Seattle Seahawks: Preparing For Life After Byron Maxwell

The Seattle Seahawks have had obvious success during the Pete Carroll era, highlighted by a Super Bowl ring and almost another. Succeeding with a bunch of good, young players means not being able to keep them all. Guys get expensive, and the way to sustain a winner is to keep the payroll flexible.

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CB Byron Maxwell is a free agent. He’s not going to stick around via the franchise tag, which would have valued him at upwards of $13 million. That’s more than he’s worth to Seattle, as the team simply shouldn’t have interest in overpaying a guy by many, many millions. Maxwell, to the Seahawks, is probably a fair value at or near $8 million. But what’s he worth to other teams?

The Seahawks have good players everywhere, and thus are not desperate to overpay for any one particular good player. They don’t need an insanely talented safety, though they sure have enjoyed having one around. Other teams have a greater need, and thus are expected to bid higher. $10 million has long been speculated to be outside Seattle’s range. $10 million is where bidding is expected to end up.

As bad as the ‘Hawks would like to keep Maxwell, this is something us fans should be used to by now. It’s not that Seattle didn’t want to hold onto Brandon Browner and Golden Tate, it’s just that they weren’t in a position to outbid the competition for their services. They could have done just that, of course, but then we’re not talking about re-signing Marshawn Lynch. Maybe not even talking Russell Wilson extension.

In any league with a salary cap – or, simply, in most leagues – teams really have to think harder than just “we like this guy, so we get this guy.” It’s all checks and balances, and in order to keep a team balanced the payroll’s gotta be balanced. Overpays throw everything off. Overpay one player and you could lose out on another’s services down the road.

But would Maxwell really leave the Seahawks? They’re kind of the team in the NFL right now, having enjoyed unparalled success the last few years and still positioned to keep this run going for a long time. If there’s anyone you’d take a discount for, it’d be Seattle, right?

We have Tony Pauline up there assuring us that Maxwell is going to cost a load of money. He’s also been reporting that the Philadelphia Eagles have a lot of interest, and now here’s a new report saying that they’re Maxwell’s likely new home. Philly needs a corner, Maxwell’s a corner… passes the smell test.

If not Philadelphia – though by all accounts so far they’re strong favorites – then the Atlanta Falcons and new head coach Dan Quinn are said to be willing to go big for Maxwell. We’ll have to wait until March to find out, of course, but the writing’s on the wall. He’s going to leave, almost certainly.

Maxwell’s potential departure would leave the Seahawks with Richard Sherman, Jeremy Lane, Tharold Simon, and Marcus Burley as corner options. That’s an impressive group, though plenty of us just watched the Super Bowl and are ready for Simon to never play another game again. While he’s better than that one game, he is the weak link here, and he’s the one who profiles best on the right side. Maybe a replacement will be needed. Or maybe the replacement is Lane, who is good.

Prepare yourselves for the Seattle Seahawks, minus Byron Maxwell. It’ll sting at first, but in the end it’ll be alright. We’ll root for him wherever he goes, except when his team plays the Seahawks. And hey, you never know, maybe he’s the rare player who is just all about that hometown discount. We’ll have to wait and see.