Should Seahawks bring in competition for Jason Myers?

Is Seattle's kicker worth top-3 kicker money?

There are a few more hanging questions from the most recent Super Joes mailbag. If you want to get in a question or lingering thought you have next week, upgrade to Super Joes this week! If you’re already a Regular Joe, you’ll get it at a prorated annual rate.

Kent J: I have been a 12 since '76 and I cannot handle 1 more years of awful O line play. We have multiple areas of need, but without stronger interior line play none of it will matter. And a qb who can challenge the defense with RPO like Russell used to sure seems to make things easier. Love Geno but don't see him taking us to the promised land.

Whether John Schneider will finally listen to these pleas is the question of the offseason.

In my opinion, a substantial shift is coming this offseason in terms of how the Seahawks approach the offensive line in the draft and free agency. Usually it’s a little overblown when people say that Seattle “never” does anything about the line (4 of 12 first round picks since 2010 have been used on tackles and they traded for Duane Brown) but there’s definitely a problem with regards to who they pick and how they develop them.

If the Seahawks do end up releasing Geno Smith, they could in theory have enough cap space to sign the top center and top two guards on the free agent market. Fans would settle for a center and just one guard.

Largentium: I was perusing OTC and just noticed Jason Myers' cap hit for the next two years: $6.825M in 2025 and $6.975M in 2026. I'm pretty happy with his performance overall, but I wonder if those numbers are getting a little too high and it's contract extension time? He does have zero guaranteed money left, but he's still got $3.75M in dead money if cut/traded this year and half that next year. He's 10th in AAV based on his contract overall. Most of the ones ahead of him have similar cap hits the next two years. There may be an opportunity to open up some more cap space this year if necessary.

I think Myers is really good and I also think that when teams get overly attached to good kickers, they tend to bypass potential upgrade/getting younger and cheaper opportunities that they should be exploring.

For example, I really wanted the Seahawks to sign UFL star Jake Bates last year.

A kicker or a punter are maybe the only positions that would seemingly be able to translate from that league to the NFL and Bates was better in the UFL than ANY kicker in the NFL was the previous season. The Lions signed Bates to a two-year deal and he went 26-of-29 (90%), 6-of-8 from 50+, and 64-of-67 on extra points (most of either in the NFL).

Bates hit three game-winners and set the Lions all-time record for points in a single season.

Or what about Brandon Aubrey? Another kicker who comes out of nowhere, the Cowboys signed him in 2023 and he’s 24-of-27 from beyond 50…

Read that twice because you might not have caught it:

Aubrey has made 24 field goals of 50+ in the past two years alone!

Over his entire 6-year career with Seattle, Myers is only 26-of-37 from 50+.

Upgrades or at the very least replacements are out there all the time, every year, and though the position is volatile and teams can get stuck in a rut, it’s fair to ask if any team should be paying $5 million for a kicker. Especially one like Myers who, while totally being very good, is not a kicker like we’ve never seen before. Bates and Aubrey on the other hand…

So why not scout the kickers in the draft, either take one or sign one, peruse the market, and open a competition in camp? When Myers is set to make $5 million in non-guaranteed cash, that’s the only responsible thing to do.

Joshular: If you could do a Seahawks trade that would shock the world like the Mavericks/Lakers did, what would it be? (or maybe we don’t have a big enough star for that?)

I would agree that the Seahawks don’t have that big of a star right now. The last player who would qualify was probably Russell Wilson and I assume that NFL trades work differently in the “player-for-player” respect because first round picks in football are more valuable than first round picks in basketball.

When the Texans traded Deshaun Watson for three first round picks, or the Seahawks traded Wilson for two firsts, two seconds, and three players, could we argue that those deals were just as massive? And the reason they didn’t “shake the sports world” like the Luka Doncic trade is that “first round picks” don’t sound as sexy as “Anthony Davis”?

Although, I’ll always remember where I was when the Sonics traded Gary Payton for Ray Allen…

Sitting at my computer.

If there wasn’t a dark cloud hanging over Watson then maybe that would have carried across the sports world better, but I think that’s closer to the level of player it would take for the NFL to have a trade as massive as that one: If the Bills traded Josh Allen for another big name player. That just doesn’t seem to make as much sense because the Bills would probably rather have four first round picks than just a different expensive quarterback.

The NFL may never have a Luka-Davis trade and I also think that’s one of the reasons the NFL is superior. That’s favoring short-term gratification of breaking news over the peace of mind that if your franchise lands an elite quarterback, he isn’t going anywhere.

What trade in sports history (any sport) shocked you the most?

Grant: No one is actually going to give the Rams anything for Kupp, right? How close are the Rams to having a super bowl roster? They seem well positioned to make some moves this offseason, if they want to. I could ask about the other NFC west teams, too, but the Rams worry me the most.

Cooper Kupp’s contract could only be traded if the Rams pay his $7.5 million bonus (and they would only do that because $5 million of it is already guaranteed, so they’re really only paying $2.5 million over their commitment) and then maybe even go another step further to make him cheaper.

I know Mike Williams is not as good as Kupp, but it was a similar situation last year when the Chargers released Williams because they could not find a trade partner. They did manage to trade Keenan Allen, but only got back a fourth round pick for him and that’s only because Allen had 108/1,243/7 the previous season.

Kupp has missed 5+ games in each of the last three seasons, he was never fast but now he’s slower than not-fast, he’s pretty much limited to only one role and so he’s not going to fit with teams like Seattle (for instance) that already have a receiver like him.

If the best offer the Rams get for Kupp is a fifth round pick, is it worth going through this hassle and financial burden for that? Would it be nicer to let Kupp go do this on his own as a free agent, rather than put it the work to trade him for a day three pick? People get so hung up on what a player was like in his prime (which in the NFL is maybe one-third as long as the prime of a player in the NBA or MLB) that they seem to forget that there will be a half-dozen rookie receivers who are going to be better than Kupp in 2025.

As far as the Rams go, trading Matthew Stafford is a realistic possibility.

I would say the 49ers have the best advantage because of the fourth place schedule and for San Francisco it’s a matter of how healthy they are and what moves they make this offseason. It could be argued for that reason that the NFC West will be “wide open” in 2025, which sounds good in theory but at a certain point Seattle’s goals have to go beyond winning a “wide open division” and figuring out how they get back to the Super Bowl.

Going 9-8 or 10-7 with a first round exit would probably draw more boos than cheers. Which also applies to the Rams and 49ers, actually.

Only the Arizona Cardinals can call that a win.

Seaside Joe 2176