{"id":820920,"date":"2026-03-19T09:38:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/820920\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:38:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:38:31","slug":"cap-space-draft-capital-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/820920\/","title":{"rendered":"cap space, draft capital, youth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>March 18, 2026, 12:57 p.m. PT<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">It\u2019s hard to overstate how optimistic the Seattle Seahawks outlook is at the moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">They\u2019re the defending Super Bowl champion, one of the youngest teams in the league, have some of the most cap space, and have more than their fair share of draft picks (including all in the top three rounds).<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">This comment from Hawk Blogger, on Bill Barnwell\u2019s table sorting NFL teams\u2019 snap-weighted age last season, reminded fans of all four anomalies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Winning the Super Bowl is a downstream effect of the other three. The more you build a young, cost-efficient team while preserving assets, the better chance you have to win the next season. The main thing this shows, though, is that despite being one of the best NFL teams ever, the 2025 Seahawks actually did so ahead of schedule according to the team\u2019s window of competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The 2024 team laid the groundwork. With a new head coach and after cutting clubhouse leaders, the roster still ended up being good enough to go 10-7 and narrowly miss the playoffs. That allowed them to make aggressive moves towards their modern visions on offense and defense without worry of cycling out more fan favorites.<\/p>\n<p>Expert NFL picks: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (nfl)|e|auto spike click:6|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/picks\">Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">They found themselves optimized for their style without pressure to \u201cwin now, or else\u201d. If they weren\u2019t able to take big chances on their principles, they might not have made Jaxon Smith-Njigba a number one receiver or traded up for Nick Emmanwori. We\u2019d be living in a very different footballing world right now if that were the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Next time a team has a controversial vision, give it a chance before the national media\u2019s dismissal. They might just be crazy enough to edge out the pack. Football, after all, is ever-changing. This sport embraces crazy visionaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 18, 2026, 12:57 p.m. PT It\u2019s hard to overstate how optimistic the Seattle Seahawks outlook is at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[95878,7,6,238,237,261,2635,96186,96187,95882,96812,95896,95888,95906,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-820920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-seahawks","12":"tag-seattle","13":"tag-seattle-seahawks","14":"tag-seattleseahawks","15":"tag-sstssportsnflseahawks","16":"tag-sstsnseahawks","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagjaxon-smith-njigba","19":"tag-tagnational-sports","20":"tag-tagnfl","21":"tag-tagoverall-positive","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116255175662953856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820920","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=820920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}