This Seahawks week begins like last: awaiting Jadeveon Clowney, signing offensive linemen
This Seahawks week began like the last one. Like the last month, for that matter.
Waiting on Jadeveon Clowney.
Monday dawned with Clowney still the most coveted unsigned free agent in the NFL. The three-time Pro Bowl pass rusher and Seattle’s top offseason priority to re-sign was still debating his contract options.
For him, they aren’t fabulous.
He has the Seahawks’ multi-year offer Sports Illustrated Corbin Smith has reported is at $18.5 million per year; that’s below the $20 million-plus he thought he’d get in free agency but no other team is offering. He has the option of signing a one-year contract for perhaps $13-15 million per season and trying the market again in 2021, when the salary cap will spike per the new collective bargaining agreement. If he wants to go that route, he is deciding whether his familiarity with and affinity for the Seahawks should keep him in Seattle.
The coronavirus pandemic is affecting his option of signing with another team for money below what initially wanted.
Regardless of whether that would be a one-year or multiyear deal, another signing team would want Clowney to pass a physical examination with its team doctors before making the contract officials. That’s a formality for all contracts, but it’s more for Clowney’s with another team. It would want its own doctors to assess a veteran who has played an entire 16-game regular season just once in his six years in the NFL because of injuries. Clowney is coming off a sports-hernia surgery in January, after he missed three of Seattle’s final five regular-season games of 2019.
But the league is currently prohibiting travel of free agents to team facilities, for physicals or anything else.
The Seahawks’ medical staff knows Clowney’s sports-hernia injury and recovery from surgery better than any other team in the league.
The Seahawks are reaching a point of needing to move on to the few other remaining pass rushers on the market, such as four-time Pro Bowl sack man Everson Griffen. He declared his exit from Minnesota Friday.
There’s a chance the Seahawks could re-sign Clowney and still make a bid for Griffen. To do that, they would need to clear cap space. They could relatively easily by releasing veteran backups Ed Dickson (for a cap savings of $3 million) and Tedric Thompson ($2.1 million).
But the longer Clowney contemplates, the more other teams can entice Griffen.
Meanwhile, Seattle continues to sign offensive linemen to second-wave, short-term, low-cost deals.
The latest continues the Seahawks’ peculiar poaching from the first round of the 2013 draft—a round they traded out of to get wide receiver Percy Harvin many years ago.
Chance Warmack arrives
The agent for Chance Warmack told The News Tribune Sunday the 10th-overall pick in the 2013 draft agreed to a contract with the Seahawks.
Agent Ron Slavin told the TNT the contract is for one year. It is likely to be at or just above the league veteran minimum salary. The new collective bargaining agreement the players just voted for says that pay for Warmack’s tenure is $910,000 for 2020.
Warmack is the fourth free-agent offensive lineman Seattle has added within the last week. The 28-year-old was out of the league last season following an injury-shortened 2018 with Philadelphia.
He is the seventh player among the top 13 picks in the 2013 draft that Seattle has signed at some point over the last half dozen years. The others: Luke Joeckel the second overall pick that year), Dion Jordan (third), Ziggy Ansah (fifth), Barkevious Mingo (sixth), D.J. Fluker (11th) and Sheldon Richardson (13th).
At least Schneider and his scouting staff are making use of their scouting for the top of that draft, after all, through a slow, seven-year drip.
Warmack started his first three seasons in the league at right guard for the Tennessee Titans, through 2015. He played in only two games for them in 2016, which ended for him on injured reserve. In his first season with the Eagles, their Super Bowl-winning one of 2017, he was a reserve left guard. He played in nine games as a back-up for Philadelphia in 2018, then for no one because of injury issues last year.
Where he seems to fit
Warmack will have chances to compete for playing time in Seattle, possibly at both guard spots. The Seahawks have let Mike Iupati, their starting left guard last season, remain unsigned in free agency. Starting right guard D.J. Fluker is entering the final year of his contract. He has missed games because of injuries in each of his last three seasons.
Jamarco Jones started at guard last season for the first time in his life. Seattle drafted him in 2018 to eventually be a starting tackle. He was Ohio State’s starting left tackle for multiple years. Seattle’s current left tackle is Duane Brown. He is 35 and coming off a knee surgery last winter. He has this year and next remaining on his contract.
Jordan Simmons, a fill-in starter at guard in 2018 who spent 2019 on injured reserve, is currently unsigned The Seahawks did not tender him an offer as an exclusive-rights free agent, but could sign him back as an unrestricted free agent with the ability to pay him only when he is healthy (a “split contract.”)
The Seahawks also have Phil Haynes for one of the guard spots. They drafted him in the fourth round last season but he spent the first six weeks of the season on the physically-unable-to-perform list. He never got a chance to play last year after that.
Last week, the Seahawks signed B.J. Finney, who has primarily been a left guard for Pittsburgh but has also started at center. Finney got a contact worth up to $8 million for two years, which for Seattle is long term and suggests he will start at guard or center, if Justin Britt doesn’t recover well from reconstructive knee surgery or gets released to save $8 million in salary-cap space.
Britt has a hefty cap charge of more than $11 million for 2020, the third-highest on the team behind Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner and Brown, and ahead of Tyler Lockett.
Seattle also signed Cedric Ogbuehi, a former first-round pick and starter at tackle for Cincinnati. And the Seahawks signed former New York Jets right tackle Brandon Shell. Shell also got a two-year deal, for up to $11 million.
Germain Ifedi, the Seahawks’ right tackle the last four years, remains unsigned in his first attempt at free agency. Last spring Seattle declined to exercise Ifedi’s fifth-year contract option because it would have cost them $11 million for 2020.
