Champion Seahawks go big and keep Pro Bowl kick returner Rashid Shaheed
The day he got to Seattle this past fall, Rashid Shaheed said he wanted to remain a Seahawk as far as he could see.
“I’m here to stay,” Rasheed said in early November.
His vision is now reality.
The Pro Bowl kick returner and the Seahawks have an agreement on a three-year contract to bring him back to the Super Bowl champions for 2026 and beyond. The deal Monday is worth $51 million with $34.7 million guaranteed, agents Drew Rosenhaus and Robert Bailey told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Shaheed gets a $20 million signing bonus. His base salary is $2,235,000 and $11,375,000 in 2027. That ‘27 salary becomes fully guaranteed next February, five days after the Super Bowl. The Seahawks have an out year in 2028, the final season of the deal when Shaheed will be 30 years old. As the contract’s currently structured, the team can release him between the ‘27 and ‘28 seasons if it’s not working out for a salary-cap savings of $15.5 million in 2028.
The agreement came about six hours after the start of the NFL’s free-agency negotiating period. General manager John Schneider said last week Shaheed began testing free agency before that.
But after that shopping, he’s decided to return.
Schneider and the Seahawks departed from their norms to convince Shaheed to stay.
Part of why: Though he didn’t have any such scores on running or pass plays on offense in 12 games for Seattle this past half-season, Shaheed has averaged 47.8 yards per scrimmage touchdown in his career. That’s the highest by any player that’s scored at least 10 scrimmage TDs in the Super Bowl era that began in 1967, per NFL research.
Shaheed’s five career touchdowns on kickoff and punt returns since he entered the league with the Saints as an undrafted rookie from Weber State in the Big Sky Conference. That’s the most return TDs in the NFL the last four seasons.
Rashid Shaheed’s changing value
The GM traded two third-day choices in the 2026 NFL draft to New Orleans to acquire Shaheed in early November.
When he did, it’s hard to imagine Schneider thought he’d be paying an average of $17 million per year to keep him beyond this past season.
But then Tory Horton got hurt. The rookie fifth-round draft choice from 2025 was Shaheed, before Shaheed arrived — just not as consistently explosive as the 2023 All-Pro returner. Horton scored two touchdowns in Seattle’s runaway win at Washington Nov. 2.
Days later he reported pain in his shin. It became a season-ending injury.
That was the same time Schneider decided to give the Saints what they’d been asking for: a fourth-round plus a fifth-round pick in a draft the Seahawks GM has since said his regards as weaker than next year’s overall.
Shaheed has immediate impacts.
He returned a kickoff for a touchdown to break the Seahawks out of a 6-6 slog to begin the second half of an eventual blowout win at Atlanta.
Two games later, Seattle trailed the Los Angeles Rams by 16 points with 9 minutes left in Seattle. Shaheed then returned a punt for a touchdown. That sparked Seattle’s rally to force overtime in a home game the Seahawks won 38-37.
Without that win, they likely would not have won the NFC West. The Rams would have had the conference’s top playoff seed, instead of the Seahawks. Seattle would have had to win three road games as a wild card to get to the Super Bowl, including likely at L.A. in the NFC title game. Instead, the Seahawks got a playoff bye.
In their first postseason game, Shaheed returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. That sent Seattle on to a 41-6 rout of San Francisco in the divisional playoffs.
The Seahawks ended up hosting the Rams again, won the NFC championship at Lumen Field and advanced to the Super Bowl they won over New England last month. Shaheed didn’t have the statistical impact in Seattle’s passing game for Pro Bowl quarterback Sam Darnold he and the team may have anticipated when the trade happened in November. Shaheed had 15 receptions for 188 yards and zero touchdowns receiving in nine games to finish Seattle’s regular season.
Yet his speed stretched defenses, as Horton’s threatened to do before the rookie got hurt. Shaheed took some of the attention defenses paid to eventual NFL offensive player of the year Jaxon Smith-Njigba with an extra safety deeper on him.
When Shaheed did not re-sign with the Seahawks, it appeared he may price himself out of Seattle by shopping in free agency this week. But Schneider and the Seahawks made him a priority.
That became obvious as Seattle let Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker leave to Kansas City on a three-year contract worth $43.05 million earlier on Monday.
Also Monday, the Seahawks refused to match Chicago’s rich offer to Coby Bryant. The safety agreed to sign with the Bears for three years at an average of $13.33 million.
That and outside linebacker Boye Mafe leaving to Cincinnati for $20 million per year Seattle was never going to pay to keep him sets up the Seahawks to get perhaps three compensatory choices in the stronger, 2027 draft (one in the fourth round and two in the fifth round). That depends on how many outside free agents Schneider signs and for how much in the coming days, weeks and months.
So far, it’s all internal.
Turns out, Schneider was saving his play for keeping Shaheed, and for cornerback Josh Jobe. Jobe on Monday agreed to sign back with Seattle for three years at $8 million per season.
New Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Fleury, replacing new Las Vegas Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak, intends to pair Shaheed with Horton as dual deep threats for Darnold in the 2026 passing game. They will be opposite Cooper Kupp and Smith-Njigba, who’s about to get a massive extension this summer worth perhaps close to $40 million annually.
Kupp is returning for his age-33 season. Three weeks ago the Seahawks took on a $9 million guarantee on Kupp’s $12.99 million base salary for 2026. He will be playing the second year of a three-year deal Seattle can get out of if its wants before 2027, at a salary-cap savings of $14 million on an $18 million charge.
The Seahawks expect Horton to be back healthy for the start of next season, though he may not do much until training camp in late July.
“He got, like, fixed up,” coach Mike Macdonald said two weeks ago at the league’s scouting combine in Indianapolis. “So we’re just working through it. (He’s) not gonna do anything in the spring.”
With Shaheed now signed and returning, the Seahawks can take any more time Horton may need to return fully.
This story was originally published March 9, 2026 at 3:40 PM.
