Where are the holes on this roster?

With free agency and the draft incoming pretty quickly, I wanted to take a deep look at the roster and try and understand what this team needs, where, and at what cost.

Firstly, let's take a look at the roster for 2018 position by position as it stands.

QB -

Russell Wilson
Trevone Boykin (futures deal)

Group cap hit of $24,341,764
Typically carry 2 on the roster
roster spots open - 0

RB -

C.J. Prosise
Jalston Fowler (FB)
Tre Madden
Chris Carson

Group cap hit of $2,739,401
Typically carry 6 on the roster
Roster spots open - 2

WR -

Doug Baldwin
Tyler Lockett
Amara Darboh
Tanner McEvoy
David Moore
Cyril Grayson
Marcus Johnson

Group cap hit of $16,972,010
Typically carry 5 on the roster
Roster spots open - -1

TE -

Nick Vannett
Tyrone Swoopes

Group cap hit of $1,296,220
Typically carry 3 on the roster
Roster spots open - 1

Tackle -

Duane Brown
Germain Ifedi
Rees Odhiambo
Isaiah Battle
George Fant

Group cap hit of $14,150,143

Guard -

Ethan Pocic
Jordan Roos
Willie Beavers

Group cap hit of $2,118,719


Center -

Justin Britt

Group cap hit of $6,116,666
Typically carry 10 lineman on roster
Roster spots open - 1

DE -

Frank Clark
Noble Nwachukwu (futures)

Group cap hit of $1,667,527
Typically carry 4 on the roster
Roster spots open - 2

DT -

Malik McDowell
Jarran Reed
Nazair Jones

Group cap hit of $3,668,883
Typically carries 4 on the roster
Roster spots open - 1

OLB -

K.J. Wright
DJ Alexander

Group cap hit of $9,914,000

ILB -

Bobby Wagner

Group cap hit of $13,600,000
Typically carry 7 linebackers on the roster
Roster spots open - 4

CB -

Neiko Thorpe
Shaquill Griffin
DeAndre Elliott
Alex Carter
Mike Tyson

Group cap hit of $4,595,989
Typically carry 7 on the roster
Roster spots open - 2


SS -

Delano Hill

Group cap hit of $769,869

FS -

Earl Thomas
Tedric Thompson

Group cap hit of $11,123,003
Typically carry 5 on the roster
Roster spots open - 2

Special Teams -

Jon Ryan
Jason Myers

Group cap hit of $3,905,000
Typically carry 3 on the roster
Roster spots open - 1


That's 41 players. With obvious holes at running back, tight end, guard, defensive end, inside linebacker, outside linebacker, strong safety, kicker and long snapper.

These players are either RFA or ERFA which, in my opinion, are all but guaranteed to be bought back in -

J.D. McKissic - RB
Tyler Ott - LS
Branden Jackson - DE
Quinton Jefferson - DT
Justin Coleman - CB
Dion Jordan - DE

With that lot added to the roster it takes the team up to 47 players with a total of 6 roster spots left to get up to 53. These roster spots are still open (the exact numbers don't add up as they are currently carrying one too many WR's, obviously I'm not saying that they won't carry one more WR as I don't know that, but the bottom of the depth at each position can be adjusted accordingly, for example not carrying 7 linebackers).

Running back - 1
Safety 2 -
Tight End - 1
Offensive lineman - 1
Defensive tackle - 1 (assuming Malik remains on NFI)
Linebacker - 4
Cornerback - 2
Safety - 2

With the team having so many WR's on the roster it doesn't mean that they won't do anything in free agency or the draft, though. After Tyler Lockett and Doug Baldwin for example, the talent drops off quite considerably for example.

Ultimately, the team desperately needs a running back or two, a starting guard, a starting corner as well as potentially a starting strong safety (no idea if Delano Hill could step up) and a tight end.

I'd imagine Seattle will want to bring back several unrestricted free agents to add to the team, once that happens we will know much better where the team is likely to attack in the draft as well as outside free agents. Hope that was useful!

My god, do you sleep? You’ve been killing it this offseason.

As suspected, the Seahawks are not tendering DT Garrison Smith or LB Christian French.

(per Rapoport).

dutchcoug":3mq5dwx5 said:

My god, do you sleep? You’ve been killing it this offseason.

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Trying to stay 'in tune' with the team during the offseason Thank you.

I can't wait to see what Dion Jordan does this season. He is a freak of nature.

Sox-n-Hawks":13nfx6a4 said:

I can't wait to see what Dion Jordan does this season. He is a freak of nature.

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Snap, super excited about him!

Thank you for posting this info and spending your time on it op OP (lol, see what I did there). I don't have that much free time or inclination to spend what I do have on this stuff, but I love to read thru the info.

Looks like we will have primary attention on the defense which kind of surprised me a bit to see considering the O side problems and coaching revamp.

I see major holes at every position group except for QB, C, MLB and FS (assuming we extend Earl). And even with those positions we have no depth.

So we need...

Backup QB
Starting RB
Starting FB
Starting WR
Starting TE
Starting T
Starting G
Backup C
Starting and backup DE
Starting/Rotational DT
Starting OLB
Backup MLB
Starting CB
Starting SS
Backup FS
Punter
Kicker


This is truly the year we need to take BPA every round. That roster is god awful.

oregonhawkfan":36xaxlf3 said:

Thank you for posting this info and spending your time on it op OP (lol, see what I did there). I don't have that much free time or inclination to spend what I do have on this stuff, but I love to read thru the info.

Looks like we will have primary attention on the defense which kind of surprised me a bit to see considering the O side problems and coaching revamp.

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Yeah I think the defense will see old faces bought back with more new faces on the offense.

Realistically I'd be surprised if Byron Maxwell isn't signed in free agency to start at LCB opposite Griffin. Shead may well be bought back in to start at SS or even Bradley McDougald. McDougald will be considerably more expensive (4 times the price I'd expect) but you can't underestimate having him on the roster should Earl go down. You've also got Delano Hill entering his second year, it will be interesting if the team decides to run with him.

In an ideal world you'd bring back Shead and Maxwell to compete for the start at LCB with the loser of the battle adding well needed depth at corner and sign McDougald for the starting SS spot as well as backing up Earl if he went down (then moving Delano Hill to a starting role at SS).

No idea what they will do at LB, I suspect a combination of free agency and the draft but I'd imagine the part time OLB spot will be much the same as last year, couple of guys getting snaps there.

On the offensive side they need a starter at LG which I think will be one of Will Hernandez, Isaiah Wynn or Austin Corbett via the draft as well as at least one running back (possibly even 3). With how deep this running back class is they'd be fools not to tap into the depth, I wouldn't be upset at a cheapish Eddie Lacy type deal in free agency, either. Although I can't envision Seattle being a top landing spot for free agent running backs so they may have to scrape the barrel there in free agency and focus on the draft.

Tight end is probably going to involve bringing Luke Willson back long term to compete with Nick Vannett for the starting role, who knows who wins that one. Pete Carroll always seems to harp on about Nick Vannett but he doesn't seem to really put it all together on the field, maybe something will click in 2018 and he will earn the starting role further down the line.

That list includes only 6 players from XLVIII. Yikes! Definitely not the same team.

Wow the roster is a lot worse than I thought. Guess that's what happens when the FO hasn't had a good draft since 2012. I see holes everywhere except qb. Guessing there will be a lot of one year prove it deals to players who are over the hill or not good anymore.

But wait, I thought the reason that our drafts were not getting players was because it was so difficult to make the roster as we were stacked?

Wasn't that the excuse?

What will we do for the new excuse then?

Cyrus12":1d54kljw said:

Wow the roster is a lot worse than I thought. Guess that's what happens when the FO hasn't had a good draft since 2012. I see holes everywhere except qb. Guessing there will be a lot of one year prove it deals to players who are over the hill or not good anymore.

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The roster will look vastly different after free agency and the draft, but I don't need to tell you that.

Since Boykin was starting to practice as a WR, did we not have a Davis as a qb backup? I would assume we go after a backup Qb for a camp body too.

Seahawkfan80":2oqhhx31 said:

Since Boykin was starting to practice as a WR, did we not have a Davis as a qb backup? I would assume we go after a backup Qb for a camp body too.

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Yeah Davis was the backup QB last season but is an unrestricted free agent, every chance they bring him back, though.

Cyrus12":eee6ue5o said:

Wow the roster is a lot worse than I thought. Guess that's what happens when the FO hasn't had a good draft since 2012. I see holes everywhere except qb. Guessing there will be a lot of one year prove it deals to players who are over the hill or not good anymore.

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Yep, doesn't look that strong at all. I was hoping we could just retool, but they may have to go pretty much the rebuild road now. What a waste of a legendary defense the last 5-6 years.

Your focused on the 53 man, but how many of those guys are just PS players last year and could be again, that reduces the head count quite a bit. God forbid the IR list as well that seems like a Scratch and Stash Group a lot of the times.

We will have more solid players after the draft and F.A. to fill, we just don't know who they are yet, bring on the 90 man roster.

Is Kam not under contract?

#1 Need a quality LG. Don't care how we get him but it is a must.
#2 Sign Max and McDougal
#3 Still need another dominant interior lineman
#4 Wouldn't mind and above average SAM
#5 Good blocking and receiving FB
#6 Get a TE that can block and doesn't drop the ball. Don't care if he's getting a thousand yard/10TD season. Block and don't drop 3rd down passes.

chris98251":2eqjeguk said:

Your focused on the 53 man, but how many of those guys are just PS players last year and could be again, that reduces the head count quite a bit. God forbid the IR list as well that seems like a Scratch and Stash Group a lot of the times.

We will have more solid players after the draft and F.A. to fill, we just don't know who they are yet, bring on the 90 man roster.

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Agree again! Far to early to see how all this shapes up by OTA's. At least with this rebuild we have some pieces to build around. The biggest thing is we have an above average QB to work with, and not going through that nightmare like other teams have for years.