Pete Carroll: Jordyn Brooks will stay with Seahawks past 2023. And: About Jalen Carter...
Jordyn Brooks isn’t going anywhere after this year.
That’s what Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Wednesday on Seattle radio.
This week the Seahawks decided to not pick up Brooks’ fifth-year contract option for 2024. Seattle’s decision Monday makes this year a contract one for Brooks, the final season of the linebacker’s four-year rookie deal he signed as the team’s first-round draft choice in 2020.
Without saying it explicitly Carroll indicated the nearly $13 million his team would have guaranteed Brooks now for 2024, per league-mandated terms of a team option for a fifth year onto Brooks’ rookie deal, is the lone reason the Seahawks didn’t do it.
“Oh, he’s got a long, long future for us,” Carroll said Wednesday on 93.3 KJR radio. “We love the way he plays and what he brings, and all of that.
“We’ve got to orchestrate the way we move forward. And the decisions we made now, this is not an indication of our future (with Brooks) concerns.
“We expect Jordyn to be with us for a long time.”
That suggests if Brooks proves healthy and resembling his performance of his first three seasons, Seattle will offer him a multiyear contract extension. That new deal would keep Brooks on the team for years beyond this one — and involve a more team-friendly (meaning, lower) salary-cap number for 2024. The timing on that new contract is likely to be after the 2023 season into next year, when Seattle has more cap space.
The Seahawks drafted Brooks 27th overall in the 2020 draft out of Texas Tech. Per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, first-round picks are entitled to a team option of a fifth-year added on to the standard four-year contract all draft choices receive.
The league deadline for exercising those options for next year was Tuesday.
Brooks’ option for 2024 would have guaranteed him $12.72 million. That was far too expensive for Seattle to pick up now, before the team knows if or when he can return from his major knee injury.
Carroll said last month Brooks is trying to make it back for the start of training camp in late July. That would be early for an anterior cruciate ligament injury. A typical return-to-play time for most ACL injuries is nine to 12 months.
“It could happen. I mean, there’s some optimism that it could happen,” Carroll said two weeks ago.
Brooks played his first two seasons at weak-side linebacker outside in Seattle’s 4-3, with Bobby Wagner in the middle. Last year, the Seahawks released Wagner to save salary-cap money and moved Brooks to inside linebacker for the first time in a new 3-4 scheme.
Wagner, who turns 33 next month, signed back with Seattle last month after a year away with the Los Angeles Rams. He and inside linebacker Devin Bush, signed in free agency this offseason from Pittsburgh, are each on one-year contracts. Jon Rhattigan, a special-teams mainstay and backup inside linebacker, is also on a one-year deal.
Vi Jones and Nick Bellore are the other inside linebackers in Seattle’s 3-4. Bellore is more a fullback and special-teams captain. He is signed through 2024. Jones’ contract ends after the 2023 season.
Derick Hall, the Seahawks’ second-round pick in last weekend’s NFL draft, played some inside “Mike” linebacker at Auburn. But Seattle primarily drafted Hall for his outside pass rushing and ability to set the edge against the run. He had 16 sacks his last two seasons, primarily as an outside linebacker at Auburn.
So the Seahawks have some decisions to make and could possibly be starting all over at inside linebacker in 2024.
Carroll indicated Wednesday he doesn’t expect that to happen without at least keeping Brooks. For years.
Seahawks’ interest in Jalen Carter
Carroll, general manager John Schneider and the Seahawks’ decision-makers met with Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter twice in person before the draft. The first was at the league’s scouting combine in Indianapolis to begin March. In April the dominant lineman who began this year the favorite to be the first-overall pick in the draft visited Seahawks headquarters.
Carroll and his team leaders did deep investigations of Carter’s off-field issues, including racing a car on an Athens, Georgia, street in January before it crashed and killed the driver, a Georgia recruiting staff member, and one of Carter’s Bulldogs teammates. That incident plus an alarmingly underwhelming pro day workout on campus in March reportedly had some teams declining to consider drafting Carter at all.
Carroll has throughout his 13 years running the Seahawks embraced players who have had checkered pasts. The coach has never met a skilled player he didn’t think he could reform to maximize his talent for the player and the team.
That’s why when Carter was available, as expected, when Seattle picked at fifth overall in the first round last week many expected the team to draft him.
The Seahawks passed on Carter. They selected Devon Witherspoon from Illinois, regarded as the best cornerback in this year’s class.
Philadelphia eventually drafted Carter four spots later, ninth overall.
Carroll was asked by KJR’s Bucky Jacobson Thursday about those pre-draft visits with Carter.
“Did you like what you saw there? Or was it more than you fell in love with Devon Witherspoon and that’s where you wanted to go?” Jacobson asked.
“No, Jalen was a real nice kid. We met with him at the combine, we met with him here, and spent a lot of time with him, and felt comfortable that we knew what we were dealing with,” Carroll said.
“There was just this special aspect to Devon,” Carroll said of Witherspoon whom the coach has likened to Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu for his football instincts and approach. “and the way he fit in and all of that. Just was going to be a rare opportunity. So we jumped at it.”
This story was originally published May 3, 2023 at 12:30 PM.
