The Seahawks could be set up to spend big this offseason

With the Seattle Seahawks’ 2019 season finished, they are out of the salary cap wilderness. The Seahawks carried a considerable amount of dead money on their cap through this season (over $26M), in large part due to the untimely end for both Kam Chancellor and Doug Baldwin.

Now they enter the 2020 free agency period with a tremendous amount of flexibility, resources and reason to spend.

According to Over the Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald, Seattle is projected to have the ninth most cap space when the new league year begins, at $57.9M. This includes projected rollover from the previous season.

Adding to John Schneider and the Seahawks’ flexibility ahead of free agency is a trio of cuts which would balloon the team’s cap space up to $71.075M: Justin Britt (savings of $7.3M), Ed Dickson ($3M) and D.J. Fluker ($2.875M). Those three, plus the existing dead money hits from Gary Jennings and Amara Darboh, come out to a cool $5,105,503 dead money charge—or essentially a fifth of what Seattle was on the hook for in 2019.

The Seahawks projected cap space would be welcome in any offseason, of course, but it might be arriving at just the right time. Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap also speculated that, because of the expiring CBA, teams may not be able to roll unspent cap space over from 2020 to 2021—essentially putting teams in a “use it or lose it” scenario. If Schneider and Seattle’s past as team builders is any indication, they will not hesitate to use it.

Of course, the Seahawks won’t be bringing in nearly $70M worth of outside free agents. In house, Jadeveon Clowney, George Fant, Mike Iupati, Al Woods, Germain Ifedi, Quinton Jefferson and Jarran Reed all could be worth retaining at various price points. Looking a year ahead, 2021 free agents Shaquill Griffin and Chris Carson could be extended, too.

Regardless of how Seattle approaches free agency, they will have the cap space to maneuver almost however they see fit. With stars from the Seahawks and other teams set to hit the open market and potentially no reason to hang onto extra space for the future, Seattle and Schneider could be approaching a spring of big spending.