75 million reasons why Seahawks’ Charles Cross is smiling out in the cold rain
Seahawks players trudged onto the practice field.
It was 41 degrees. It was raining. The wind was blowing off Lake Washington.
It was a January Wednesday in the Pacific Northwest — yet coach Mike Macdonald doesn’t want his NFC West champions and top playoff seed to get soft while they are on their postseason bye this week.
“Mighty fine day,” quarterback and native southern Californian Sam Darnold said, with noticeable sarcasm.
Then Charles Cross came out. He opened the glass door of the training room that leads out the back of the team facility. Cross jogged so merrily to the field he almost skipped. He was smiling, pointing, laughing with teammates as he hopped past them.
“For me, personally, I was just happy to be back at practice,” Cross said.
He smiled again.
No wonder he was happy.
It was the 6-foot-5, 317-pound starting left tackle’s first time on the field in 3-1/2 weeks. He missed Seattle’s final three regular-season games with a hamstring injury he suffered on Jason Myers’ game-winning field goal to end the team’s win over Indianapolis Dec. 14.
And he just got paid.
The night before he was back practicing Cross, 25, signed his four-year contract extension with the Seahawks. It includes $75 million guaranteed. It has a total new value of up to $104.4 million. The deal came after the team had given its ninth-overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft a fifth-year option for 2026, at a guaranteed $17.56 million. It’s the richest deal the Seahawks have ever given to a player other than a quarterback.
Cross’ new contract keeps him under contract with Seattle through the 2030 season. It keeps him and right tackle Abe Lucas, re-signed for three years and $46 million in September, as bookends to the offensive line for years.
“Oh, it means a lot to me,” Cross, a native of Laurel, Mississippi, said Wednesday following practice. “This team, this organization, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“This place is definitely special. And I believe in everyone in this building.”
Charles Cross feels at home
Cross cited what many of his teammates have said is a key to Seattle setting a franchise record with 14 wins in the regular season, being the division champion for the first time since 2020 and earning the No. 1 playoff seed in the NFC for the first time since 2014.
The uniquely close brotherhood inside the locker room.
“I was drafted here,” Cross said. “The teammates, the team, the camaraderie that we have, the relationships in abundance, it means the world to me.”
How much do the Seahawks value Cross as their foundational left tackle? He is the first first-round draft choice Seattle has signed to a second contract since 2010 first-rounders Earl Thomas and Russell Okung re-signed with the Seahawks in the spring of 2014.
That was in the middle of the franchise’s consecutive Super Bowl appearances, including the last Super Bowl Seattle’s played in at the end of the 2014 season.
Cross’ current Seahawks are two home playoff wins away from getting back to the sport’s grandest game. Now healed, he’ll be back at left tackle for the push. With Cross and Lucas as the tackles, 2025 first-round pick Grey Zabel excelling as a first-day starter at left guard, Jalen Sundell in just his second season as the starting center and third-year man Anthony Bradford at right guard, Seattle has contract rights on all five of its starting offensive linemen through at least 2026. Cross said that continuity and youth on the O-line also makes him want to remain a Seahawk for as long as he can see.
“I’m very excited about it,” he said. “Just the O-line room, the guys in there are great guys. We have a great rapport with one another. We are just one big brotherhood that continues to grow and get better, week to week. And now to go from year to year.”
Offensive line’s best lately
Cross didn’t have the greatest start to this his fourth season as Seattle’s starting left tackle. And his offensive line struggled from fall into winter consistently blocking for the running game that is the basis for the Seahawks offense.
Yet the O-line has been plowing the last three games better than it has all season. It’s been blocking for a Seahawks running game that is starting to be as consistently effective as Macdonald, offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and line coach John Benton had planned last spring. Seattle has rushed for 171, 163 and 180 yards the last three games.
The 180 yards last weekend at San Francisco was a season high, with 115 coming in the first half in the Seahawks’ 13-3 victory that won the West.
“The run game is everyone doing their job: O-line, tight end, receivers,” Cross said. “Everyone doing their strength, and extra blocks to hold their man off a quick second. It’s a group effort.”
It’s been with veteran swing tackle Josh Jones playing left tackle the last three games — wins over the Rams, at the Panthers and at the 49ers — while Cross has been out.
Now Cross is back as the line’s anchor for the playoffs.
“He’s got such a great spirit to him, and he’s a great teammate,” Macdonald said. “Very unselfish. Extremely hard worker. Humble. Confident, all those things.
“I think his teammates really respect the heck out of him. He’s been great for Grey since Grey walked in the door.
“And then, he’s just a great person. Really is. ...He’s just a great person that we really respect. And turns out he’s a great football player, too.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2026 at 2:59 PM.
