The Seattle Seahawks have one of the youngest rosters in the NFL this year. With their initial 53-man roster now all but finalized before Week 1, Seattle has 14 rookies on the team. Also, 33 of their 53 players are 25 years old or younger. The average player is 25.95 years old, which makes this the fifth-youngest team in the league this year.
Yesterday general manager John Schneider spoke with the media before practice and he touched on this subject. Schneider says he learned from former Packers GM Ted Thompson to save some cap space for the end of the year, and carrying younger players helps with that – per John Boyle at the official team website.
Buy Seahawks Tickets“When you have younger players, it’s a smaller salary. You have to try to be smart. (Former Packers general manager) Ted Thompson would always say ‘Keep your powder dry towards the end of the season’ so you have enough cap room and or space in cash to work with towards the end of the season. For us, primarily cap space as we move forward here.”
While that’s nice in theory, at the moment the Seahawks have just $2.4 million in salary cap space leftover for the 2023 season. Huge chunks of their total cap allotment are going to wide receiver, safety and their new-look defensive line.
That last one may the the single biggest x-factor for how well this team does in 2023. They don’t need a dominant defensive line in order to win the division or make a deep playoff run – but they do need a front-line unit that isn’t near the bottom in pass rushing and run defense. If they can be at least mediocre in those two parts of the game, this is going to be a very tough team to beat this year.
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