Seattle Seahawks
Seahawks GM Schneider updates status of Jadeveon Clowney contract situation at NFL combine
February 25, 2020, 11:29 AM
Where there is no offseason
Where there is no offseason
Where there is no offseason
Where there is no offseason
That’s basically Dorsey, the Browns’ new general manager from Kansas City and Green Bay, giving Schneider and the Seahawks a player for nothing, a player Cleveland and its new regime may have been releasing otherwise.
\nSchneider, Seattle’s GM, and Dorsey worked together in Green Bay’s scouting and personnel department beginning in the 1990s.
\nSmith has played in 13 games the last two NFL seasons after Philadelphia signed him in May 2016 as an undrafted free agent from North Dakota State. He played in 10 games that year for the Eagles, on special teams and at cornerback. He was on Cleveland’s practice squad from last September into December then played in three games for the Browns.
\nSmith is 5 feet 11, 189 pounds, not the prototypical size for Seahawks cornerbacks. But he has 32-inch arms. That’s the magic size attribute coach Pete Carroll just about requires in his cornerbacks. Smith’s arms are 32 1/8 inches, in fact.
\nSince Schneider and Carroll arrived to run the Seahawks in January 2010, Seattle has drafted eight players with the intent on having them play cornerback. All eight have had 32-inch arms. That includes Richard Sherman in the fifth round in 2011 and the rookie who started opposite the three-time All-Pro at right cornerback for the Seahawks last season, Shaquill Griffin. It also includes last year’s sixth-round pick, Mike Tyson.
\nThe Seahawks need to replace Sherman two weeks after they waived him to save $11 million in salary-cap space for this year. Byron Maxwell, the veteran who started for Sherman at left cornerback last season after Sherman ruptured his Achilles tendon in early November, is an unrestricted free agent. Seattle wants to re-sign Maxwell, but the 30-year old is not the long-term answer there. Now that he is going shopping for new teams he could get a contract offer Seattle may not want or be able to match.
\nExpect the Seahawks to select another cornerback in next month’s draft. And expect him to have 32-inch arms, too.
\nSmith’s arrival isn’t the first time Schneider and Dorsey have swapped players.
\nJust before the 2013 regular season began, when Dorsey was in his first year as Chiefs’ GM after leaving Green Bay and Schneider was in his fourth year as the Seahawks’ GM, Kansas City claimed defensive end Jaye Howard and defensive back Ron Parker off waivers. That was days after Schneider had released them in Seattle.
\nLast summer Dorsey left the Chiefs. A month later, the Seahawks sent linebacker Kevin Pierre-Louis to Kansas City for linebacker and special-teams player D.J. Alexander.
\nDorsey became the Browns’ new GM in December.
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Justin Britt is certifiably part of the Seahawks’ long(er)-term plans on their offensive line.
Continuity there is a prime reason Seattle on Monday exercised a $5 million option on Britt’s contract, to keep the center and the line’s one sure thing tied to the team through 2020.
ESPN.com’s Brady Henderson was the first to report the Seahawks’ decision on Britt.
The option was due on the fifth day of the 2018 league year, which was Monday. It ensures the final season on Britt’s three-year contract extension for $27 million he signed last summer.
Had the Seahawks declined to pick up the option, they would have voided the final year of Britt’s extension. That would have made him a free agent following the 2019 season, and it would have changed his salary for this year from $2.75 million to $7.75 million.
Picking up the option gives Britt that $5 million difference in the form of a bonus this year, instead. His salary-cap charge for 2018 stays at $6,167,000.
This year will be the third consecutive one with Britt as the starting center, and fifth straight year Britt has started for the Seahawks since they drafted him in the second round in 2014 out of Missouri.
In Seattle, that’s a relative eternity for starting on the in-flux O-line. Germain Ifedi is next in starting seniority there, at two straight seasons. He’s been at two different positions already: right guard as a rookie first-round pick in 2016, then right tackle last season.
Britt was the starting right tackle as a rookie in 2014; he started Super Bowl 49 there. In 2015 he moved to left guard. It didn’t work out well for him there, either, so then-line coach Tom Cable moved Britt to center before the 2016 season. That was after Cable tried and failed to use Drew Nowak and Patrick Lewis as his starting center in 2015.
Britt was a revelation at center in 2016, playing well enough to be a Pro Bowl alternate. He’s been there since.
And now he’s under contract to be there through 2020.
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