Re-signs. No risk. Comp picks. Seahawks begin free agency doing it their way
The first day of Seahawks free agency went the way John Schneider wanted it to. The way he designed it to.
The general manager stayed true to his budget plan for his Super Bowl champions. He didn’t do what multiple teams, losing teams, did Monday. He did not overpay for expensive, external free agents, veteran players who would not know the locker-room brotherhood the Seahawks have curated in two seasons under coach Mike Macdonald.
So it was that Schneider allowed Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker to leave for Kansas City. The Chiefs gave the 25-year-old running back a three-year contract worth $43.05 million. That was above what Schneider was willing to pay for a running back.
The GM let safety Coby Bryant leave to the Chicago Bears on a three-year, $40 million deal. That cost re-set the safety market Schneider had no interest re-setting.
Seattle’s general manager watched the Bengals way overpay to lure outside linebacker Boye Mafe to Cincinnati. Mafe got a three-year deal worth $20 million per season. That was despite him producing only two sacks and playing just 50% of the Seahawks’ defensive snaps last season. No value there, either.
Instead of all that, instead of signing external free agents to backfill those departures, Schneider spent on his own guys.
He signed back to the team Pro Bowl kick returner and wide receiver Rashid Shaheed for a noticeably steep price, $17 million per season.
The GM got starting cornerback Josh Jobe to return to Seattle at better value, three years at $8 million per season.
In all, 32 teams made 312 moves around the NFL Monday. The vast majority of those were teams agreeing to sign free agents from other squads (new contracts will become official Wednesday, the first day of the new league year).
Entering the second day of the free-agency negotiating period Tuesday, the Seahawks were one of just four teams that had yet to sign a free agent from outside the club. The others: the Philadelphia Eagles, Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars.
All four of those teams were division champions and won at least 11 games last season.
At the league’s scouting combine in Indianapolis two weeks ago, The News Tribune asked Schneider if he had it his way this spring would free agency be relatively quiet for Seattle in signing few if any external free agents. That is, because the Seahawks’ priority is to re-sign their own.
“Yeah, quite possibly,” Schneider said. “Definitely, you know, more so than last year.”
Good teams, particular Super Bowl champions, have good players worth good money to keep.
Meanwhile, losing teams spent the most to begin free agency. As they do every year.
The Tennessee Titans committed a reported $284 million combined on seven free-agent contracts Monday. The Las Vegas Raiders with new coach Klint Kubiak, the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator this past season, spent $282 million on seven external free agents.
The Carolina Panthers put out $165 million. The Washington Commanders, $147 million. The Indianapolis Colts spent $134 million. The New York Giants committed to $127 million in free-agent contracts. The New Orleans Saints, $119 million.
None of those seven teams had a winning record in the 2025 season. Their combined records: 37-82.
The Seahawks spent $75 million on keeping Shaheed and Jobe. They went 17-3 and won the Super Bowl last month.
Compensatory draft choices
One of the more insightful comments Schneider made two weeks ago at the league’s annual scouting combine in Indianapolis gave a glimpse into the Seahawks’ approach for 2026’s offseason.
It showed what he thinks of this year’s pool NFL draft prospects. And it shows why the team made its trade of two draft choices to the Saints to acquire Shaheed in November, a swap Schneider has since called “a huge blessing.”
“You have to evaluate every class. And so we evaluated this class as, ‘OK, ‘25 is going to be stronger than ‘26. And ‘27 may be stronger,” Schneider said.
“It’s not the individual players. It’s kind of the collective, like, the whole group (this year).
“So that’s why you saw us make some of the decisions we made.’’ Including regarding compensatory draft choices.
Letting Walker, Bryant and Mafe leave on deals with other teams for combined values of over $143 million sets up Seattle to gain three comp picks at the end of the fifth, fifth and fourth rounds of the 2027 draft. The draft Schneider deems stronger than this one.
That’s why the Seahawks are OK with having just four selections in this 2026 draft.
Losing and signing free agents, and for how much, this offseason will go into the league’s calculations for awarding compensatory picks for 2027. If the Seahawks sign external free agents to contracts at qualifying amounts, that will reduce the team’s current surplus of three comp picks.
For a stronger draft next year, there’s an incentive for Schneider to save his resources for re-signing his own rather than sign from the outside.
That leads us to Tariq Woolen.
Tariq Woolen’s situation
The 2022 Pro Bowl cornerback as a rookie remained a free agent entering Tuesday.
He’s seen likely to be more expensive, and thus less likely, to re-sign than Jobe, the cornerback he shared playing time in a rotation this past season.
Woolen is expected to attract more bidders in the market than did Jobe, a Seattle waiver pickup from Philadelphia at the end of the 2024 preseason. The league knows Woolen’s Pro Bowl pedigree. They know and see he’s 6 feet 4 with long arms, blazing speed. They know he has still somewhat raw, awing physical talent at cornerback after converting from wide receiver halfway through his college career at Texas-San Antonio.
Monday night, Woolen posted on his social-media accounts a scene from the cartoon film Ratatouille.
Entering Tuesday, the Seahawks’ salary-cap space for 2026 was down from $55.4 million entering free agency to $42.97 million, per overthecap.com. That was still the seventh-most cap space in the league.
That’s not as much as it may seem.
Schneider intends this summer to sign NFL offensive player of the year Jaxon Smith-Njigba and three-time Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon to extensions beyond the final years of their Seahawks rookie contracts. Those deals could end up being worth $40 million and $30 million per year, respectively.
Plus, Schneider said last week he intends to again to set aside cap space for the fall to make go-for-it trades at the deadline in the middle of next season. He’s done that in recent midseasons to acquire Shaheed, vital middle linebacker Ernest Jones in the November 2024, Pro Bowl defensive lineman Leonard Williams in 2023 and defensive end Carlos Dunlap in 2020.
It takes salary-cap space reserved to make those moves.
This story was originally published March 10, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
