Seattle Seahawks

Teams making decisions about picking up the fifth-year options on the contracts of their 2023 first-round picks now know how much that will cost.

The NFL revealed the values on Friday afternoon. There are four levels of compensation at each position. Players who have made multiple Pro Bowls as an original selection are at the top followed by players with one Pro Bowl selection and players who have hit playing time milestones before reaching the lowest level.

Panthers quarterback Bryce Young and Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud were the first two picks of that draft and both of them reached the playing time level of compensation. That will leave them with fully guaranteed salaries of $25.904 million if the teams decide to exercise the options, but longer-term extensions are also a possibility now that they have finished their third seasons.

The full list of 2023 first-rounders — there were 31 that year because the Dolphins were stripped of their pick — and their fifth-year option salaries appears below:

1. Panthers QB Bryce Young — $25.904 million (playing time).
2. Texans QB C.J. Stroud — $25.904 million (playing time).
3. Texans DE Will Anderson — $21.512 (Pro Bowl).
4. Colts QB Anthony Richardson — $22.483 million (base).
5. Seahawks CB Devon Witherspoon — $21.161 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
6. Cardinals OT Paris Johnson — $19.072 million (playing time).
7. Raiders DE Tyree Wilson — $14.475 million (base).
8. Falcons RB Bijan Robinson — $11.323 million (Pro Bowl).
9. Eagles DT Jalen Carter — $27.127 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
10. Bears OT Darnell Wright — $19.072 million (playing time).
11. Titans OG Peter Skoronski — $19.072 million (playing time).
12. Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs — $14.293 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
13. Packers DE Lukas Van Ness — $14.475 million (base).
14. Steelers OT Broderick Jones — $19.072 million (playing time).
15. Jets DE Will McDonald — $14.475 million (base).
16. Rams CB Emmanuel Forbes — $12.633 million (base).
17. Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez — $18.119 million (Pro Bowl).
18. Lions LB Jack Campbell — $21.925 million (Pro Bowl).
19. Buccaneers DT Calijah Kancey — $15.451 (playing time).
20. Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba — $23.852 million (Pro Bowl).
21. Chargers WR Quentin Johnston — $18 million (playing time).
22. Ravens WR Zay Flowers — $27.298 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
23. Vikings WR Jordan Addison — $18 million (playing time).
24. Giants CB Deonte Banks — $12.633 million (base).
25. Bills TE Dalton Kincaid — $8.162 million (base).
26. Jets DT Mazi Smith — $13.391 million (base) Smith was traded to the Jets by the Cowboys.
27. Jaguars OT Anton Harrison — $19.072 million (playing time).
28. Bengals DE Myles Murphy — $14.475 million (base).
29. Saints DT Bryan Bresee — $13.391 million (base).
30. Eagles LB Nolan Smith — $13.752 million (base).
31. Chiefs Felix Anudike-Uzomah — $14.475 million (base).

Last week, speculation emerged that the Seahawks possibly won’t make the annual visit by the Super Bowl champion to the White House. At the time, the team said nothing had been offered or decided yet.

Coach Mike Macdonald was asked about the issue during a Wednesday appearance at the Scouting Combine.

“We haven’t gotten an invite yet, and then we’ll address it after that,” Macdonald said from the podium, via Greg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune.

Macdonald elaborated in comments to reporters after the press conference ended.

“I would hope so,” Macdonald said, per Bell, regarding the possibility of getting an inviation. “I mean, yeah. . . . I don’t know. We’re going to get an invite, right? That’s how it works? Not really sure how it works.”

Bell reports that, if an invitation is extended, the Seahawks “will most likely accept.”

That’s a critical wrinkle. If the White House believes the invitation may be rejected, it may not be extended. And it’s possible that, even if it’s extended and accepted, some players will choose not to make the trip.

Seahawks General Manager John Schneider is tasked with trying to keep a Super Bowl champion together this offseason and that difficult process comes with an added twist.

The Seahawks are up for sale, so their bid for a second straight title will unfold amid uncertainty about who the owner might be the next time they take the field. On Tuesday, Schneider addressed that during both a press conference at the Scouting Combine and a visit to PFT Live.

At the press conference, Schneider said he anticipates “business as usual” and shared a conversation he had with team owner Jody Allen during his time on the show.

“I had a great talk with Jody last week,” Schneider said. “It’s all about, like, ‘Hey, let’s go for it. Let’s go win another one.’”

Schneider also told Mike Florio that he plans to talk to Broncos GM George Paton about working through a sale since he did that earlier in his Denver tenure and that he expects to tell an incoming owner or ownership group how things have been “humming” in Seattle because they have been doing “a lot of winning for a long time.”

Drake Maye needed a pain-killing injection in his right shoulder before Super Bowl LX.

The Patriots quarterback didn’t play as he had in the regular season, going 27-of-43 for 295 yards with two touchdowns, two interceptions and a lost fumble. How much did the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense in the Seahawks have to do with that, and how much, if any, had to do with his injured shoulder?

General Manager Eliot Wolf dismissed Maye’s shoulder as an excuse for the team’s offensive struggles.

“I think that’s probably a question better asked to him,” Wolf said. “I didn’t feel that way. I just felt like we just couldn’t get into rhythm offensively.”

Maye’s second season has the Patriots excited about the future.

He completed an NFL-best 72 percent of his passes for 4,394 yards with 31 touchdowns and eight interceptions in finishing second in MVP voting.

“Satisfied is a tremendous understatement,” Wolf said. “Drake made a ton of progress in a lot of areas, not only at the start of the season, but throughout the season. I think people forget that he’s 23 years old and there’s a been a lot on his shoulders, and there will continue to be with the expectation that it has being the quarterback of the New England Patriots. But I’m just really excited about him, his toughness, his competitiveness. He’s always the same guy. Obviously, there are areas on the field that he’s going to improve, and he’s going to work with coach [Josh] McDaniels and [quarterbacks] coach [Ashton] Grant and get those things taken care of.”

The Rams have indeed made a proposal based on the nutty two-point play from the Week 16 overtime thriller in Seattle.

The initial report merely explained that a proposal was submitted. The details of the proposal have emerged.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Rams have made two separate proposals. Under the first, a backward pass that is tipped by a defensive player and goes past the line of scrimmage would be treated like a fumble. This means that, during the final two minutes of a half, on fourth down, or on a conversion attempt, only the player who fumbled can recover the ball and advance it. If another offensive player recovers the ball, the offense gets the ball at the spot of the fumble.

As applied to the two-point attempt in Rams-Seahawks, the recovery of the loose ball in the end zone by running back Zach Charbonnet would not have resulted in a successful conversion. Seattle would have gotten two points only if quarterback Sam Darnold had recovered the ball.

Although that same situation will rarely happen, the reasoning makes sense. The defense disrupted the attempted backward pass. A fluke bounce sent the live ball beyond the line of scrimmage. In the situations where a fumble can’t be recovered and advanced by any player except the one who fumbled it, a backward pass that is batted beyond the line of scrimmage would be treated the same way.

The Rams’ second proposal would limit the time for the initiation of a replay review, capping it at either 40 seconds or a minute. Basically, if the replay process is going to activate, it needs to happen more quickly in order to keep the game moving.

For the Seahawks-Rams play, 100 seconds elapsed between the time Charbonnet recovered the ball and the moment referee Brad Allen announced that the play was under further review. The kickoff and kick-return teams were on the field and ready to proceed. The absence of a specific deadline for starting the review process allows potentially protracted delays — and opens the door for (as happened in this case) someone from outside the apparatus alerting the league to the potential need for a review.

While the league eventually got the Rams-Seahawks play right, the Rams’ thinking is that no review should take that long to get started. As it relates to the quirk that allows backward passes to hit the ground and be recovered and advanced, the Rams’ proposal would eliminate situations in which the backward pass is deflected forward and crosses the line of scrimmage.

Again, something like this may not happen again, for years. It makes sense, now that the league has witnessed that specific outcome, for the NFL to consider whether it wants to allow that same thing to possibly happen in the future.

Running back Javonte Williams bet on himself last year, signing a one-year, $3 million deal. He delivered, with a career-high 1,200 rushing yards.

His reward was a three-year, $24 million deal to remain with the Cowboys.

Since the Williams deal was the first significant contract signed by a looming free agent, it’s important to remember a few things as we approach new-contract season. The initial reports routinely overstate the true value of the contract. For example, the reported $16 million in guarantees for Williams surely aren’t fully guaranteed at signing, and there’s little about the structure of the deal. There could be a little fudging at play to make the deal look better than it is, with the reporters who rush to Twitter with the early information rarely if ever insisting on full and accurate details. (If they do, someone else gets the scoop.)

For now, even the potentially inflated initial reporting reinforces an important point: The running back position continues to be undervalued.

The deal, if it’s truly worth $8 million per year, puts Williams at 16th among all current running backs. And while he took the offer before the annual tampering festival in Indianapolis, it’s believed that the offer the took was the best one he was going to get.

It’s also possible the Cowboys tried aggressively to get Williams signed before he could hit the market, perhaps by trotting out their CBA-violating practice of negotiating directly with the player. Or by making it clear that they’ll find another cheap veteran running back in the second or third wave of free agency, when players sign modest one-year deals.

Still, what would Williams have gotten on the open market? The absence of state income taxes in Texas are a factor. (Most players only care about APY, and that’s often a mistake.) Only the superstars at the position get market value. Eagles running back Saquon Barkley leads the way, at $20.6 million per year. 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey’s current deal has a new-money average of $19 million.

It happens for one very simple reason. The supply of capable running backs outweighs demand. Teams can resort to the draft for a younger, cheaper, and usually healthier player in lieu of paying a veteran who may not be able to duplicate his performance in a contract year.

Every year, college football generates plenty of running backs who can play at the NFL level, if they can be trusted to hold onto the ball and if they are able to pick up blitzers in pass protection. Most of them have their best years under slotted rookie contracts. When those expire, teams look for another young player to replace them.

The Williams contract gives other teams a data point that will become relevant to their negotiations with running backs. The other players who’ll be trying to get paid (Kenneth Walker III, Breece Hall, Travis Etienne, Rico Dowdle, Rachaad White, Isiah Pacheco, JK Dobbins) will have to deal with the argument that a guy who rushed for 1,200 yards in 2025 got only $8 million per year. (The counter would include that Williams isn’t much of a factor in the passing game, and that he lacks breakaway speed.)

Then there’s Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs. Currently eligible for a second deal, he has shown the kind of superstar ability that would justify a market-level contract.

And how about Falcons running back Bijan Robinson? Repeatedly called the best player in the entire league by his former head coach, Raheem Morris, Robinson will be in line for a superstar contract, too.

Will the Williams deal hold down what the Lions will offer Gibbs and what the Falcons will offer Robinson? It shouldn’t be a factor, at all. Gibbs and Robinson are far closer to Barkley and McCaffrey than the players who are hitting the market. Still, all running backs who are ready to become free agents will have to deal with the fact — as underscored by the Williams deal — that the running back market continues to be not what it could be, or perhaps what it should be.

After the Week 16 Thursday night overtime thriller between the Rams and Seahawks, L.A. coach Sean McVay was apoplectic about the manner in which replay review changed an incomplete pass into a successful two-point conversion.

The Rams plan to try to do something about it.

Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reports that the Rams plan to propose a rule change that would make the outcome of the play in question an unsuccessful two-point try.

No details have been provided as to what the change would be.

The play was fueled by the fluke deflection of a backward pass that caused it to go forward. And because it was a backward pass and not a fumble, it could be recovered beyond the spot of the backward pass by someone other than the person who threw it.

One possibility would entail applying the fumble rules to a backward pass that is touched by a member of the defense or, even more specifically, one that is touched by a member of the defense and ricochets forward.

Apart from the kooky outcome is the fact that it took 100 seconds to initiate a replay review. As PFT recently reported, a call from Prime Video rules analyst Terry McAulay to NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson sparked the process.

Given the outcome of that game and its impact on the NFC West crown and No. 1 seed in the conference, it was the call of the year. Whether it prompts a rule change remains to be seen.

The fact that it happens so infrequently could be the best argument against a change, with teams continuing to coach players to pick up any loose ball they see. Like Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet did in that key moment.

During the divisional-round win over the 49ers, Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet suffered a torn ACL. On Friday, nearly five weeks after the injury, Charbonnet underwent surgery to repair the ligament.

Charbonnet made the announcement on Instagram.

The timeline for Charbonnet’s return isn’t known.

Complicating the situation for the Seahawks is the looming free agency of Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker III. The Seahawks reportedly are “unlikely” to use the franchise tag to keep Walker in place for 2026. Absent a new deal in Seattle, he’ll be free to sign elsewhere in 18 days.

A second-round pick in 2023, Charbonnet rushed for 730 yards and 12 touchdowns during the 2025 regular season. He added 144 receiving yards. And he made arguably the play of the year, picking up a loose ball that turned out to be a key two-point conversion in a Week 16 overtime win against the Rams.

If Walker goes, the Seahawks will need to add a running back. The need becomes more pronounced if Charbonnet isn’t ready when Week 1 rolls around.

There’s one option with whom new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury is familiar. 49ers running back Brian Robinson is due to become a free agent. He rushed for 400 yards in 2025 as the understudy to Christian McCaffrey. Fleury was the run-game coordinator for the 49ers in 2025.

Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba has played three years of his rookie contract, which means he’s now eligible for his second contract. He wants it to be a big one.

Smith-Njigba said in an interview with Jonah Javad of WFAA that he expects a new deal for the right money at the right time, and he expects it to be the most lucrative deal any wide receiver has ever signed.

“I’m really not too pressed right now to get it done,” Smith-Njigba said. “I know my time is coming and when we get it done it’s gonna be a great deal. God’s timing is perfect timing, so whenever that may come we’ll be ready for it. I think I deserve to be the highest-paid at my position, just what I give to the game and the community, I give it my all. And I think that’s worth a lot, lot more. I would play this game for free, I love this game so much, but you don’t have to. I’m learning to be a good businessman, and we need that check at the end of the day.”

Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase currently has the biggest contract for a wide receiver in NFL history, the four-year, $161 million deal he signed 11 months ago. Smith-Njigba will be looking for a contract that averages more than $40.25 million per year.

Brian Fleury is getting his first chance to be an NFL offensive coordinator this season, but he isn’t planning to make radical changes to the Seahawks offense.

Fleury worked for the 49ers in 2025, so he got a chance to see the offense that Klint Kubiak built for the Super Bowl champs up close three times. Fleury and Kubiak also worked together with the 49ers in 2023, which gives them some common ground in how they see offensive football.

During a Thursday press conference, Fleury said that those things have made him want to keep a lot of what’s already installed in place while putting his own tweaks in to keep the offense moving forward.

“I do think one of the advantages of taking this job is there is going to be a lot of continuity,” Fleury said, via the team’s website. “I’ve already started to dive into everything Klint was doing last year, and the goal would be to maintain as much of that as possible. There’s also areas where we can supplement that and things that we’ve developed and done in San Francisco under Kyle that Klint wasn’t there for or maybe didn’t implement as much. So that’s going to be the goal, is to keep as much as we can the same, but I think there’s definitely areas where we can grow some different ways. We can challenge the players that they should be looking forward to when they get back too.”

Fleury said there are “not many things to fix” about the unit that he’s inheriting from Kubiak and his time with the 49ers means that he’s already worked with quarterback Sam Darnold. That should be another plus for keeping what’s worked in place as Seattle tries to repeat the success they had during the 2025 season.