Saturday Seahawks will look to spend their $167,944 on the next Doug Baldwin

It’s Thursday April 28, 2022, and that means that the Jacksonville Jaguars are effectively on the clock to make the first overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. While it has long been expected that Aidan Hutchinson of Michigan would be the first overall pick for the Jags, rumors in the past 48 hours have hinted that Trent Baalke may not use the top pick on a Jim Harbaugh player. Whether or not the Jags ultimately select the second best football player in Wolverine history with the last name Hutchinson or if they select Travon Walker instead as rumored, the true frenzy will come Saturday after the conclusion of the seventh round.

Once the draft is finished and pick number 262 is in the books, teams will race to build their undrafted free agent class from those players who did not hear their name called. It’s like a miniature free agent frenzy, with teams competing to add these players. As is the case each year, teams are limited when it comes to how much they can offer players in signing bonuses, with each team’s bonus pool capped at $167,944 for the 2022 league year.

How Pete Carroll and John Schneider deploy the $167,944 allocated to the Seattle Seahawks this year with so many holes on the roster will certainly be interesting. As has been the case in recent years, it won’t be a surprise if the recipients of the largest signing bonuses handed out by the team happen to be players who were at the Senior Bowl. The 2021 undrafted free agent class of the Seahawks included several Senior Bowl players, including Cade Johnson, Bryan Mills and Jake Curhan.