It’s been a wild ride for the Seahawks defense the past week. After the team traded Michael Bennett to the Eagles and released Richard Sherman, it also decided to release cornerback DeShawn Shead.
This was noteworthy because the Seahawks told the player it would release him to allow him to become an unrestricted free agent despite the NFL saying his contract should toll for 2018.
Earlier today, Shead signed with the Lions but reportedly wanted a return to the Seahawks, the Seattle Times’ Bob Condotta tweets. After Seattle honored its statement to make the cornerback a free agent, Shead wanted to give Seattle every chance to keep him, but the organization ultimately wouldn’t match the offer he received from the Lions.
Seattle now enters free agency without three of its top veterans and could be seeing the end of the Earl Thomas era, who has threatened to hold out if he doesn’t receive a new deal. The Seahawks could deal him this offseason and are reportedly looking for a first-round pick in return.
Needless to say, the Seahawks once-stingy defensive unit will look plenty different in 2018.
Here’s more from around the league:
- Rams general manager Les Snead said on Wednesday the team traded linebacker Alec Ogletree to accommodate the ensuing move for cornerback Aqib Talib, Alden Gonzalez tweets. Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips prefers cornerbacks to linebackers in his scheme, and a big move had to be made to bring in the former Broncos corner, who will count $11 MM toward the cap.
- Snead also said he sees ways the Rams can address run defense and the pass rush in free agency, Gonzalez tweets. Though he is weighing what will be available to fill those holes with rookies, he doesn’t want to just wait until the draft to fill obvious needs. The team received some insurance for its pass rush on Wednesday when it re-signed veteran linebacker Connor Barwin.
- New Titans cornerback Malcolm Butler said he was worried his Super Bowl benching would hurt his value on the open market, USA Today’s Lindsay Jones tweets. Butler notoriously didn’t see the field against the Eagles in February when the Patriots allowed Nick Foles to shred their secondary. The 2015 Pro Bowl selection reached a deal with the Titans on Wednesday worth up to $61 MM over five years, with $30 MM of that being guaranteed.
- Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said cornerback Marcus Peters‘ trade to the Rams had nothing to do with national anthem protests, Pro Football Talk passes along. “This was a football decision. … This wasn’t just one game, wasn’t a month, this was three years of body of work, and we look for consistency. We felt that this was in the best interest of the team,” Veach said.
- Veach also touched on the Chiefs move for Sammy Watkins, saying the team pounced on the receiver in the first minute of free agency, the NFL Network’s James Palmer tweets. Veach said that if Watkins received a call before theirs, the other team would’ve had to call in 30 seconds before they did. The team was motivated to move on Watkins to add him to Tyreek Hill, giving strong-armed quarterback Patrick Mahomes a pair of dynamic, stretch-the-field receivers.
Chiefs offense should be fun to watch
Is that how you picked your user name??
Picturing the Chiefs offense with Mahomes, Hunt, Watkins, Hill, Conley, Kelce, and possibly even another piece or two in the draft?? Lol
Overpaid for Watkins. Has never backed up his draft hype. Bad move by Chiefs.
You can do that when your other wr is a pro bowler that makes 500k
They can do anything they want, doesn’t mean it’s a sound decision. By your logic, it’s ok if they signed AP for 8 million coz their pro bowl rb makes peanuts.
Bason you make no sense. The other WR being a pro bowler has no relevance to anything nor does his salary. Chiefs blew $16m of their cap space. Some of the cap space was their because of the others low salary but instead if using that benefit to the teams advantage they squandered it.
Yes actually it does have relevance. Because they wouldn’t have done it or been able to do it if they had money tied up in the wr corps. But they don’t. They have all of about 3 million paying out the rest of them. So if Watkins market value is 13-14 million, then you can afford to pay more because of your savings in other areas. YOU make no sense because you say they “blew” 16m. Blowing 16 million would indicate they’re getting nothing in return. When in fact they’re getting a really good player who was under utilized in an offense designed for a young QB to make easy throws underneath, while watkins occupied the best CB on the outside. He’s a deep ball WR with an inaccurate deep ball thrower. Even when he had a decent one he put up 2000+ yds and 15 TD’s before he was 23. “Squandered” money on a WR with 25 TD’s before he’s 25? Let me know how many guys like that are out there.
No actually, that not my logic at all. Because i’m specifically talking about doing it with Watkins. Not a washed up POS. When you’re getting an almost perfect compliment to Hill and the red zone threat you need to take the double teams away from Kelce, plus giving your New QB with a rocket arm another big weapon with downfield skills, i think you can afford to “overpay.” Get your garbage comparisons out of here.