Why the front office needs to make a call on two of its most-important defensive starters.
By now you know that the Seattle Seahawks need to make a decision regarding the future of Geno Smith no later than March 16. The starting quarterback will receive a $16 million guarantee. Most likely, the organization will chose to give Smith a new contract with a short-term extension that reduces his cap hit in 2025.
Before that happens though there are a few smaller decisions that they’ll have to make regarding a few key role players – the first of which will come this week. According to Gregg Bell at the Tacoma News Tribune, two defensive starters are due guarantees this week.
First, outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu has a $6 million guarantee that’s due tomorrow. Nwosu is the best edge defender on the roster. However, he has had a hard time staing on the field. Nwosu missed the second half of the 2023 season with a pectoral tear and sat out large portions of the 2024 season with multiple injuries. All together Nwosu has appeared in 12 games since joining the team and has missed 22 due to injury.
Obviously that’s not an ideal ratio and may spur the Seahawks to decide to move on. If the team were to cut Nwosu and designate it a post-June 1 move they’d save almost $15 million in cap room. If they do so, they have two ready-made starters in Boye Mafe and Derick Hall to take over on the edge – assuming the team also plans to cut Dre’Mont Jones.
The other is safety Julian Love, who is due $4.35 million in guarantees on Saturday. In Love’s case it should be a much easier decision to keep him around. Love has appeared in every game for the Seahawks since signing two years ago and was good enough to make the Pro Bowl last year. Further, Love has a reasonable cap hit just over $6 million and the Seahawks would only get negligible cap savings if they were to cut him.
If Seattle is going to make changes at this spot, most likely the odd man out will be Rayshawn Jenkins, who was replaced in the starting lineup by Coby Bryant, who shined at free safety after bombing on the boundary and in the slot his first two seasons. Either way, Bryant and Love should project as the Seahawks’ starting safeties going forward.
