March 9, 2026, 5:40 p.m. PT
As the Seattle Seahawks lost three key players to free agency today, they gained three compensatory draft picks in 2027. Over The Cap contributor Nick Korte was on top of this news today.
Kenneth Walker III and Coby Bryant each netted the Seahawks fifth round picks while Boye Mafe netted them a fourth rounder.
Walker signed with the Kansas City Chiefs in the first hour of the negotiating period, Bryant signed with the Chicago Bears in the third hour, and Mafe agreed with the Cincinnati Bengals two hours later. At first, all of these seem like simple losses for Seattle- yet with a closer look, there is some upside to each one leaving.
First of all, saving money allows the Seahawks to pay their big stars in Devon Witherspoon and Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the coming months. That’s who the team should truly be built around and their salary structure will need to reflect that. Second, they keep the focus on building the best team in the future, without the elation of the Super Bowl giving them too much recency bias. They won’t be knocked off course of the playing they were building for 2026, regardless of the rings they won.
The compensatory picks are golden for the Seahawks for several reasons. The 2027 draft is widely seen as shaping up to be better than this year’s. Whether it is or not, the value of those picks is higher because of it. John Schneider also has an excellent track record of drafting in the fourth and fifth rounds as well. Riq Woolen was a fifth (who could net Seattle another one of these picks in the coming days, too), as were Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor. AJ Barner was a fourth, as was Bryant. These picks only add to Seattle’s plan, and help them continue to build around their main stars without paying role players and complicating it.
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