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What it would take for the Seahawks to trade for Trey Hendrickson

In Monday’s request for Seahawks questions from the community, the topic of potential trades and signings of “name players” came up a few times. Could John Schneider have any splashes left before the season starts?

First, I had a couple of questions from Super Joes founding members that I must address. If you want to upgrade to Super Joes (mostly just a way to support the newsletter for a little more money if you can afford it) then you can do so here:

zezinhom400: I hadn’t realized Seattle had the #32 paid roster in the NFL this year until you pointed it out. I do recall a similar observation on last year’s OL, with a “right-sizing” of our expectations — essentially you get what you pay for. Yet this year many of us are expecting a winning season if not making the playoffs.

Are we being unrealistic? Is it more likely we’re competing for the #1 pick than the playoffs?

If your team has drafted well recently and hired a good coaching staff, then “active cap spending” shouldn’t necessarily have any correlation or causation to a successful season. For example, Russell Wilson was the lowest-paid starting QB in 2013 and 2014, both years that saw his team reach the Super Bowl.

But let’s review the 2024 active salary cap leaderboard, but keep in mind that these numbers do not include players who were placed on IR during the season:

1. Chiefs, $221 million (Super Bowl losers)

2. Falcons, $220 million (missed playoffs)

3. Ravens, $219 million (1-1 in playoffs)

4. Rams, $209 million (1-1 in playoffs)

5. Bears, $205 million (5-12, missed playoffs)

The Eagles ranked 14th ($169 million) and won the Super Bowl. The other conference championship game teams were the Bills ($175 million) and Moons ($186 million).

These rankings do not only indicate which teams spent the most on their 2024 roster, which implies that these franchises felt they had players worth keeping, but also these teams had relatively good injury luck last season:

• Bills had the least amount of money on IR ($3.2m)

• Moons had the second-least ($4.4m)

• Ravens had the third-least ($6m)

• Rams had the fourth-least ($6.6m)

• Chiefs had the fifth-least ($9.7m)

The five teams with the best injury luck against their salary cap spending all had some playoff success. The Eagles are a different story: They only had $169 million in 2024 cap spending because Philadelphia spreads it money around via signing bonuses.

So if we were just going off of active cap spending as a means of judging roster quality, the Philadelphia Eagles would exist in a blindspot.

This means that active cap spending on its own is a bad judge of active roster quality.

For example, the Dallas Cowboys had over $110 million on IR and $30 million in dead money on their cap last season. By the end of Week 18, the Cowboys only had $97.5 million in active cap spending, the lowest amount in the NFL by a wide margin. If the Cowboys were healthy, then they would have had almost $210 million in active cap spending, which would have been the fifth-most.

Yes, a lot of the teams who spent less in 2024 were not as successful as the teams that spent more, but many of them knew ahead of the season that they were lacking talent (Raiders, Giants, Patriots) and they had not drafted a lot of spectacular players recently.

The Seahawks have drafted good players recently who are still on their rookie contracts, starting with the Charles Cross class in 2022, leading into the Devon Witherspoon/JSN and Byron Murphy classes in 2023 and 2024. So to me it feels like the Seahawks have the most ideal reason to be spending the least amount on their roster right now:

Many of Seattle’s best players are on their rookie contracts and still looking to prove themselves worthy of those expensive deals signed by their overpaid peers.

If the Seahawks can take advantage of this small window of opportunity while many of their starters are cheap, it could be Mike Macdonald and John Schneider’s best chance to win a Super Bowl if they can add the right pieces before the next wave of extensions.

nelly: Hi there Mr. Joe! This question is on the offensive side of the ball. Many people want to get rid of Noah Fant, seeing Arroyo as his replacement. But why not keep him so we can mix in both Fant and Arroyo on on 2TE personel sets to have 4 receivers? You lose a blocker. But you can add a FB with the QB for protection. Just trying to add more variety to the offensive personel calls to make the opponents defense have one more thing to worry about is all. Would love to hear your thoughts on this! Thank you!

I definitely agree that the Seahawks have no need to be hasty as it pertains to parting ways with Noah Fant and ushering in the era of Elijah Arroyo, as is something I’ve tried to address a couple of times since the draft. Arroyo could be anything, but there are a few reasons why he may not be that helpful this year:

• Rookies often struggle

• Tight ends often take a long time to adjust to the league

• Arroyo had of one season in college when he was successful

Actually, if there is a player who pushes out Fant this year it’s probably going to be A.J. Barner. I know that’s not the “comp” for Fant or Arroyo, but if Klint Kubiak has snaps to give to one tight end then maybe in three months everybody will be saying that Barner is far and away the best one on the roster.

Many fans don’t see a future for Fant after 2025, so they’re thinking of the $9 million he’s taking up on the salary cap and asking themselves, “Why?” unless he’s going to help Seattle win the Super Bowl. I wonder that myself.

Danno: I’d like to know your thoughts on trading for Trey Hendrickson or Watt. I see quite a few fans thinking about how great it would be to get a guy like Hendrickson and how much closer we would be to winning a Super Bowl right now. I am personally opposed to it. Hendrickson is holding out for a new contract, and if we trade for him, he’s going to cost 35+ million a year probably for three years as a premiere edge rusher, and probably at least a first round draft choice to boot.

zezinhom400: Following up on the Trey Hendrickson question: all things considered (mostly that we're not paying $45m+/yr on a QB) should we make a real effort to trade for and sign Hendrickson? What do you think the cost would be (trade) and the cost would be (salary)?

I’ll turn this question into a hypthetical question for the community:

If Trey Hendrickson signed with the Seahawks instead of the Bengals in 2021, and if just as in Cincinnati he had averaged 14(!) sacks per season for Seattle over the last four years, would you want the team to trade him away over a contract dispute?

I only say that because it really is remarkable how productive Hendrickson has been in contrast to how much attention he gets for it compared to T.J. Watt, Nick Bosa, or Myles Garrett. We, as people who aren’t rooting for a team that employs Hendrickson, may easily forget or overlook how impactful and popular that player would be if he was a Seahawk.

Trey Hendrickson contract demands

That alone doesn’t mean that Hendrickson would be worth $35 million per season and draft picks, but as long as Bosa is getting that much (and Hendrickson’s current deal only pays him $21 million/year) then an edge rusher who has been much better than Bosa recently is going to get that much.

And to some team it probably IS worth it. The Seahawks can financially afford Hendrickson right now, but it would also hurt their ability to sign those rookie contract players that I mentioned earlier.

Trey Hendrickson draft pick sacrifice

I would say that a team wouldn’t trade a first round pick for Hendrickson, but then the Falcons traded a first round pick to the Rams to move up in the draft for James Pearce so I’m always ready to be blindsided by shocking news like that. The Jaguars traded a future first round pick AND MORE to move up for a cornerback/wide receiver!

However, there’s been a line in the sand for veterans who want to be paid at the top of the market and it seems to be drawn at a second round pick. The Seahawks got a second round pick for DK Metcalf, and a couple of years ago the Bears got a second round pick for Roquan Smith. I’m seeing “second round pick” as the answer for Hendrickson, which is likely related to why the Bengals haven’t agreed to trade him yet.

Would the Seahawks trade for Hendrickson?

That is unlikely for a lot of reasons. Seattle must assume that DeMarcus Lawrence and Uchenna Nwosu are not going to be as good as Hendrickson next season, but those are still investments that they’ve locked themselves into until new information arises. If Lawrence and/or Nwosu get seriously injured again, then maybe Hendrickson or T.J. Watt (I doubt that Watt won’t re-sign with the Steelers) become an option, but the Seahawks would need to know that:

• A) “We’re Super Bowl contenders!”

• B) We have injuries/poor play at the edge rusher position

If Seattle gets off to a mid or bad start to the season, don’t sacrifice anything for Hendrickson. If the Seahawks are off to a good start and that’s largely thanks to Nwosu and Lawrence and Boye Mafe and Derick Hall, then don’t trade for Hendrickson.

It should only make sense if the Seahawks are off to a great start AND they need help at Hendrickson’s position.

It’s just unlikely that those two universes will ever meet.

Scott Shaver: Why haven’t the Seahawks gone after guard Brandon Scherff? And why not resign Clowney or Douglas?

On Scherff’s end, I can only imagine that he’s been overrated by the public because he was once a high draft pick. To be a free agent in June, teams have concerns. The Seahawks signed Connor Williams after the summer, so that could happen again, but we also saw what happened with Williams.

On Seattle’s end, the Seahawks have a starting left guard and they have about six players competing at right guard. I don’t think Schneider wants to spend money and stunt the development of any of those players until they’ve had a chance to compete. Unless Grey Zabel is moving to center, I don’t think the Seahawks believe they have a need at guard.

As far as Jadeveon Clowney, he has played for seven different teams in the last eight years. Either he’s exceptional at playing hard to get or teams don’t trust him. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a fan or writer from any of those teams (including the Seahawks) lament the day that Clowney got away.

Seaside Joe 2282