Pete Carroll says Seahawks want to stay young

By Brady Henderson

Seahawks general manager John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll have built a contending team mostly with draft picks and free agents in their mid-20s. Getting and staying young has been the goal.

And according to Carroll, the fact that the Seahawks have more than $18 million in salary-cap space doesn’t necessarily make them more willing to stray from that philosophy and splurge on an older free agent to address the team’s need for pass-rush help.

“We’re not more apt to do anything at this time, I don’t think,” Carroll told reporters at the scouting combine in Indianapolis Friday. “Because we were close last year, ‘Oh, if we just get one more guy, that’ll make a difference’ – I don’t think that, and John and I don’t feel that way. We just want to keep developing our team and allow our team to grow and to mature. But we’ll still look at every single opportunity.”

The list of veteran pass rushers who are expected to become unrestricted free agents includes some big names like Osi Umenyiora, Dwight Freeney, Kyle Vanden Bosch and Richard Seymour, who are all at least 31 years old.

“There’s some guys out there that are in the later stages of their career that we will look at, but not with the thought that of, ‘Let’s just get a couple old guys to really put it all together.’ I don’t think that that’s where we are,” Carroll said.

“This team has been built really from the inside out with the young guys, and we’ve got some great experienced players. But for the most part this is a very young football team and we’ll continue to grow that way.”