Heaps: Seahawks must go after impact, not volume, this offseason
Jan 8, 2022, 9:22 AM
Seahawks GM John Schneider talks with coach Pete Carroll prior to a 2019 game against the Browns. (Jason Miller/Getty Images)
(Jason Miller/Getty Images)
Even with a star quarterback on the books for over $30 million, the Seahawks enter the 2022 offseason seventh in the NFL available cap space and with the potential to be very aggressive when it comes to additions and contract extensions.
Pete Carroll: Hawks building off win, Collins’ importance in 2021
But will that be what happens?
The Seahawks entered the last two offseasons with plenty of cap space, but the team opted to add value signings and depth pieces rather than handing out big deals in free agency.
In the wake of a very disappointing 2021 in which the Seahawks enter the final week of the season at 6-10, former NFL quarterback Jake Heaps believes the team’s offseason approach needs to be different between next week and the start of the next season.
“One thing that they must do differently this year is go after impact. Don’t go after volume, go after impact” he told his Jake and Stacy co-host Stacy Rost on Wednesday. “And that has got to be the hallmark of this offseason for this organization.”
Heaps said it’s important that the Seahawks change their approach given “the mistakes that they have made” in previous offseasons, despite how difficult that may be.
“It’s not to say that you’re going to be spotless in drafting, it’s not to say you’re going to be spotless in every move that you make in free agency, ” he said. “But what they have tried to do over the last four years since they have ‘retooled’ this whole thing, since 2018, they have tried to go after volume rather than going after impact, and they have not landed in that area where that volume has turned into on-field impact and legitimate production, which has helped this team win games.”
Not only would that be critical because the Seahawks want to get back to being a playoff contender, but they are in arguably the toughest division in football and currently, the other three teams in the NFC West are set to make the playoffs.
“As Pete Carroll said himself as he recognized and look through the season, the other three teams in the NFC West, their rosters had more stars than the Seattle Seahawks. That’s Pete Carroll’s words,” Heaps said. “So it’s not something of this is (just) my desire. And I know people have made fun of me about, ‘Oh, I don’t want Jake handling my checkbook.’ I’m sorry, but there are creative ways from a cap perspective where you could land impact, you can fit it in your cap, and you can make it work. That is not an excuse. Go after impact.”
Listen to the second hour of Wednesday’s Jake and Stacy at this link or in the player below.
