What Seahawks cutting Tyrel Dodson says about their LB situation

The Seattle Seahawks have undergone more changes at inside linebacker.

3 takes on 4 big questions about the Seattle Seahawks at midway point

The Seahawks released starting linebacker Tyrel Dodson on Monday. With the move, both inside linebackers signed by the Seahawks this offseason are no longer on the team with eight games still left to play.

Seattle signed Dodson and Jerome Baker to one-year deals in the offseason after making the decision to move on from starters Bobby Wagner and Jordyn Brooks, who both signed elsewhere in free agency.

Baker, who started five games, was traded with a draft pick to the Tennessee Titans for linebacker Ernest Jones IV on Oct. 23. Now Dodson, who led the team in tackles and defensive snaps played, is looking for another team.

While filling in to host Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob, Seahawks Radio Network analyst and former NFL wide receiver Michael Bumpus shared his thoughts on the decision to move on from Dodson.

“You’re being evaluated all the time. That’s why you watch film. That’s why you get scouting reports. That’s why you communicate with coaches. If you don’t do your job, they are going to replace you,” Bumpus said Monday. “But this is also why they put him on a one-year deal. It was a team-friendly deal they signed both these guys to, Baker and Dodson, and they felt like they weren’t getting what they needed out of those veterans. So what do you do? You bring in another veteran in Ernest, and Ernest already looks more violent, more downhill than Baker and Dodson looked. … Then it also says we want to see what this rookie looks like, Tyrice Knight.”

As for why the team made the decision to let Dodson go, Bumpus feels it was a combination of a poor fit for head coach Mike Macdonald’s scheme and some of the smaller details that are harder to pinpoint.

“It’s the specifics we don’t know,” Bumpus said. “Was it Dodson not taking this first step right? Is he not keeping the shoulders parallel scraping down the line of scrimmage? Is he not assignment-friendly 85% of the time? The little things that really were the straw that broke the camel’s back, we don’t really know. But what we saw on film was that they just weren’t a violent type of linebacker corps. That’s what we saw in Baltimore (when Macdonald was Ravens defensive coordinator). Granted, you had two of the best in the game over there. So you know what they want this defense to look like and they weren’t getting enough out of it out of these guys.”

Next in line

After the Seahawks’ practice on Monday, Macdonald said that Knight, a fourth-round 2024 NFL Draft pick out of UTEP, would get the first crack as the starting linebacker alongside Jones.

“We expect him to keep improving as a player, and he’s gonna get a lot more reps now,” Macdonald said. “… Looking forward to seeing what he does with the opportunity.”

Knight has appeared in eight games this season and made two starts when Baker was out. He has 23 total tackles and one tackle for loss.

The move from a veteran like Dodson to Knight may seem like a big drop-off in experience. It is as far as NFL game action goes, but as FOX football analyst Brock Huard pointed out Tuesday morning during Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk, Knight was the one taking all the first-team practice reps at inside linebacker during OTAs and training camp due to injuries to Dodson and Baker.

“When I hear the offseason doesn’t matter, I’m going to continue to reinforce with things like this that it does matter,” Huard said. “The fact that these two that you signed couldn’t practice the entire offseason with you probably plays a little bit of a role in both of them no longer being Seattle Seahawks.”

Listen to the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Wyman and Bob weekdays from 2-6 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

More on Seattle Seahawks

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• Lefko: Seahawks at crossroads as a franchise, with Geno at the center
• Rookie Report: How Seahawks’ first-year players are doing
• Seattle Seahawks Midseason Grades: Evaluating first half of 2024

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