Seahawks spending allocation by position compared to NFC West rivals
Seahawks don't need to spend more at a certain position, they just need more players worth paying: Seaside Joe 1939
Four months ago, right after the Super Bowl, I wrote this post in response to Mike Salk’s well intentioned but severely under-researched musing that maybe the Seahawks should trade DK Metcalf “because the Chiefs didn’t spend money on the receiver position and look how good they are!”
If you happen to think that Sando’s theory seems logical and don’t want to re-visit or first-time-visit my old article there, the easy answer is that Kansas City has Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Andy Reid. The better answer is that the Chiefs actually did put resources into the wide receiver position, but their efforts just simply did not pan out as they had hoped:
An $11 million cap hit for Marquez Valdes-Scantling, a bunk trade for Kadarius Toney, and Kansas City used back-to-back second round picks on receivers in 2022 and 2023. If the Chiefs “take the low-risk, low-reward” approach at receiver, then why did they trade up for Xavier Worthy in the first round this year?
If Worthy pans out as a number one receiver, the Chiefs are going to pay him just as they paid Tyreek Hill the first time.
That’s also why it is never a good idea to assume that “a team does (X)” or “a GM does (Y)” with a sample size of only one or two years. Any team that has sustained success over—honestly, I’m not sure what the appopriate time frame is here—but let’s say five or six years…That team is not going to beat teams in 2018 and also teams in 2024 by doing the same things in both eras.
Tom Brady’s Patriots from 2001-2004 (investing in defensive line) were different than the Patriots from 2007-2012 (investing in WRs) and were different than the Patriots from 2014-2018 (investing in stealing signs from the Seahawks in the Super Bowl).
When I say every spring that I don’t expect John Schneider to draft a guard or a center in the first round, or to not pay the most expensive one in free agency, it’s not because he did it last year. It’s because he hasn’t done that in ANY year!
Even right now, most fans would be shocked to hear that the Seahawks are spending the most money on receivers in 2024 ($54.6 million to the 49ers’ $53.6 million) and again in 2025 ($68.4 million to Raiders’ $63.4 million). I was asked to clarify what I meant by Seattle ranking second even if they cut Tyler Lockett and so to be clear about that: Lockett’s $17 million in cap savings would bring the Seahawks down to $51 million spending on receivers. That would still rank second, behind Las Vegas and ahead of Tampa Bay.
Of course, that’s only as of today. By next year, new contracts will be added and others will be terminated or traded, so Seattle may not rank first, second, or even third in 2025. But they’re going to be near the top and that should be surprising for a team that as of now would only paying DK Metcalf on a veteran contract if Lockett were to be released.
And I don’t think anyone really thinks of the Seahawks as “the wide receiver team”. Yet by salary cap, that’s exactly what Seattle is. I’m not saying that DK Metcalf wouldn’t be in my top-100 or even talking about whether he deserves to be in a top-100 or why lists don’t matter…however, I will talk about the perception of the Seahawks receivers: There’s a good chance that none of them will be in the NFL’s top-100 or that Metcalf will be the only one and that he’ll be in the lower-fourth.
No, that does not matter. But perceptions are that the Seahawks don’t have a “Justin Jefferson” or “A.J. Brown” or “Tyreek Hill” type on the roster, yet allocate more funds to the receiver position than teams that have Jefferson, Brown, Hill, Davante Adams, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. It’s unexpected that Seattle would be the team that spends the most on receivers, therefore surprising, and I think interesting. Not that the Seahawks screwed up or that Seattle’s receivers are underrated or overrated…It’s just an observation that I think proves, “What you see isn’t always what you get on the salary cap”.
We could understand why the Seahawks were “the safety team” that led the NFL in safety spending in 2023 but have since dropped to the middle of the league after releasing Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams. Seattle’s best years at safety were before they paid Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor, and also virtually never since extending Adams. The Seahawks investments in safety have so far not really paid off—they get their best years on the cheap—and therefore:
POSITIONAL SPENDING ALLOCATION COULD JUST AS EASILY BE DESCRIBED AS POINTING TO FRANCHISE WEAKNESSES (I.E., THEY SPEND SO MUCH ON THIS POSITION BECAUSE THEY ARE TERRIBLE AT EVALUATING IT) AS IT COULD BE AN INDICATION OF WHERE A ROSTER IS STRONGEST.
Looking at two team’s positional spending side-by-side is merely worthless content if not coupled with vital context. Here is how the Seahawks currently compare to the other three NFC West teams in the NFL by positional spending thanks to OvertheCap.com, a remarkably free website.
This website is also mostly free, but supporting with a paid membership comes with perks, benefits, street credit, and it’s probably even good for your FICO score.
Seahawks / 49ers
If this chart is too small to read or you want to play with the device itself, here is the link to the website I used.
This feels like a significant finding: The 49ers are out-spending the Seahawks at RB, TE, OL, DT, EDGE, LB, and CB. Seattle is out-spending the 49ers at QB, WR, S, and ST. If the Niners extend Aiyuk, they might also lead in spending. The Seahawks are paying Geno Smith more than Brock Purdy obviously, and Seattle’s not even spending a lot on safety they just have some left on the books from Adams and Diggs.
You can see from the left-most bars how drafting a day three quarterback who is good enough to start on his rookie contract can make a team so able to keep their star players on extensions while also being able to add new ones. This hasn’t stopped the 49ers from getting into a contract stalemate with Brandon Aiyuk, a receiver who they can’t really replace with first round pick Ricky Pearsall (because they’re different types of receivers) and knowing that an extension from Brock Purdy is just around the corner.
I think the Seahawks are the perfect example of how important it is to win that Super Bowl during the quarterback’s rookie contract window.
Seahawks / Rams
Another example of how hard it is to predict a team’s next move based on their last six moves: The Rams paying guards Kevin Dotson and Jonah Jackson $17 million per season each. L.A. was even cheaper than Seattle at the interior of the offensive line and finally decided it was time to protect Matthew Stafford.
This team pays its quarterback more than the Seahawks pay their quarterback, but the Rams aren’t actually getting $40 million out of their DTs this year. That’s almost all for Aaron Donald, who is retired. (The striped lines on the Seahawks bar for “EDGE” is Uchenna Nwosu on IR, I believe.)
Seahawks / Cardinals
Another team that is spending a lot on the quarterback position and obviously the Cardinals have the most egregious QB overpay in the division with Kyler Murray. Look at how much they’re spending on their offensive line though: over $70 million for a unit that still isn’t expected to be that great.
The big takeaway
The Seahawks don’t need to spend less money on receiver, so much as they need to find players at key positions WHO ARE WORTH PAYING regardless if that happens at edge, tackle, guard, corner, quarterback, safety, or DK Metcalf. I am seeing a lot of “small bars” here, even compared to the Cardinals. That’s not necessarily an indication of strengths and weaknesses…
The intention here should be to get the bars up in a year or two because you found your strengths and replaced your weaknesses.
MORE comments…
A reminder that I’ll be adding “MORE” comments in the comments every post.
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- I'd like to recommend the 2024 album "We're all born screaming" by St. Vincent. And the Netflix limited series talk show "Everybody's in LA" with John Mulaney. "Dinner Time Live" with David Chang isn't as good, but I'm surprised I had to go look for it on Netflix instead of having it shoved down my throat and it's worth watching some episodes at least.
- With regards to trying to copy a Super Bowl-winning team, I think it's a bad idea to look at their salary cap from that season. You probably won't get anywhere successful trying to do that. Even with Brock Purdy's contract and rookie QB savings...yes, that's good to have. But you have to get so lucky that it shouldn't be "your plan" until you find the QB first. You can't just "plan" to have QB savings. You need to get lucky first, then build the plan around that. The 49ers didn't plan Brock Purdy, they planned Jimmy Garoppolo, then they planned Trey Lance. Those were antithetical moves to looking for savings on a rookie QB picked on day 2 or 3.
Love the way you show the data, and explain some of what it *may* indicate, without stating it unequivocally means 'this'. We have to be careful not to draw inferences of causality from data, especially when it is only 1 set. Some of the data *not* listed would be the ages of the players at the positions, with respect to whether it is a rookie contract, or not. Also, what round were they drafted in? Does this data account for the fact that there are usually only 2 QBs on a team, and roughly 8-10 OL?
I am not saying there are any deficiencies in your analysis, just illustrating that you did a good job of using the data to raise questions rather than make definitive conclusions. Thank you for the entertaining direction you took today's article (and my Seahawk thoughts)!