INDIANAPOLIS — This time last year here, John Schneider was in limbo as much as he was in Indiana.
Now, the Seattle Seahawks’ general manager is standing at the NFL’s annual scouting combine while in a position of power. Because knowledge is, after all, power.
Buying power, specifically this time of the league year.
Yet another reason for Seattle to thank Marshawn Lynch.
The franchise’s running back and cornerstone of toughness and swag since 2010 did the Seahawks a favor by declaring he was retiring two weeks before this combine — rather than leaving the team waiting into the summer to learn his plans as he’d done the previous two offseasons.
“Marshawn helped us change the culture of our organization,” Schneider said Wednesday, Seattle’s first full day of interviews and shopping in Indianapolis with college prospects and agents for available veterans. “So yeah, he definitely helped us doing it when he did it, in terms of being able to move forward and project for the season. How we can plan.”
Schneider and the Seahawks know they have $6.5 million freed up against the 2016 salary cap with Lynch’s retirement. That money is going to come in handy in the next month, and into the summer, given the GM’s news Wednesday:
—Linebacker Bruce Irvin knows the Seahawks are either going to be able to work out a mutually agreeable financial arrangement — or, as seems more likely, the team and its top draft choice from 2012 will part ways amicably during free agency that starts March 9.
—There’s no reason for Seattle to doubt running back Thomas Rawls will return from a broken ankle and torn ligaments in time for the start of the 2016 season.
—Yet the Seahawks are not going to anoint Rawls as Lynch’s full-time replacement — not yet. Not until after they sign and bring in more running backs to compete with him.
—Jimmy Graham is “doing great” in his rehabilitation from tricky patellar-tendon knee surgery Dec. 2, Schneider said Wednesday at Lucas Oil Stadium, but the team does not yet know when he will return. Graham has two, non-guaranteed years remaining on his $40 million contract the Seahawks inherited from New Orleans in their splashy trade 11 months ago.
That deal cost Seattle its first-round draft choice for 2015.
The Seahawks have a first-round pick this year for the first time since 2012, No. 26 overall. That makes Seattle more of a shopper for top-level prospects at this combine.
Schneider has talked one-on-one with Irvin, who said the day after the season-ending playoff loss at Carolina Jan. 17 he’d be willing to take below-market value in free agency to stay with the Seahawks. Minutes after that loss to the Panthers Irvin said how he will always appreciate Schneider and coach Pete Carroll for drafting him 15th overall in 2012 and making him an every-down linebacker. Most in the league saw him as a pass-rush-only guy with a checkered background worthy of a far lower draft place then out of West Virginia.
Pass rushing has become the second-most valuable commodity in the pass-happy, blitz-heavy NFL behind top-level quarterbacking. So even though Irvin has gone from eight sacks his rookie season to two, 61/2 and 51/2 sacks the last three seasons, he could command as an unrestricted free agent next month money Seattle can’t afford.
The Seahawks have pressing needs to spend and replace on the offensive line and at defensive tackle this offseason.
“I love Bruce,” Schneider said. “It really, truly is a big puzzle we have to work through.
“I’ve met with Bruce individually. He knows how we feel about him as an organization. He knows that we are either going to be able to make it work — or we are just going to give him a big hug and congratulate him (on getting a rich, new deal elsewhere).
“That’s just the way this league is right now.”
Seattle has 18 free agents. Schneider said he’s talked with a big one, Russell Okung. He is recovering from shoulder surgery while representing himself without an agent as an unrestricted free agent.
The GM called those talks “a little odd, it can be a little awkward.”
Left tackle is another premium position, and the Seahawks seem destined to lose Okung to a higher bidder, too. Re-signing free agent J.R. Sweezy at the less-expensive position of right guard seems more of a team priority this offseason.
“We’d love to have all of our guys back. Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to have them all back,” Schneider said. “We have to set up a pecking order.”
On Nov. 29 against Pittsburgh Graham tore the patellar tendon in his right knee, a relatively rare injury compared to anterior cruciate-ligament tears. Asked if it was realistic to expect Graham back for the start of training camp at the end of July, or at least for the start of the 2016 regular season in early September, Schneider smiled.
“Uh … on February 24th? Uh…,” the GM said, rolling his eyes and shrugging.
“I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. It was a very significant injury.”
Schneider was more bullish on Rawls returning for the start of next season. The GM said there is no reason, “not at this point” for the team to think its breakout star as an undrafted rookie last season won’t return for next season’s first game. He got hurt Dec. 13 at Baltimore.
“He’s doing a great job, working his tail off,” Schneider said.
The GM noted what a great mentor Rawls had in Lynch.
“I know he is attacking his rehab, just as Marshawn would if he was in that situation,” Schneider said.
But Schneider and the Seahawks aren’t going to proclaim Rawls as Lynch’s replacement as full-time lead back 61/2 months before the opener.
“We look at it like we’re going to try to add as many guys to that position as we can, much like we are offensive line or … we’re just going to keep bringing in as many guys as we possibly can,” Schneider said. “You hear me talk about being in as many deals as we possibly can. … It’s just an avenue of acquisition.”
Just as it always is for him and Carroll as they follow their Seahawks’ credo: “Always compete.”
This offseason, in talent acquisition, they are better positioned to do that.
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