Seahawks About to Pay for Great 2012 Draft

The Seahawks are clearly hoping to win the Super Bowl again this year. Things got more interesting this year as they had to pay up for players in their defensive backfield. Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas are making serious top-end money now. Better yet, the Seahawks are still over $26 million under the projected cap for next year (http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/). This puts Seattle squarely between the Packers and Bears in terms of salary cap space. This is based on a $140 million salary cap.

In 2015, Richard Sherman will have a salary cap number of $12.2 million. With Thomas’s $8 million and Kam Chancellor’s $5.65 million, three of the eight highest paid Seahawks are in the defensive backfield. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson will have a cap number of just $953,519. Bobby Wagner is also underpaid at $1.37 million against the cap in 2015. These two players are about to be paid. Both Wagner and Wilson have been great leaders on a Super Bowl caliber team for the last three years. The CBA allow players to renegotiate their deals after the third year.

According to Over The Cap, Bobby Wagner is the 41st highest paid ILB (out of a total 98). Russell Wilson ranks 59th among 93 quarterbacks. Now, the Seahawks are clearly a run first team. Wilson was fifteenth in the league with 3,475 yards passing and nineteenth with452 attempts. He threw the ball 68 fewer times than Aaron Rodgers and 207 times less than Drew Brees. Wilson managed 217.2 yards per game. While this sounds sad, he is right in line with Colin Kaepernick (210.6), Andy Dalton (212.4), and Alex Smith (217.7). Andy Dalton will count $9.6 million against the cap next year. Kaepernick looks to count $15.2 million against the Niners cap. Niners are also dealing with possible $8 million hits from NaVarro Bowman and Patrick Willis. If you are a Seahawks fan, those numbers have to prepare you for what Wilson and Wagner will be looking for.

Remember back to the two teams I mentioned surrounded the Seahawks? Yes, Green Bay and Chicago. The biggest difference between those teams and Seattle is both have locked up the most expensive position in football. Jay Cutler looks to count $16.5 million against the Bears cap while Rodgers should be $18.25 against the Packers cap. You bet Wilson will not be counting less than $12 million against the cap next year. Wagner may not have earned the $8 million range, but certainly will demand something close to $6-7 million next year. So imagine a $5 million raise for Wagner and an $11 million raise for Wilson and you have $16 million gone from that projected $26 million. There will be a chunk of that $10 million that will be devoted to draft picks (but also figure in some extra money for cutting ties with Marshawn Lynch, which should save $7 million).

The Seahawks have been great at managing money. They cut ties with players who may be talented, but will get more money elsewhere. Golden Tate made his money elsewhere. After seeing the trade for Percy Harvin (a trade that gave Minnesota Cordarrelle Patterson) did not work, they gave him away to the Jets for almost nothing. Brandon Browner is in the playoffs with the Patriots this year. Watch the Seahawks send Marshawn Lynch off this year. This year the Seahawks will have to start negotiating with their great 2012 draft class. Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner were joined by Bruce Irvin, Robert Turbin, and J.R. Sweezy among others.

How Seattle and San Francisco Come Back to the Pack

ESPN has been strong in covering the way that the 49ers and Seahawks have built strong, winning programs very quickly through the draft.  Both teams have been very good at finding talent in the later rounds of the draft.  The new rookie wage scale makes it easy for teams to become great quickly and stay under the cap if they can find the talent to fill their holes.  Seattle and San Francisco have been blessed with young Quarterbacks on rookie contracts.  Seattle has been paying very little for the best secondary in the league.  This savings has been pushed into free agent signings to bolster pass rush.  San Francisco has placed the savings into picking up a receiving corps.  Now things will get harder.

The CBA establishing the rookie wage scale also limits renegotiating contracts until after the third year.  Richard Sherman and Colin Kaepernick have just passed those magical limits.  Both got paid this offseason.  Russell Wilson will be crossing that barrier next year.  Now, Seattle and San Francisco will be playing by the same rules as New England, Denver and Green Bay. 

Richard Sherman counted $600,606 against the salary cap in 2013 (all cap numbers and contract information retrieved from http://www.spotrac.com, last visited June 4, 2014).  This year Sherman will count $3,676,606 against that cap.  Consider that the Seahawks played last year with $3.352  million in cap space as a team (25th in the NFL).  This cap number will be going up.  Sherman looks to have a 2015 cap number of $12.2 million.  Add to this the new contract for Earl Thomas.  Thomas will have a 2014 cap number of $7,373,215.  Seattle has been making their decisions about who to value most.  Sherman and Thomas clearly move to the top of this list.  After the extension for Percy Harvin last year, Seattle agreed to a new contract with Doug Baldwin for 3 years and $13 million.  All this meant Golden Tate will be catching balls from Matthew Stafford this year.  Last year was the year Seattle had to win.  This year is a year where the talent will still be present, but make no mistake, the belt tightening starts now. 

San Francisco will be joining the age of tough decisions as they extend Colin Kaepernick.  Without the extension, Kaepernick would have counted $1.63 million against the cap this year.  The Niners had $7,764,777 in cap space before the deal.  San Francisco also added contracts for Antoine Bethea and Anquan Boldin.  San Francisco will have to start thinking of where the money will be going from here on out.

Consider Green Bay.  After winning Super Bowl XLV, Green Bay paid Clay Matthews III and Aaron Rodgers.  In the last few years, Green Bay has watched Donald Driver retire, Greg Jennings take the big contract in Minnesota, and James Jones and Charles Woodson go to Oakland.  Still, in 2014, the Packers managed to have $14.564 million in cap space.  This has allowed the team to make some moves in the free agent market and continue to sign some players the team feels are most valuable.  Currently, the Packers are looking to extend Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb.  The Packers were willing to bring back players like Jones, Jennings and Woodson, but only at the numbers that worked in the cap.  Teams like Oakland and Minnesota were willing to get into bidding wars and over pay for declining stars in hopes of selling tickets.  Unlike Minnesota, Green Bay has been sold out since 1959.  This economic reality allows the Packers to work purely from a talent valuation stand point and ignore the play to the crowd. 

With Colin Kaepernick’s new contract and the contract of Russell Wilson looming, the Niners and Seahawks will no longer be playing in a league where they possess the ultimate tactical advantage… a quarterback massively outplaying his contract.  I am not saying any player I have mentioned here is undeserving of the contracts they signed.  The point is these teams will have to deal with the fact they are now paying for the level of play they have been getting.  No more free ride.  Welcome back.