New Seahawks TE Gerald Everett gets in on the void year fun

Just a week ago the Seattle Seahawks were one of those conservative teams that had never used void years to dip into the salary cap of future years, but my how much has changed over the past seven days. In the time since free agency started a week ago Wednesday, the Seahawks front office has given contracts that include void years to several free agents, including Chris Carson, Ethan Pocic, Kerry Hyder and Benson Mayowa.

Now that the structure of the contract of tight end Gerald Everett has been made public, he can be added to the list as well.

So, while Everett’s contract is only for the 2021 season, he’ll carry a $2M cap hit for the Hawks in 2022 regardless of whether or not he is on the roster. In addition, the use of the void year to split the signing bonus recognition against the cap over two seasons will lead him to carry a cap hit of $4M in 2021, even though he will earn $6M.

Thus, while the Seahawks are certainly nowhere near the level of many teams in the league when it comes to aggressively managing the salary cap, their willingness to dip into the future is readily apparent this offseason. The question now is how much of the future cap they will use in working to field as competitive a roster as possible in 2021.