Getty DK Metcalf of the Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks need to shake things up this offseason. They already fired and hired a head coach, now the franchise needs to take aim at the roster, and Seattle Sports Radio personality Mike Salk has an idea.
He wants the Seahawks to make a DK Metcalf trade to make the team look more like the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs.
Why Seahawks Should Make a DK Metcalf Trade
“What if [the Seahawks] want to really rejigger the construction of this roster? My suggestion is that it would work best if they traded DK Metcalf,” “Brock and Salk” host Mike Salk suggested in a February 12 article on Seattle Sports.
His argument is relatively simple.
The Chiefs won their third Super Bowl in five years this past season with a roster-building formula that relies on heavy investment in the quarterback and on the offensive and defensive lines. The downside of that is they completely disregard (most of) their skill position players on offense — see the Tyreek Hill trade.
Seattle’s payroll is almost the exact opposite of what goes on in Kansas City.
“Offensively, the Seahawks are spending more than $40 million a year on their two starting receivers, not to mention used a first-round pick on Jaxon Smith-Njigba and two second-round selections on running backs,” Salk wrote. “DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are the highest-paid non-quarterbacks on the offensive side of the ball.”
For these reasons, Salk argues the Seahawks should trade Metcalf this offseason.
What Could Seattle Get Back for Star WR?
So, if the Seahawks do make a Metcalf trade this offseason, the question is, what will the team get back?
In addition to Kansas City’s Hill trade and its five-draft-pick haul, there have been several big-time wideout deals in the past four offseasons. The Tennessee Titans traded A.J. Brown to the Philadelphia Eagles and, Salk thinks a Metcalf deal would be similar to that.
“I don’t know exactly what Metcalf would be worth, but the A.J. Brown trade would be a good starting point,” Salk posits. “During the 2022 offseason, he went from Tennessee to Philly for the No. 18 and No. 101 picks (a first- and third-rounder). Metcalf might not be quite the player Brown is, but he has already gotten his money, which means the acquiring team wouldn’t need to pay his signing bonus nor risk a situation in which he walks away after one year.”
The other receiver trades that have gone down recently are Davante Adams getting traded from the Green Bay Packers to the Las Vegas Raiders for a first- and second-round pick, Amari Cooper going from the Dallas Cowboys to the Cleveland Browns for fifth- and sixth-round picks, and Stefon Diggs moving from the Minnesota Vikings to the Buffalo Bills for first-, fourth- fifth, and sixth-round picks.
So, the moral here is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. All these receivers had somewhat similar careers heading into their trades, which is to say several 1,000-plus-yard seasons with some down campaigns here in there still with 800 yards or more.
Hill and Adams are a notch above the rest, which is why they returned the most capital. No matter what Seahawks fans think of Metcalf, he’s not on that level.
However, Metcalf, Diggs, Cooper, and Brown are all remarkably similar stats-wise. And the other similarity is that they were (or hypothetically will be) around 26 or 27 when they were traded.
In the end, the NFL is a copycat league, so teams are surely starting to think that paying WRs big money isn’t the smartest idea after what the Chiefs have done. That means it is unlikely the Seahawks get a one and a two in a Metcalf move.
That said, he just turned 26 in December 2023, he has physical traits almost no human on earth does, and his stats back up that natural talent. If the Seahawks do want to do this, there will be a market, but a first and a few late-rounders are the best they can hope to get back.