{"id":800574,"date":"2026-03-08T15:26:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T15:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/800574\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T15:26:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T15:26:38","slug":"why-seahawks-gm-john-schneider-hates-free-agency-waiting-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/800574\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Seahawks GM John Schneider &#8216;Hates&#8217; Free Agency Waiting Period"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider is getting ready to start wheeling and dealing as he tries to lead the build for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/seahawks\/onsi\/seahawks-news\/who-the-seattle-seahawks-must-re-sign-free-agency-who-they-dont\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">best roster possible ahead of the 2026 season. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Schneider <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.mynorthwest.com\/podcast_player?a=a10f67e9-2cc5-400f-bc3c-4ba7e27d441e&amp;n=The+John+Schneider+Show&amp;i=1706\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently spoke in an interview<\/a> about what life is like leading up to the start of free agency. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hate this time of year where people are talking about, &#8216;Well, he&#8217;s not worth this, he&#8217;s not worth that,'&#8221; Schneider said in an interview with Dave Wyman and Bob Stelton. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t look at it as worth. It&#8217;s, what&#8217;s the guy&#8217;s value for us? His value around the league, that&#8217;s that; what&#8217;s his value for us and how do we fit that into our budget, to keeping the whole 70 together. Having the best 53-man roster, the best 70 guys, what does that look like in totality?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Schneider Shares Seahawks Approach to Free Agency<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/01kk5kfxqdjzjry1qk82.jpg\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 100%;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a bit different playing from ahead than behind going into free agency, but Schneider&#8217;s spring should look a little different from last year after trading wide receiver DK Metcalf and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/seahawks\/onsi\/seahawks-news\/byron-murphy-remixes-geno-smith-s-famous-quote-on-sam-darnold-seahawks-defense\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">quarterback Geno Smith.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ranking players, this guy&#8217;s better than that player, that&#8217;s more for the draft, really,&#8221; Schneider said. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is more, how can we maximize his earning power as well as keeping as many people together as we possibly can? It&#8217;s trying to keep as many people happy as we possibly can and maximizing guys&#8217; earning power, and still having cap room, a little bit of cash for when you get to the trade deadline so you can still do things at that type of year because then you have a little bit better feel for where you&#8217;re going and what your team looks like.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On top of that, it&#8217;s difficult breaking up a group that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/seahawks\/onsi\/seahawks-news\/seahawks-super-bowl-teammates-could-sign-together-free-agency\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">accomplished so much together<\/a>, but it&#8217;s part of the business. All 32 NFL teams have to go through it at some point during the year. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Your empathy level at this time of year is through the roof,&#8221; Schneider said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s so many amazing people that take of these guys, the trainers, people in the cafeteria, the equipment staff, video\u2026 There&#8217;s this cool bond you have, and it&#8217;s just hard. But at some point, you have to make these decisions and keep putting the best 70 players together and moving forward.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Over the next couple of weeks, the Seahawks will move closer towards figuring out what that group of 70 players looks like for the 53-man roster and the practice squad. The hope is that the Seahawks will field a group that&#8217;s competitive enough to possibly win their second consecutive Lombardi Trophy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider is getting ready to start wheeling and dealing as he tries to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[7,6,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":{"0":"post-800574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-seahawks","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-seahawks","13":"tag-seattleseahawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116194259831943069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}