We heard in March that the Seahawks would likely extend wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and cornerback Devon Witherspoon this offseason. Seattle has already finalized a deal with JSN, leaving Witherspoon’s second contract as an outstanding item at or near the top of the agenda.
Albert Breer of SI.com predicts the Seahawks and Witherspoon will come to terms at some point before the start of training camp. However, there are some market developments the two sides will need to navigate before they get to that point.
As Breer observes, there are now seven non-quarterbacks on contracts featuring average annual values of at least $40MM, whereas there were no such deals before March 9 of last year, when Myles Garrett signed an extension with the Browns. Pass rushers and wideouts are leading the way at the top of the non-QB market, while cornerback and offensive tackle are premium positions that have fallen behind.
As of the time of this writing, Trent McDuffie’s newly-minted $31MM/year pact with the Rams resides at the top of the CB hierarchy. Although Witherspoon surely understands he is not going to approach Texans DE Will Anderson Jr. ’s $50MM/year accord, Breer suspects the Seattle star will nonetheless insist on a number that gets him much closer to Anderson than cornerback peers McDuffie, Sauce Gardner ($30.1MM/year), and Derek Stingley Jr. ($30MM/year) are.
Witherspoon established himself as a top-shelf defender as a rookie in 2023, starting 13 of 14 games and logging 16 passes defensed, a 97-yard pick six, and three sacks en route to the first of three straight Pro Bowl campaigns. Starting all 17 games in 2024, Pro Football Focus’ 16th-best cornerback that season finished second on the Seahawks with 98 total tackles, adding a sack, six tackles for loss, and nine passes defensed. Five missed games near the start of the 2025 slate led to a decreased stat total, but Witherspoon’s excellence when he got back on the field was apparent, as he earned second-team All-Pro honors and graded out as PFF’s best cornerback.
Interestingly, fellow 2023 first-rounder and Patriots CB1 Christian Gonzalez has the same representation as Witherspoon (Reginald Johnson and Tory Dandy of CAA Football). Breer suggests that could set up a game of contract chicken in which one team knows that if they extend their top cornerback first, that will become the baseline for the other player.
Seattle has already made the easy decision to exercise Witherspoon’s fifth-year option, thereby locking the Illinois product into a fully-guaranteed $21.16MM salary for 2027. The club still hopes to have a new deal in place long before then.
Sign the man!
Cut the check, bro is a Ronde Barber clone. Glue man on a phenomenal defense