The Tom Johnson Fiasco

So the Seahawks release Tom Johnson our week 1 Dline starter to make room week 2 for S Shalom Luani on the roster (word is with hope to re-sign again later). Luani doesn't even see the field and now Johnson signs with the Vikings and is being paid by the Seahawks to play in Minnesota. To make matters worse, he was signed to replace Sheldon Richardson who we lost a 2nd round pick and Kearse for a 1 year rental and now plays for.....you guessed it, Minnesota too!!

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer....and we lose again.

Moves like these are a huge reason we are where we are today....yet they continue on. ukeface:

Johnson had signed a one-year deal with Seattle worth up to $2.1 million that included a base salary of $950,000 that was guaranteed after he was on the roster the first week of the season. Seattle signed both Johnson and Shamar Stephen, who also played with the Vikings, to essentially replace Richardson, who spent last year with Seattle before signing a one-year deal worth up to $8 million with, well, the Vikings. He will count $1.027 million against the salary cap in 2018 and $838,235 against the cap in 2019, according to OvertheCap.com.

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https://www.seattletimes.com/sports...gns-with-vikings-after-release-from-seahawks/

Agreed. Everything they do is a cluster

I guess I disagree here.

Seattle had 10 DL players. We kept on 10 in order to retain Poona. It was a logical position group to prune.

The dead money loss is modest. And if he was truly the 8th or 9th best DL of the group it wasn't a huge risk. And I'm not even certain it was a massive loss either.

Johnson's signing at the time seemed a hedge. Kind of a weak hedge because he seemed fairly indistinguishable from the kind of street free agent we could have got for a song on cutdown day. Or after June 1. Would have been nice to concede that before the season started to save the cash. But in all not a gross error as far as the cap goes. We are carrying 17M in dead money this year. Johnson only accounts for 1M of that.

Overall though, it was a modest price to get some veteran depth where needed. I like the approach to fill out rosters in that way, rather than trying to draft for depth. Seattle does it's best work when it's looking for unique talent rather than trying to fill a hole.

He wasn't the #8 or 9 in depth though, he started week 1.

The Vikings who had him prior were happy as hell to add him and they are a top 3 defense.....that says otherwise also IMO.

Even if what you are saying is true, why give him that deal and start him week 1 and assure that we lose cap space the next 2 years? Dumb moves like this hardly move the meter here anymore because too many people accept it as norm when it is not.

That said, what the hell do the Vikings have on us? Why year after year do we help them with poor / stupid moves?? Hutchinson, Harvin, TJack, Rice, Johnson, Walsh.....the list goes on.

Thing is if they needed to prune the roster and had made a decision on keeping Ford they should have axed Johnson prior to the season on the cuts to 53. So far, thankfully, it only appears the dead cap number is approx. $1.1 mil.

We had Poona Ford and Naz Jones inactive in week 1, so with the way this season is going I'm actually happy to get them some more playing time going forwards at the expense of an old vet like Johnson.

Maybe we'll regret this in week 15 if we're in playoff contention but that seems like a decent risk to take.

Except he was good enough to add depth to the DL of one of the best defenses in the league but not good enough to add depth to ours?

I agree with your assessment but this sounds more like the kind of panicked decision a group in a sinking boat does to stay afloat.

You could be right. We could have so much depth we don't need an experienced veteran from a fairly good defense.

Or

We could be making arbitrary decisions to fill/plug holes somewhere else that caused us to lose value here.

Our recent decisioning track record seems to point to the 2nd possibility being more likely than the 1st.

jammerhawk":2s7vhgo5 said:

Thing is if they needed to prune the roster and had made a decision on keeping Ford they should have axed Johnson prior to the season on the cuts to 53. So far, thankfully, it only appears the dead cap number is approx. $1.1 mil.

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Exactly my point!! :2thumbs:

Just not well thought out moves costing us more future players in year we "could" compete.

If Johnson signs with another team, doesn't that remove our obligation to him? I always thought signing a new contract voids the old contract. He gets his signing bonus but voids the salary.

TwistedHusky":3kgzsd8n said:

Except he was good enough to add depth to the DL of one of the best defenses in the league but not good enough to add depth to ours?

I agree with your assessment but this sounds more like the kind of panicked decision a group in a sinking boat does to stay afloat.

You could be right. We could have so much depth we don't need an experienced veteran from a fairly good defense.

Or

We could be making arbitrary decisions to fill/plug holes somewhere else that caused us to lose value here.

Our recent decisioning track record seems to point to the 2nd possibility being more likely than the 1st.

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That is the way it appears to me also. Panic move and poorly thought out done at a time we should be thinking about our future and all moves should be with 2019 / 2020 in mind but this is not.

Mad Dog":1nqrj36o said:

If Johnson signs with another team, doesn't that remove our obligation to him? I always thought signing a new contract voids the old contract. He gets his signing bonus but voids the salary.

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Nope! Read the article. That is the deal. He played and started week 1 and that guaranteed him the salary for 2018 as a vet.

Mad Dog":2995oxk3 said:

If Johnson signs with another team, doesn't that remove our obligation to him? I always thought signing a new contract voids the old contract. He gets his signing bonus but voids the salary.

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He actually gets to double dip and play for a contender, which is objectively pretty cool.

Lucky for Johnson bad for us...

At least more of our young guys gets to play.

Seems to me at times the personnel decisions are being made on the basis of emotion rather than long term careful planning. Go big or go home isn't always the way to proceed.

Given the difficult cap circumstances the team has got it self into as a result of the above, Harvin and Graham and a few other failed FA moves, you'd hope some more sober consideration would be given to decisions like this one. The team has just thrown away approx. $1.1 million of cap for a player who played in one game and made one tackle.

kobebryant":az79f430 said:

Mad Dog":az79f430 said:

If Johnson signs with another team, doesn't that remove our obligation to him? I always thought signing a new contract voids the old contract. He gets his signing bonus but voids the salary.

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He actually gets to double dip and play for a contender, which is objectively pretty cool.

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Yep....we just paid $1.8 to $2.1 million for 1 game. And around half that comes from 2019 cap. Always compete, unless being stupid is more important.

jammerhawk":231p974h said:

Seems to me at times the personnel decisions are being made on the basis of emotion rather than long term careful planning. Go big or go home isn't always the way to proceed.

Given the difficult cap circumstances the team has got it self into as a result of the above, Harvin and Graham and a few other failed FA moves, you'd hope some more sober consideration would be given to decisions like this one. The team has just thrown away approx. $1.1 million of cap for a player who played in one game and made one tackle.

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$1.1 THIS year plus $838,000 2019 for $1.8M (minimum) total

He will count $1.027 million against the salary cap in 2018 and $838,235 against the cap in 2019, according to OvertheCap.com.

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This seams like a whole lot of crying about nothing to me. Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but the defense was better without Johnson, and that they "wanted to bring him back" is just speculation. Plus if they wanted to bring him back maybe it was only into backup role because they realized starting him was a mistake to begin with...?

They held better RB's in Chicago to 3.2 YPC vs 4.6 to Denver with lesser talent at RB.

They managed 2 sacks vs Chicago compared to just 1 sack vs Denver.

Complaining about losing Tom Johnson and his measly 1m salary seams like the very definition of blowing something out of proportion.

DJrmb":2elm5d26 said:

This seams like a whole lot of crying about nothing to me. Sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but the defense was better without Johnson, and that they "wanted to bring him back" is just speculation. Plus if they wanted to bring him back maybe it was only into backup role because they realized starting him was a mistake to begin with...?

They held better RB's in Chicago to 3.2 YPC vs 4.6 to Denver with lesser talent at RB.

They managed 2 sacks vs Chicago compared to just 1 sack vs Denver.

Complaining about losing Tom Johnson and his measly 1m salary seams like the very definition of blowing something out of proportion.

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For the 4th time $1.8M including $838,000 in 2019. Look at our cap problems that put us squarely in the shitty position we are in today. Things like signing Bennett to an extension that he never was here to play 1 down of ($5.1M to play in Philly). Yes...in a vacuum on it's own this looks like just a poor move. Combine it with all the other moves, miscalculations, and poor management moves and it shows a continuing trend many paying attention had hoped would end.

Problem to me is only the timing of this release. If Johnson was genuinelynot seen to be worth keeping over other cheaper and younger players then the team should have cut him before the season started and his contract became vested.

It appears the decision made to let the contract vest was an expensive mistake, or a goof up.

It is possible to be "too cute" when making roster moves.