Unable to make a trade that Jarran Reed torpedoed, Seahawks release starting tackle
Jarran Reed did the Seahawks no favors on his way out of Seattle.
Then again, the team that drafted him did him no favors on his contract.
The Seahawks officially released their starting defensive tackle Friday. Reed did not agree to change his pay for this year to lessen his untenable salary-cap charge of $13,975,000 for a team that needs every dollar of cap space it can create.
Seattle would have loved to have traded its second-round draft choice from 2016. After having at least 6 1/2 sacks in two of the last three seasons, Reed may have commanded in a trade at least a pick the Seahawks need in next month’s NFL draft. They have just three choices.
But Reed wanted a new contract and signing bonus beyond 2021, in exchange for making the team’s cap life easier this year. When the Seahawks declined to do that, Reed told the world online via Twitter on Thursday that he was leaving Seattle effective 1 p.m. Friday. That’s the daily deadline for the league’s transactions.
That torpedoed any leverage the Seahawks might have had for a possible trade of Reed. All other teams knew they didn’t have to take on the cap charge of $8,975,000 in a trade when they could wait until Friday afternoon to sign him on the open market at their price in free agency.
That’s where the 28-year-old Reed goes now, for the first time.
Friday’s move became a possibility 12 months ago when Reed signed a two-year, $23 million contract extension. It was larger than expected for an interior defensive lineman who before last season had only one, breakout season of his four in the league. That was his 10 1/2-sack season of 2018, playing next to 13-sack star defensive end Frank Clark.
Reed had one sack in the first two months of the 2020 season. Then two-time Pro Bowl defensive end Carlos Dunlap arrived in a trade from Cincinnati. From Dunlap’s first game in early November at Buffalo through the next eight games, Reed had 5 1/2 sacks playing with Dunlap.
Other teams may see Reed’s two standout seasons as only being next to Clark and to Dunlap. That would ignore the disrupting, every-down, run-stopping presence he’s also been for the Seahawks for five seasons.
But that could serve to keep the free-agent market for him lower than he expects. So could the timing. Now entering the third week of free agency, many teams have spent much of the cap space they’d planned to this year on major free-agent purchases.
Reed as a proven, starting defensive tackle on a perennial playoff team is a major free-agent purchase.
The Seahawks would love for Reed’s market to fall back to them, as the running-back one did to bring Chris Carson back to Seattle a week ago and the defensive-end market did to get Dunlap re-signed Thursday.
But re-signing Reed now, even at their price, apparently will be a stickier situation given the way they ended his contract and how he’s leaving.
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 2:02 PM.
