John Schneider & Seahawks Player Personnel Department ‘Going To Work With Our Coaches’ To Make Roster Decisions

As for a couple of Seattle’s highest-profile free agents, defensive lineman Leonard Williams and linebacker Jordyn Brooks, Schneider said the hope is to get something done with both players.

“Obviously Leonard, giving up a second-round pick, Jordyn was a first round pick, we didn’t pick up the option last year—he struggled, tried to fight his ass off with the injuries and everything—but those guys, they are all a priority,” Schneider said. “With Leonard when you look at it like ‘OK, you gave up a second-round pick for him,’ kind of like with Jamal (Adams) a couple years ago, you’ve given up the compensation (so) you want to try to get a contract done.”

Schneider was also asked about the decision to convert Geno Smith’s roster bonus to a signing bonus last week, a move that freed up some cap space for 2024, and said people shouldn’t read too much into the significance of that move.

“Just to create cap room, just a trigger we put in the majority of our contracts, and you can turn a roster bonus into a signing bonus and pro-rate the singing bonus over the rest of the years,” Schneider said. “It ended up being $4.8 million something like that.

“Honestly, other people made a bigger deal out of that than we did in the building. It was like ‘Is he going to be here, is he not going to be here?’ It was not. He was going to be here. It was a matter of, when are we going to tell him we are doing this with his roster bonus?”

As for Smith’s status as the team’s starter, Schneider said, “he’s the starter until he’s not,” adding that, like everything else related to the roster, there is still a lot to discuss with the coaching staff.

“Our coaches aren’t down here with us, so what we’re basically doing is, we have a vision, we have a plan for what we’re doing,” Schneider said. “Next week when we get back in the office after kind of learning the landscape down here, talking to all the agents, all the other teams, what we’re going to learn throughout the week, kind of coming around the corner next week, getting back with those guys with a new staff, with Mike’s staff in place and then getting our alignment, and really asking for patience from all our players, all the guys that are free agents, and are still on the team looking to just talk to their position coach. I’m sure those guys are doing that this week, and I know some guys already reached out.”