Breakdown of the Marcus Smith contract

Saturday I took a look at the contracts that the Seattle Seahawks gave to defensive linemen Shamar Stephen and Tom Johnson, both signed away from the Minnesota Vikings as rotational replacements for Sheldon Richardson. Richardson and Stephen combined have cap hits of less than $4.2M, which means signing them rather than signing Richardson gives the team an additional $3.8M in cap space to work with compared to if they had matched the one-year, $8M contract that the Vikings gave to Richardson. Some of that extra cap space may have been used to retain the services of defensive end Marcus Smith.

Smith, a former first round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles, performed well in limited snaps while filling a role as a depth player in 2017, and it appears may have earned himself a larger role in 2018. But first let’s take a look at his contract.

As usual, I prefer things more visual, so here is the table taking a look at those numbers in a more readable format.

The reason Smith’s cap hit comes in at $1,410,938 rather than $1,425,000 is because is of the per game roster bonuses and the fact that Smith was only active for fifteen games last season. Thus, rather than the full amount of the per game roster bonuses counting towards the cap for the Seahawks heading in to 2018, the Hawks only need to account for the games for which Smith was active. Smith appeared in fourteen games, and was active but logged no snaps during the Week 2 victory over the San Francisco 49ers.

Thus, Smith’s cap charge for 2017 will be $1,410,938, as the team will need to account for 15 of the 16 per game roster bonuses heading into the 2018 season.

Smith signing for this amount means that the combined cap hits for Johnson, Stephen and Smith will be in the range of $5.5M, or still less than the cap hit for Richardson. Obviously none of those players are on the same level as Richardson, however, together they have the potential to represent a fantastic meeting of upside and potential for the Seahawks.