Getty Head coach Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks have been linked to a former first-round pick who is set to hit NFL free agency.
It was pretty obvious that run defense was the biggest weakness for the Seattle Seahawks during the 2022 season. But Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox has predicted just the right player for the Seahawks to fix that deficiency immediately this offseason.
Knox identified the Seahawks as the best fit for pending free agent defensive tackle Daron Payne.
“Interior defenders who can wreck both running and passing game plans are few and far between,” Knox wrote. “The Seahawks, who ranked 30th in run defense this past season, could desperately use one along their defensive front.”
Payne, who turns just 26 this offseason despite having already played five NFL seasons, made his first Pro Bowl in 2022.
He recorded 11.5 sacks, 64 combined tackles, including 18 tackles for loss, 20 quarterback hits and 5 pass defenses this past season. All of those statistics were new career bests for Payne.
How Payne Fits With the Seahawks
The Washington Commanders drafted Payne 13th overall in the 2018 NFL Draft. He was a valuable contributor in Washington from 2018-21, but he finally made a major impact in the sack department during 2022. Prior to his 11.5-sack season, he had 14.5 career sacks in his first four years.
According to the player grades at Pro Football Focus, Payne is coming off his best two campaigns as a pass rusher. Among defensive linemen who played at least 50% of his team’s snaps, Payne was ranked in the Top 20 in pass rushing during 2021 and 2022.
In 2022, he made a bigger impact in part because he played a career-high 908 snaps. Payne is not only a force in both the pass rush and against the run, he doesn’t come off the field very often.
The Seahawks could use all of that along their defensive line in 2023. They were not just 30th in run defense but also 20th in passing yards allowed per attempt. Furthermore, the Seahawks were 27th in yards yielded per carry and 19th in pressure rate.
Signing Payne would likely boost the Seattle defense in all of those statistical categories.
The Cost to Sign Payne
Of course, bringing in a breakout player as young as Payne will not come cheaply. Spotrac projected the defensive tackle, who Knox ranked as the second-best NFL free agent this offseason currently 25 or younger, to be worth about a five-year, $97.5 million deal on the open market.
Such a contract would give Payne an average annual salary of approximately $19.4 million through the 2027 season.
Seattle possesses $31.3 million in salary cap space this offseason, but the team’s top priority this offseason is to seemingly re-sign quarterback Geno Smith. Seahawks general manager John Schneider talked about how negotiations are going with Smith while appearing on Seattle Sports 710 AM on February 16.
“We’ve had good talks so far,” Schneider said. “We’re in it. Just trying to figure out what’s best.”
Smith is due for a huge raise. He had a base salary of just $1.26 million in 2022 but made the Pro Bowl. Spotrac projected Smith’s market value to be nearly $40 million on an average annual basis next season.
In all likelihood, he received a deal worth between $30-35 million per season. The Seahawks could probably work out contracts for both Smith and Payne but that might leave them limited in being able to do anything else in free agency.
With that in mind, it will be interesting to see if the Seahawks pursue Payne. There’s little doubt, though, that he is an obvious fit in the Pacific Northwest.