How are we so Cap strapped?

Just wondering if someone can give me a quick breakdown of why we are so cash strapped, we were obviously hurt last year with Harvins 7m in dead money but thats off the books this year, Lynch's contract should be off the books (minus signing bonus) the only albatross contract I can think of is Jimmy Graham. We are paying nothing for our offensive line, we are paying next to nothing for WR and RB. How is it we not only can't afford to look at any big name free agents but afford to sign our own mid level guys? I see teams like the Dolphins who have had egregiously bad contracts ala Suh, Wake and others yet they are still able to go bidding for FA's like mario williams (and take on Maxwell and Alonso cap hits).

Is paying top rates for a CB, FS, MLB and QB really all a team can afford?

Go to overthecap.com and click on the Seahawks logo and you'll have your answer.

For starters, Wilson's cap number is 11 million higher than it was last year (Approx 18.5)
Sherman's cap number is 14.7
Thomas 9.9
Graham 9 million
Bennett 7 million (And he wants more)
Avril 6.5 million
Wright 6.25 million
Chancellor 6.1 Million
Wagner 6.08 Million
Lynch will have a 5 million dead money hit.

That's 10 players and roughly half the cap.

High likelihood we try and extend Baldwin this season. Part of that money counts against the cap this year.

It all adds up.

onanygivensunday":14tj0p4u said:

Go to overthecap.com and click on the Seahawks logo and you'll have your answer.

Click to expand...

Looking at it I would have to say the answer is Lynch and Jimmy Graham with Cary Williams costing us 2 mid level players.

Russell's cap hit alone is almost 20M. By comparison Tannehill's is like 11M.

Even so though, I think I read we have 16-17M in cap space. Which is enough to fill some needs, but all the people crying over guys like Irvin? You really want to give him over half that space?

So if we're going to be active in FA, it's not going to be the big names, or we're going to have to get creative like we did with acquiring Graham. Which is fine, we should know after signing Harvin, and to a lesser extent Graham getting big name FA's isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I'd rather focus on the draft and finding those less expensive diamonds in the rough like we did last year with guys like Rubin.

Sgt. Largent":1wfubwx8 said:

Russell's cap hit alone is almost 20M. By comparison Tannehill's is like 11M.

Even so though, I think I read we have 16-17M in cap space. Which is enough to fill some needs, but all the people crying over guys like Irvin? You really want to give him over half that space?

So if we're going to be active in FA, it's not going to be the big names, or we're going to have to get creative like we did with acquiring Graham. Which is fine, we should know after signing Harvin, and to a lesser extent Graham getting big name FA's isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I'd rather focus on the draft and finding those less expensive diamonds in the rough like we did last year with guys like Rubin.

Click to expand...

Yeah I'm not advocating going after big name FAs (though Chris Long or Mario Williams would be really nice). It just seems odd we have such a hard time keeping mid level players.

TheRealDTM":38xjrnba said:

Yeah I'm not advocating going after big name FAs (though Chris Long or Mario Williams would be really nice). It just seems odd we have such a hard time keeping mid level players.

Click to expand...

Which mid-level players are you referring to that got mid level contracts from other teams?

To me it just seems that we get outbid. Doesn't mean we don't want to retain them.

For about three years we paid most of our free agents, and added some bad contracts. We paid both DE's, two LB's, three DB's. We probably have the highest paid TE and one of the highest paid QB's. A bunch of guys getting paid at the top of their positions.

I'm not saying its a good strategy, the Dolphins are obviously horrible but they are 15m over us in cap spent with 7m in dead money and they are able to bring in veterans and trade for big contract players. Just seems odd

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/miami-dolphins

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/seattle-seahawks

Dolphins also haven't been to the playoffs in how many years? they don't have many guys to spend money on.

Tical21":36cxa3sh said:

For about three years we paid most of our free agents, and added some bad contracts. We paid both DE's, two LB's, three DB's. We probably have the highest paid TE and one of the highest paid QB's. A bunch of guys getting paid at the top of their positions.

Click to expand...

Pretty much.

I'm okay with letting guys like Irvin walk. Although it sucks losing players who had an impact on our defense, we just can't pay everybody. It sucks.

I'm all for this team finding steals in the draft while finding gems in free agency. 90% of the time I feel like big name free agency players don't work out like they're supposed to.

I trust in this front office to get us where we need to be in order to compete for another Super Bowl!

TheRealDTM":2ym9ahf2 said:

I'm not saying its a good strategy, the Dolphins are obviously horrible but they are 15m over us in cap spent with 7m in dead money and they are able to bring in veterans and trade for big contract players. Just seems odd

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/miami-dolphins

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/seattle-seahawks

Click to expand...

The Dolphins's pages haven't accounted for Maxwell, Alonso, and supposedly Mario Williams yet. Their cap allocation is going to change. Tannehill and Suh also have a pretty significant cap jump after next season.

We spent the last two seasons getting big contract players and rewarding players already on the roster. Our cap space is going to look different, so you can't really take a single year comparison between two teams like that.

TheRealDTM":3a033w00 said:

I'm not saying its a good strategy, the Dolphins are obviously horrible but they are 15m over us in cap spent with 7m in dead money and they are able to bring in veterans and trade for big contract players. Just seems odd

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/miami-dolphins

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/seattle-seahawks

Click to expand...

Yes, they acquired two overpaid players who stunk last year. Why do you keep using them as an example of what you want us to do?

You shouldn't want the Hawks to overpay for underachieving players because we didn't fill those needs in house. If it wasn't for John and Pete being the brilliant drafters that they are in acquiring a RB like Rawls, we'd be in the same boat as the Dolphins, having to overpay for a guy like Murray.

Murray: 7M
Rawls: 540k

Who's the smarter team?

Yeah Its just frustrating we have only 15 guys making more than a million dollars and 2 of them won't be on the team.

Also, teams like the Phins are not concerned with long term cap health. In a few years the Phins will have a new GM who will have to purge a bunch of players due to dead cap money and rebuild the franchise. The Hawks are thinking long-term and don't want to have to push money into future years to sign players. It's a good thing that we aren't mortgaging the future like the Dolphins and other teams do.

seanmatt":1q9uv941 said:

Also, teams like the Phins are not concerned with long term cap health. In a few years the Phins will have a new GM who will have to purge a bunch of players due to dead cap money and rebuild the franchise. The Hawks are thinking long-term and don't want to have to push money into future years to sign players. It's a good thing that we aren't mortgaging the future like the Dolphins and other teams do.

Click to expand...

What the dolphins are doing is terrible for them, we however are right in the middle of our championship window. We have maybe 3-4 years left of Carroll, Bennett, Avril, etc before alot of players are on the very wrong side of 30

How --- Why?

As Marshawn once said: "We got some Dawgs!"

Those guys all add up to real money. Sadly our team is going to lose a few good players this offseason as those guys come to end of their present deals and will get paid elsewhere more than we can pay, some hard choices will have to be made. It's sadly all part of success.

The deals for Harvin and now perhaps Graham are now coming home to bite somewhat. However, all in all, the team is still pretty deep although that depth will erode somewhat during this FA period.

Sgt. Largent":uwady5ue said:

Yes, they acquired two overpaid players who stunk last year. Why do you keep using them as an example of what you want us to do?

You shouldn't want the Hawks to overpay for underachieving players because we didn't fill those needs in house. If it wasn't for John and Pete being the brilliant drafters that they are in acquiring a RB like Rawls, we'd be in the same boat as the Dolphins, having to overpay for a guy like Murray.

Murray: 7M
Rawls: 540k

Who's the smarter team?

Click to expand...

The Broncos are probably a better example http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/denver-broncos

jammerhawk":uwady5ue said:

The deals for Harvin and now perhaps Graham are now coming home to bite somewhat. However, all in all, the team is still pretty deep although that depth will erode somewhat during this FA period.

Click to expand...

The depth has been massively erroding for years, if you look at the trajectory of the Broncos and Seahawks after superbowl 48 its insane, they had to pay a QB big money the entire time and were able to not only keep the team together (outside of terrance knighton) but add pieces in Talib and Ware and Mathis

One of the weakest areas for this FO has been trading for expensive players and signing guys that were either not a good value or they were injured in their first season with us. Guys like Rice, Miller and Cary Williams didn't quite pan out like they had hoped.

Maybe we should be glad that they don't have the cap space to sign top tier FA's...they're not very good at it. It seems they've done far better with signing their own key/core players and signing more low to mid-level FA's like Rubin, Avril and Bennett.

I think the FO knew full well this would be a tough offseason cap-wise. They have prepared for it as best they could. I think that when all is said and done, they'll have the best roster possible given their circumstances...much of it will depend on their draft picks. They can't afford to make any stupid picks like Britt in the 2nd round.

Pay your high-end core talents: Russ, Marshawn, Jimmy, Bennett, Avril, Wagner, Wright, Sherm, Thomas, Chancellor, probably Baldwin soon

Take your medicine and unfortunately understand that you can't pay your middle class what other teams are willing to: Breno, Carp, Golden, Browner, Maxwell, Thurmond, Malcolm, probably Bruce, Kearse, Lane and Sweezy

Throw in a couple bad things, which all teams have: Harvin, Cary

Eliminate the middle class and get good return from guys on the cheap : Rawls, Lockett, Willson, Clark, Shead, McCray and hopefully Glowinski and this years rookie class.

Seattle has essentially eliminated the middle class and is reliant upon young guys capably fleshing out the roster around the stars.