahawks fans would do to have a top-5 OL and more: Seaside Joe 1945

In their 50-year history, the Seattle Seahawks have drafted five players who have made the Hall of Fame (so far), but two of them were able to leave in free agency as soon as it was possible. Both were interior offensive linemen, with Kevin Mawae going to the Jets in 1998 and Steve Hutchinson getting purplepilled in 2006.

Other top Seattle draft picks who left in free agency during the prime of their careers could include Sam Adams going to the Ravens in 2000, Golden Tate to the Lions in 2014, Pete Kendall going to the Cardinals in 2001, and Phillip Daniels signing with the Bears in 2000 as he was coming off of a 9-sack season. (The Seahawks defense went from 8th in points allowed to 25th in points allowed after losing Adams and Daniels.)

In 2019, Earl Thomas signed with the Ravens as a free agent. However, coming off of a broken leg and a broken relationship with Pete Carroll, it didn’t feel like a loss as much as a needed separation from the entire situation.

I don’t intend to omit any player who might have made your list of the “most painful” free agent losses in Seahawks history, especially since emotional pain can be based on factors that go beyond the football field. You might have personally hurt more from losing Shaquill Griffin than Golden Tate. Any answer is acceptable.

But generally speaking, it is kind of hard for a franchise to “lose” a player in free agency who they love unless there are extenuating circumstances or if that franchise is one of the organizations around the league that is a pathetic mess. The Seahawks are not such a franchise, so they haven’t had too many painful losses on the level of letting Mawae and Hutchinson go be Hall of Famers elsewhere.

Which loss hurt you the most? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add a survey too. I’ll post your top comments next week.

Of course, these are only the free agents. I haven’t mentioned the most painful trades yet, at which point we could start talking about Max Unger, Ahman Green, Frank Clark, Joey Galloway, and Russell Wilson. I’m also not talking about players who were released to become free agents such as Bobby Wagner, Richard Sherman, or Mark Glowinski…who wasn’t as good as those other players but he got better after he left Seattle and I wanted to come up with a third name.

My most painful free agent loss

Specifically on players who became free agents and the Seahawks did not keep them, Steve Hutchinson would be my answer. The transition tag felt like one of those instantly recognizable mistakes and sure enough that’s exactly what it turned out to be. If the Seahawks always intended to match any contract offer that Hutchinson received, then what was their endgame by not guaranteeing his stay with a franchise tag or paying him the same seven-year, $50 million deal before the Vikings could write in the poison pill? (I could be forgetting key details of why the franchise tag couldn’t be used, because my memory is just that Seattle decided to get cute to save a little money.)

I was only joking when I said that the Seahawks probably convinced the Vikings to put the poison pill in the deal so that Seattle wouldn’t catch hell from their fans for letting Hutchinson walk. However, it does also make too much sense that the Seahawks would be the team that didn’t let a Hall of Fame guard spend his entire career in Seattle.

Every two weeks, I send an email exclusively to Super Joes subscribers asking for questions to put in a Seaside Joe mailbag. I highly recommend signing up for Super Joes (or upgrading from Regular Joes at a prorated rate of what you’ve already pay annually) as soon as it is financially possible for you! Click here or click the button to get started:

I’ll answer the first few questions to this week’s Super Joes mailbag in a minute, but first here are the results to this week’s surveys on the offensive line:

You would stop watching the Seahawks to help the Seahawks!

In Wednesday’s surveys about what you would do for the Seahawks to have a top-5 OL, here were your answers:

7% of you would give up all forms of insurance during the 2024 season

81% of you would trade a 2025 second round pick for it

Only 15% of you said that you’d be okay with 30th-ranked defense for a top-5 OL, but 68% of you answered that the defense absolutely must improve; 17% said “How dare you, Seaside Joe”

It’s interesting that over 80% of Seasiders would trade a 2025 second round pick, which begs to ask the question…hold on one second…

Okay, maybe it raises the question, “Should the Seahawks trade a 2025 second round pick for a massive upgrade on the offensive line?”

Typically fans do not want to trade future draft picks and acquiring a guard won’t guarantee that Seattle’s offensive line will become elite, but perhaps fans are more open to John Schneider making a trade for a veteran than I previously assumed. I doubt that there are many outstanding guards available for trade, if any, because teams typically like to keep and pay those players unless that team is the Seahawks.

Actually, I asked fans in “MORE” comments which OL loss hurt the most and these were some of your answers in the comments section:

Rick Goodman: It is Hutchinson by a country mile. That was the trigger to the end of the Holmgren era.

BEASTMODE808: MAX UNGER.

Shaymus McFamous: Max Unger's departure really hurt me. He was a team leader. I hated that move then. Hutch is a close 2nd.

Hawkman54: Yes Hutch, with Unger next. Hutch was the Manimal and was even talked about by opposing D-lines as the player they hated to play against the most!

zezinhom400: Max Unger. After he left SEA’s line was never the same. It was like someone decided “centers aren’t critical” at that moment and we’ve under invested since. Pocic was 2nd rd pick, our last true attempt at investing in the position

Follow-up question for the people who have better memories of the 90s than I do: Why does it feel like Kevin Mawae never played for the Seahawks and that free agent loss doesn’t sting as much as fellow Hall of Famer Steve Hutchinson?

Finally, the last poll question was whether or not you would agree to stop watching Seahawks games *live* and need to wait two days until you’re allowed to watch the replay. Take solace in the fact that most of you are ready to take one for the team:

This 12th man is also a reliable 6th man!

Rusty: I’m feeling some deep dives coming on….please!

Who would you like to see an origin story about?

I tried to make a list of four people with much different backgrounds…a coach, a rookie, a veteran, and a trade acquisition. I didn’t put Byron Murphy because that one is coming regardless. If you have a different request, put it in the comments.

Cold Steel and Sunshine: How about some top ten historical-type things? Top ten catches, runs, tackles, sacks, etc.

This would be a great topic to attack as a group. We could throw some topics to the community like “What are your favorite Seahawks catches of all-time?” and compile lists that way. I always say the collective knowledge of the Seaside Joe community is more than I could ever learn in 10 lifetimes, so these are great ones to put together as a group. I think top-10 catches is a good starting point because I’d say “great catch” has become the most common highlight of the last 25 years, at least?

You mention having looked some up recently, so I’d be curious to see some of the results, especially before 1990. Here’s A Football Life on Steve Largent, in case anyone didn’t see it.

Seasider JohnnyLondon: Just how bad numbers-wise would Geno need to be for Howell to get the nod to start?

I like this question a lot. I do find it hard to answer though.

If I give numbers that imply “bad”, like say, “Through four games, Geno Smith has completed 50% of his passes, averaged 5.8 yards per attempt, thrown two touchdowns and six interceptions”, then it would certainly point towards a reason to bench Geno for playing poorly.

That being said, I’ve had a really big issue with people using the inverse methodology to “prove” that Geno Smith (or ANY quarterback) is actually super great. We’ve all seen games where a quarterback is horrible but there are three dropped interceptions and three touchdowns that didn’t involve much skill as a passer, so then a QB who has “300 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT” might have been just as close to “0 TD, 3 INT” and he threw for a lot of yards because he attempted 40 passes.

So I’m not avoiding answering your question, but I wouldn’t feel like myself if I didn’t preface my answer with some context on numbers. Geno could play great and have mediocre numbers, or be mediocre and have great numbers. In addition, as I wrote at the beginning of the month, nobody knows what the transition period from Shane Waldron to Ryan Grubb is going to look like or feel like for Geno. It could be immediately positive or it could take a month for Geno to settle into it.

If Geno is adjusting to the offense for four weeks and struggling, is Sam Howell going to make the offense better, worse, or the same? If the answer is “better” or “the same”, then Mike Macdonald might want to make the switch. However, Geno getting the first four games of work in with Grubb’s offense might actually make him better suited to start the next four games than Howell, as switching to a new QB could reset the clock at 00:00 and perhaps waste whatever Geno learned by struggling in those first four games.

Instead of putting numbers on Geno, I would rather say that if the Seahawks can’t score points or move the ball in September (Broncos, Patriots, Dolphins, Lions) that the coaching staff has to consider what changes would make the entire offense better in October, especially before Week 6’s Thursday Night game against the 49ers. The places you would usually look for a major change on offense would be quarterback or offensive coordinator. Since Ryan Grubb almost certainly isn’t going to be fired during his first season, Geno is definitely under the most pressure at the start of the year, whether he is the primary problem to a bad offense or not.

My answer—which is just one fan’s opinion—is that there isn’t much point in benching Geno and switching to Sam Howell for performance-based reasons unless a) the season seems lost (2-6 type of record at the midway point) or b) virtually nothing is clicking for Geno in Grubb’s offense and he’s undeniably the biggest problem holding back the team. If neither of those things happen—and I don’t think either of those things will happen—then I don’t think Howell is a big enough investment at QB to justify making a switch at the position prior to Seattle missing the playoffs.

If the Seahawks are eliminated from the playoffs before Week 18, then please yes just let’s see Sam Howell. Other than that, I believe that Geno probably gives the Seahawks better odds to move the football and to help the development of players like Jaxon Smith-Njigba and the offensive line.

SEA-MORE Comments…

There will be more thoughts in the comments and more answers to your SUPER JOES questions in the coming days.

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