[ed. If any of this makes sense to you, back away from the TV, take a deep breath, have a sobering look at yourself and ask... how do I find my way back to the light.]
Using the Draft Pick Value Calculator generated by Chase Stuart at Football Perspective, we can estimate the difference in value between the two draft picks. We also have to guess where New Orleans’s draft pick will land, since compensatory picks have yet to be handed out, but it should come within one or two slots of the 110th overall pick. Using those figures, the balance of what the Seahawks sent amounts to the equivalent of the 65th pick in the draft — the first pick of the third round. That certainly sounds a lot less dramatic than dealing a first-round pick for a fourth-rounder.It’s not the first time the Seahawks have used their first-round pick in a move to acquire a weapon for Russell Wilson, which is one of the many reasons this deal is so fascinating. Seattle sent a first-round pick to Minnesota two years ago (along with a seventh-round pick in that draft and a third-round pick in 2014) to acquire Percy Harvin in a deal that proved to be a rare misstep for general manager John Schneider, with Harvin missing virtually all of his first season in Seattle with injuries, before being dealt away to the Jets for what ended up being a sixth-round pick. (...)
The part that doesn’t click for me is Seattle adding salary while still owing Wilson and Bobby Wagner new deals. While the Seahawks took cash off their cap in the Harvin deal, they still owe $7.2 million in dead money for Harvin in 2015. The recent contract extension for Lynch gave him $12 million guaranteed, all of which gets paid this season; he has base salaries of $9 million and $7 million in 2016 and 2017, respectively, but the Seahawks could cut him and save $4 million in 2016 or $4.5 million in 2017.
Graham is not cheap for Seattle, even with the Saints eating his $12 million signing bonus. The Seahawks will owe him $8 million in 2015, $9 million in 2016, and $10 million in 2017, assuming they keep the $5 million roster bonus Graham is due Thursday without converting it to a signing bonus. Converting the bonus would free up more cap space in 2015, but would cost the Seahawks if they decided down the line they wanted to move on, so it doesn’t seem like a logical move.
None of the 2016 or 2017 money is guaranteed or would result in dead cap if the Seahawks decide to move on, so this can be anything from a one-year rental to a three-year deal. Given that the Seahawks will likely sign Wilson and Wagner to new deals during the 2015 season, the base salaries owed Graham will be difficult to swallow in the years to come. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Seahawks forced to choose between Graham and Lynch in 2016, and if Graham wins, Seattle will likely offer him an extension to free up cap space in 2017.
The megadeals to come are also likely why the Seahawks moved on from Unger. A Pro Bowl–caliber center who has struggled to stay healthy in recent seasons, the 28-year-old Unger was just about due for a new deal. He was entering the third year of a four-year, $26 million extension that has relatively docile cap hits of $4.5 million in both 2015 and 2016. After that, a healthy Unger would have likely expected to see his cap hit double, pointing to the Alex Mack deal as a comparable contract. Seattle couldn’t afford to give Unger that much money, and in trading him now, it was able to get a serious asset who upgraded them at a more meaningful position.
For the Saints, this is a serious repudiation of their all-in philosophy from a year ago and the quality of the team Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis thought they had built. I wrote about their cap woes in December, and while I pointed out the accounting method that would enable them to overcome their $27 million nightmare and get underneath the hard cap, there wasn’t going to be much space to reshape their franchise.
New Orleans had already cut Curtis Lofton and Pierre Thomas this offseason, but to make serious changes to its roster in the years to come, it was going to have to carve one or two of the top salaries off the books. One of those players, apparently, was Graham. While the Saints get $19 million in cap relief over 2016 and 2017, they don’t actually save any money in 2015. With the dead money on his deal, Graham’s cap hold actually rises from $8 million to $9 million. The Saints then add the $4.5 million on Unger’s deal to their 2015 cap, and they’ll also owe an extra $750,000 or so for the salary difference between the draft picks they just traded.
After battling so hard to get underneath the cap of $143 million, New Orleans is already nearly $3 million over the cap. Loomis suggested after the trade that he made the deal to improve New Orleans’s defense, which certainly makes it strange that he traded Graham for a center and not a defensive player.
by Bill Barnwell, Grantland | Read more:
Image: Chris Graythen, Getty
