Seahawks announce trade for Gabe Jackson, signing of Gerald Everett. Here’s what’s next
The best move on the Seahawks’ iffy offensive line since Duane Brown arrived on it four years ago is official.
Gabe Jackson passed his physical examination and satisfied all aspects of the deal. So Seattle announced Sunday its trade known for days: the Seahawks acquiring Jackson, one of the NFL’s best pass-blocking guards the last half-dozen years, from the Las Vegas Raiders for a fifth-round choice in next month’s draft.
It’s an offensive-line upgrade Russell Wilson has all but demanded they make.
Since the end of this past season in January, left guard Mike Iupati retired. Lead tight end Greg Olsen retired. Center Ethan Pocic became a free agent.
In response to that—and to their franchise quarterback stating in January “I’m frustrated with getting hit too much”—the Seahawks have:
- signed free-agent tight end Gerald Everett from the Rams, to reunited with new Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. The team announced that deal as official on Sunday. He gets one year and $6 million guaranteed, with incentive bonuses that could make the value $7 million. Coach Pete Carroll hired Waldron in January to replace fired Brian Schottenheimer. Waldron was Everett’s position coach then passing-game coordinator for the last four years in Los Angeles.
- the Seahawks traded for Jackson. The seven-year veteran was the Raiders’ starting left guard his first two seasons, as their third-round draft choice from 2014. He’s started the last five seasons at right guard for the Raiders. He’s a huge upgrade, the biggest on the needy O-line since Brown arrived in a trade from Houston in October 2017.
- unexpectedly, they brought back free-agent running back Chris Carson. The market fell back to them. Their leading rusher the last three seasons gets two years, $14.6 million with $5.5 million guaranteed this year. He was thought to be gone for more money elsewhere, but the market for running backs came back to the Seahawks.
- Seattle re-signed Pocic for one year and up to $3 million.
- The team gave defensive tackle Poona Ford a new, two-year contract worth $14 million instead of tendering him a one-year, $3.38 million deal as a restricted free agent.
What’s next?
Paying for it.
The Seahawks entered Monday $1.41 million over the NFL salary cap for 2021, according to figures from overthecap.com. Technically, that’s not possible without violating league rules. But, for instance, overthecap.com’s number does not include the deals for Pocic and Everett, nor Ford’s big raise from $750,000 to $4.4 million.
It does include Carson’s $2.5 million cap charge for this year. The team hasn’t announced Carson’s deal yet because he hasn’t officially signed it—and because they don’t yet have the cap space to add Carson’s contract.
Once they add Carson’s deal, the Seahawks perhaps as soon as Monday will need to clear cap space. They could cut veterans or, more likely, restructure contracts. The most likely to be restructured: those for Wilson and for All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner.
The Seahawks could create up to $12 million in cap room by restructuring Wilson’s $19 million base salary for this year into bonus money they could spread accounting-wise across 2022 and ‘23 instead. The team could save up to $6 million restructuring Wagner’s $13.15 million base pay.
The News Tribune confirmed this month Wilson’s contract includes language that allows the Seahawks to unilaterally restructure the quarterback’s money in any year of his contract. He does not need to approve that—though common business sense says they would run it past him before doing it to keep the trust they’ve built with Wilson over 10 years since they drafted him and immediately made him their starter in 2012.
Carroll and general manager John Schneider have mostly avoided re-doing deals to save cap space now but pay more later at the end of contracts during their 11 years leading the team. But if there was ever a time to break that norm and restructure big contracts through Wilson’s and Wagner’s ending after the 2023 season, this is it.
The NFL last week renewed its television rights deals with CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN, plus new online streaming rights for Thursday night games on Amazon, for $10 billion per year for 10 years. That deal begins in 2023. That’s the year those in the league expect the salary cap to spike, to perhaps $225 million per team.
So creating cap space now will, proportionally, hurt less later. Less than it ever should during the Carroll-Schneider era.
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 7:26 AM.
