The depleted Seahawks are incrementally re-stocking. With names far less foundational than Sherman, Bennett, Graham and Rawls.
But their newest name is going back from where it came.
Running back Mike Davis signed a free-agent contract for 2018 on Thursday, ensuring the surprise starter at the end of last season is returning with Chris Carson as the top options in the Seahawks’ recommitment to the run this year.
“It’s Official. Seahawks I’m back !!” Davis posted on Twitter Thursday.
The former San Francisco 49er was Seattle’s leading rusher at running back last season with just 240 yards.
The Seahawks are apparently paying him less than they would have by tendering him earlier this month when he was a restricted free agent. The minimum salary Seattle could have kept Davis as a restricted free agent was for the lowest, original-round tender at $1,907,000. The Seahawks decided not to offer that, and sent him off as one of 12 former starters to leave the team or become an unrestricted free agent this month.
Now they’ve re-signed him at their price instead of the NFL’s.
“My phone is blowing up,” Davis posted on Twitter after Thursday’s news got out of his re-signing.
The Seahawks also brought back defensive end Marcus Smith on a free-agent contract for 2018. The former first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles confirmed that news on Twitter, too.
“God’s Plan. Another year. #SeahawksNation” Smith wrote on Twitter, using a hashtag rarely seen around Seattle.
Smith, 25, played in 14 games last season for the Seahawks and gained prominence after Pro Bowl defensive end Cliff Avril got a season-ending and career-threatening neck injury in October. Seattle signed Smith before last season, after the Eagles released their 26th-overall pick in the 2014 draft as one of their bigger drafts busts recently.
Seahawks coaches believe they can help Smith realize his full potential after three-plus years of sputtering through the league. And Seattle needs pass rushers. Along with Avril perhaps never playing again, Seattle traded fellow Pro Bowl end Michael Bennett to Philadelphia this month.
Since then the Seahawks have signed free-agent pass rusher Barkevious Mingo and tendered an offer to Dion Jordan of $1,907,000 to keep Miami’s former first-round pick and pass rusher in Seattle.
The one that got away from the Seahawks Thursday was C.J. Smith.
The team doesn’t have the newest, long-armed cornerback it likes, after all.
The NFL announced Thursday C.J. Smith had “reverted” back to the Cleveland Browns days after the Browns announced they had traded Smith to Seattle for a conditional seventh-round pick in 2020.
The league nullified the swap because Smith failed his physical, a league source confirmed to The News Tribune.
This also happened in October when the Seahawks tried to trade defensive back Jeremy Lane to Houston for left tackle Duane Brown. Lane failed his physical with the Texans and came back to Seattle for the rest of last season, though the Seahawks got to keep Brown after they re-worked the deal to give Houston more draft choices. The Seahawks released Lane this month.
Smith has played in 13 games the last two NFL seasons after Philadelphia signed him in May 2016 as an undrafted free agent from North Dakota State. He played in 10 games that year for the Eagles, on special teams and at cornerback. He was on Cleveland’s practice squad from last September into December then played in three games for the Browns — the final three games of their season, ending on New Year’s Eve.
So he was healthy enough to final last year, but not to play for the Seahawks in 2018.
Smith is 5 feet 11, 189 pounds, not the prototypical size for Seahawks cornerbacks. But he has 32-inch arms. That’s the magic size coach Pete Carroll just about requires in his cornerbacks. Smith’s arms are 32 1/8 inches, in fact.
Now he and those long arms are reaching back to Cleveland.
The Seahawks still need cornerbacks. They waived three-time All-Pro left cornerback Richard Sherman and 2016 starting right cornerback DeShawn Shead this month. Sherman signed with San Francisco and Shead with Detroit. With Lane also gone, that’s a net of minus-three cornerbacks this offseason.
Seattle has 2017 rookie standout Shaquill Griffin returning to start on the right side. The job at left corner is open right now, pending the Seahawks’ efforts in re-signing Byron Maxwell. The team let the 30-year-old Maxwell’s contract they gave him last fall for the remainder of 2017 end, making him an unrestricted free agent this month.
As for Davis, he went shopping but his free-agent market wasn’t exactly booming. The 49ers waived him this time last year. Then he spent the first 10 weeks of last regular season on the Seahawks’ practice squad before he got his chance in Seattle, after Carson broke his leg and got ligament damage in his ankle in early October. Davis started six games, part of the league’s lowest-producing core of running backs behind the Seahawks’ malfunctioning offensive line.
Essentially, the Seahawks are choosing Davis, 25, over 24-year-old former lead back Thomas Rawls, at least for now. Rawls didn’t get a tender offer from Seattle, either, but he remains unsigned.
Davis was brought in off waivers from San Francisco last May, but was no better than the No. 4 tailback through training camp behind Rawls, 2017 signee Eddie Lacy and Carson.
Needing someone to do anything in the running game by November, coach Pete Carroll turned to Davis as the starter against Atlanta.
Davis showed promise, but injured his groin in that game.
After missing a game at San Francisco, and with Carson on injured reserve, Davis returned to being the starter in early December against Philadelphia. He gained 100 total yards in a game for the first time in his three-season career to lead Seattle to its best win of 2017, the home upset of the Super Bowl-champion Eagles.
Carroll has said repeatedly Carson remains his lead back and that he’s on track to return for training camp when it begins in late July.
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