The Seattle Seahawks are by no means out of the NFC West race, even as they sit in last place. But with a 1-5 record in their last six games and a grueling schedule coming up after the bye week, it's more likely that a season that began with so much promise will crash to a 10+ loss campaign. There may be serious consequences for the roster, the first-year coaching staff, and even general manager John Schneider.

Rob Staton over at Seahawks Draft Blog recently wrote an article on how to fix the Seahawks, which includes this blurb:

For years the Seahawks have deluded themselves into thinking they're constantly in contention. It's time for honesty. They have enough good players to have the occasional good win like we saw in Atlanta. I suspect they'll win seven or eight games and be around the same mark they've been for the last two years.

They are not one more off-season, one more draft, one more in-season trade away from being a contender. The sooner this is accepted and the work begins to create a team that can be, the better. Otherwise they'll just carry on as they are -- never being bad enough to force change and never being good enough to get you dreaming about a post-season run.

This is the position I find myself generally agreeing with. I think the schedule difficulty combined with their repeated, seemingly uncorrectable sloppiness makes seven games look a little more difficult this time around.

They're not close to being contenders, which is not the fault of Geno Smith, but that also means a serious thinking about how much longer a 34-year-old QB should be the starter on a team that is betwixt and between "win now" and "building for the future." I'd argue they're not doing either adequately at the moment, and you can't bank on Smith playing at a high level deep into his 30s regardless of the reduced mileage he's experienced in the NFL.

Seattle may need to face the harsh reality of a major rebuild. The question is, "What does hitting the reset button on this roster look like?" After all, many of the current starters are on rookie contracts. But Seattle's effective cap space for 2025 almost forces the Seahawks to make some tough decisions this offseason.

Here's a basic breakdown, and for the sake of simplicity I am not including any practice squad players.

C Connor Williams

LG Laken Tomlinson

RT Stone Forsythe

WR Laviska Shenault Jr

TE Pharaoh Brown

OLB Trevis Gipson

LB Ernest Jones IV

LB Tyrel Dodson

DL Johnathan Hankins

DL Jarran Reed

S K'Von Wallace

CB Artie Burns

CB Tre Brown

Williams is rapidly playing his way out of a contract extension. While the early returns on Jones IV have been promising, absolutely no one else has a strong case to be re-signed, with the possible exception of Dodson after we see more of him as a weakside linebacker. Everyone else is no better than average, aging, or both.

It's possible that by Tuesday we're looking at Tre Brown getting traded, given his two pseudo-healthy scratches in favor of Josh Jobe.

(All numbers via OverTheCap)

QB Geno Smith ($25 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $13.5 million in dead money)

WR Tyler Lockett ($17 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $13.9 million in dead money)

DL Dre'Mont Jones ($11.5 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $14 million in dead money)

DL Leonard Williams ($12.5 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $16.6 million in dead money)

TE Noah Fant ($9 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $4.5 million in dead money)

OLB Uchenna Nwosu ($8.4 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $13 million in dead money)

DL Roy Robertson-Harris ($6.6 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, no dead money)

S Rayshawn Jenkins ($5.4 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $2.5 million in dead money)

OL George Fant ($3.8 million in pre-June 1 cap savings, $1.85 million in dead money)

There are a few players like Jones, Williams, and Nwosu whose 2025 cap savings rise substantially if they're designated as post-June 1 cuts. I'd sooner believe Williams would be a trade asset and not a cap casualty release, whereas Jones and Nwosu may just be let go outright. It should also be noted that teams can only designate two players for a post-June 1 release.

Lockett, Jones, Fant x2, Robertson-Harris, and Jenkins all look like the strongest candidates to be released instead of traded. I'm not sure Nwosu is a lock to stay beyond 2025 if only because of the severity of the injuries he's suffered in such a short period of time. The performances of Derick Hall and Boye Mafe make Nwosu not nearly as valuable as he was two seasons ago. It sucks to look at it this way, but the injuries have piled up and turned an otherwise reasonable contract into a money sinkhole.

QB Geno Smith

WR DK Metcalf

DL Leonard Williams

These are the top three players whom I believe could net the Seahawks something reasonably decent in return, whether through players or draft capital. Williams might be on the other side of 30 but he's still an extremely productive defensive lineman, while Geno would be on an expiring contract with a cap number that's 13th in the NFL.

Metcalf is the big question mark if only because of how the Seahawks view their receiving group as a whole. If Lockett is gone, is Seattle more willing to extend DK or more willing to trade and rebuild the receiving group beneath Jaxon Smith-Njigba? Letting go of Lockett and DK would mean WR2 Jake Bobo, and I think we ought to be done with taking him any more seriously beyond meme status. Perhaps we'll shift to Cody White instead. Metcalf would be the biggest trade asset on the Seahawks roster by age and productivity, but he may not necessarily fetch anything higher than a second-round pick.

I'm not entertaining the thought of any of the current rookie contract players like Mafe, Woolen, Cross, etc. being trade targets or put up for trade.

If Seattle parts ways with even 80% of the aforementioned players, then the Seahawks will have to hit on multiple drafts in a row again in order to be competitive. They have some core players (in theory) from the 2022 and 2023 classes who should be long-term pieces, but the 2023 class looks like it's very top-heavy, and the 2024 rookie class is generally struggling to get on the field bar Byron Murphy II and AJ Barner. That is asking a lot from any general manager to continue to churn out banger draft after banger draft to restock the roster with young, inexpensive talent. Anything short of that and this is going to be a bleak period of losing.

It may also be necessary to rip the band-aid off and realize the Seahawks have been treading water with two different quarterbacks for a very long time. This is a team with one playoff win and one division title to their name in soon-to-be eight years, and despite repeated hopes of their rivals' demise, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams don't appear to be going away any time soon, while the Arizona Cardinals are seemingly on the rise.

The Seahawks can either continue to pretend they're just a piece here or a piece there from being a great team, or come to grips with reality and realize they're not only far away from contention for the playoffs, they may be falling further behind within their own division.