Uchenna Nwosu’s Seahawks extension, hefty guarantee keeps him with ‘special’ Pete Carroll
Uchenna Nwosu was special for the Seahawks in his debut season with them.
He feels the same way about Seattle’s coach.
That — and up to $59 million in new money — are why the edge-rushing linebacker is remaining with the team beyond his current contract ending at the end of the 2023 season.
Nwosu, 26, signed a three-year contract extension Monday. It includes a hefty $32 million guaranteed. The Seahawks announced the deal Monday evening, before the start of training camp Wednesday.
The contract has a base value of $45 million over the three years, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported.
Nwosu signed a two-year, $19.06 million contract with Seattle in free agency in the spring of 2022. Then he co-led the team with his career-high 9 1/2 sacks last season.
He said late in his Seattle debut year Carroll’s influence is a big deal to him.
“I’ve just learned that he’s special. He’s different. He has that juice, that energy, that positivity. Every day, no matter win, loss, rain, sunshine, doesn’t matter, he’s the same guy,” Nwosu said of his coach. “That’s what you appreciate as a player, when you got the same guy constantly showing up every day to work, you can’t expect nothing different. ...
“You know he’s not going to flip out on you and he’s going to be the same guy who he is. It’s good for the team because he knows how to bring everybody closer together and he just knows how to spread his positivity and energy.”
Nwosu’s deal follows Seattle’s pattern of re-signing foundational players still in their 20s just before or at the start of training camps entering the final years of their contracts. It happened with Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner and Doug Baldwin, among others, spanning the Seahawks’ consecutive Super Bowl runs a decade ago.
General manager John Schneider and team salary-cap executive Matt Thomas like to include in these deals renegotiated, lower, more team-friendly cap charges than those scheduled for the final years of existing contracts.
Nwosu’s cap charge had been scheduled to be $13.01 million for 2023. That was to be fourth-most on the Seahawks, behind only safeties Jamal Adams ($18.11 million) and Quandre Diggs ($18.1 million) plus wide receiver DK Metcalf ($13.72 million), per overthecap.com.
That are keeping Nwosu from the temptation of open-market free agency after the 2023, were the Seahawks’ motivations to get this deal done.
Nwosu and fellow outside linebacker Darrell Taylor are two of the few proven NFL pass rushers returning to a defensive front seven Carroll spent this offseason overhauling. Nwosu had 9 1/2 sacks the previous two seasons combined for his hometown Los Angeles Chargers. After part-time roles with L.A. in 2020 and ‘21, Nwosu played a career-high 78% of defensive snaps against the pass and run for Seattle last season.
“He has much more obvious leadership through his play, effort, work habits, and just the person that he is,” Carroll said during last season. “It’s not what he says, it’s what he does. He has been an obvious leader and a real tough guy in all situations.
“The guys love him, and they respect the heck out of him.”
Carroll let Nwosu freelance most of last season. His aggressiveness earned him the freedom to pick his own gaps to charge and to take off straight up the field to pressure quarterbacks.
“Guys take chances, at times,” Carroll said, talking about Nwosu. “They play with risk involved with the choices they make, whether they come underneath a block or they take a shot to kind of ole’ a guy on a rush, how they feel the off tempo plays like screens, reverses, boots, and stuff like that. All of that shows up and he has a really good sense for the game.
“He’s a ballplayer, so the thing that I’ve tried to do with him as soon as we started to realize that was to free him up. Take the liberties; ‘you have the liberties to go.’
“That’s not everybody that we’ve coached like that. Some guys you do. Some guys you don’t.”
Nwosu’s freelancing sometimes came at the expense of effectively stopping running plays off his edge. Seattle spent much of last season allowing more than 170 yards rushing per game. That was on track for among worst run defenses in team history.
The Seahawks finished 30th in the 32-team league allowing an average of 150.2 yards rushing in 2022.
Now with his new deal, Nwosu has more than this final year of his previous contract to help Taylor and Seattle improve that.
“Especially up front, guys are just running at you, and it has to be a mindset. You have to have the mindset of being physical, no matter what the call is,” Nwosu said late last season. “No matter what the protection is, and whenever they run it, you have to look the man in the face and just be like, ‘I’m about to run through you.’
“It has to be a mindset, I think that is where it starts.”
This story was originally published July 25, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
