The Seahawks have had quite the offseason thus far – one that Seattle fans hoped would never come and one that has many wondering what the team’s plans are.
With trading Michael Bennett to Philadelphia, releasing Richard Sherman, and letting Jimmy Graham, Paul Richardson, and Sheldon Richardson walk in free agency, Seattle has parted ways with several critical players who helped define this era of Seahawks football. This has the look and feel of a rebuild.
But don’t suggest that’s what Seattle is doing to Seahawks general manager, John Schneider. He calls it something else.
“That’s what we have to do in order to be a consistent championship-caliber football team,” Schneider replied when asked at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Orlando about Seattle’s high profile departures. “We don’t want to be having these major rebuilding years, we want to be able to have little resets, if you will.”
To Schneider, the Seahawks aren’t rebuilding, but instead, re-tooling their team. They are doing so by turning one of the older, more expensive defenses in the league into one that is younger and cheaper. Extending players like Justin Coleman, Dion Jordan, and Bradley McDougald are indicative of such a strategy.
Despite the exodus of big names in Seattle this offseason, it’s not as if the talent cupboard is empty in the Pacific Northwest. The Seahawks still have Pro Bowl wide receiver Doug Baldwin, All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner, All-Pro left tackle Duane Brown, and of course franchise quarterback Russell Wilson, to name a few.
With a solid core still intact, Schneider expects the Seahawks to still be a competitive team in 2018.
“It’s not like 2010 when we felt like we had to make these sweeping changes,” Schneider explained. “We’ve been here since 2010, and it feels like we’ve just constantly been doing this every single year. It’s not like we have this, ‘OK, season’s over, now we’re going to do A, B and C.’ We’re working all the way through the year.”
Although Schneider claims this is merely a “reset” instead of a rebuild, only time will tell if that is indeed the case.
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