By Bob Condotta / The Seattle Times
A few early bad moments obscured the bigger picture of the Seattle Seahawks’ special-teams units in 2022.
By just about any metric, the Seahawks’ special teams were among the best in the NFL last season.
To cite one, longtime NFL writer Rick Gosselin rates each NFL team’s special teams at the end of each season by assigning points to their standing in 22 different kicking-game categories. One is for best, 32 for worst.
The Seahawks finished with 269.5 points, second fewest of all teams behind Houston’s 255.
The special teams were keyed by kicker Jason Myers, who made the Pro Bowl, and punter Michael Dickson, who turned in another season worthy of a bid, as well as kick and punt units that had substantially better averages for the season than their opponents.
As we conclude a review of the Seahawks position groups heading into the offseason, let’s look more closely at the special teams:
Kicker Jason Myers
Age: 31
Contract situation: Myers signed a four-year contract last month that can pay him up to $21.1 million.
Punter Michael Dickson
Age: 27
Contract situation: Dickson has three seasons remaining on a contract signed before the 2021 season that will pay him a base salary of $2 million in 2023.
Snapper Carson Tinker
Age: 33
Contract situation: Unrestricted free agent.
2022 review
Myers had another standout year, hitting 34 of 37 field goals, including making all six from 50 and beyond to tie a team record, and 41 of 42 point-after attempts. He led the NFL in points scored with 143.
Dickson finished second in the NFL with a net average per punt of 44.4, and an overall punting average of 48.5 per kick and raised his career average to 47.57, the best in NFL history.
The Seahawks were ninth in kickoff return average at 24.3, thanks largely to the emergence of midseason pickup Godwin Igwebuike, and averaged 3.4 yards more per kickoff than opponents and 0.9 yards per punt return.
There were some stumbles.
Fumbled or botched punt returns led to touchdowns in early games against the 49ers and Lions, a decision by Dickson to take off running when he didn’t think he could get a rugby punt off led to a Saints TD in a seven-point loss, and a failure to call the proper punt blocking led to an Arizona touchdown.
It was the third straight year the Seahawks finished in the top five in Gosselin’s ratings, the last two seasons coming after Larry Izzo took over as the special-teams coordinator after serving as assistant special-teams coordinator the previous three seasons.
2023 preview
The Seahawks answered the big special-teams question of the offseason early by re-signing Myers to a four-year deal.
With Dickson under contract for three more years, the Seahawks are keeping one of the best kicking duos in the NFL the past four years under contract though 2025.
The one unanswered question left is at snapper. Tinker took over when Tyler Ott suffered a season-ending shoulder injury that required surgery. Both are unrestricted free agents, with 2022 marking the last year of a three-year extension Ott signed in 2019. Tinker signed a one-year deal when he came to Seattle in September.
The Seahawks will obviously need to sign a snapper at some point, be it Ott, Tinker or someone else. Ott has been the snapper since the end of the 2016 season, making him the second-longest tenured player on the team other than Tyler Lockett.
Igwebuike is an exclusive-rights free agent, meaning he’ll return as long as the Seahawks give him a qualifying tender, and he’ll surely enter 2023 as the leader in the kickoff-return competition
DeeJay Dallas and Dee Eskridge handled the other kickoff returns this year and remain under contract for 2023. Dallas was the primary punt returner this year, though Lockett took a few.
The Seahawks could add some competition at the return spots and particularly punt returner.
One internal candidate is receiver Easop Winston Jr, a former WSU standout who was signed to the practice squad late in the year and to a futures contract after the season. Winston was lauded by coach Pete Carroll for his work on punt returns in practice and could get a long look at that job in camp.
The Seahawks will have to answer the question of whether they want to bring back Nick Bellore for another season at age 34. Bellore, a free agent, is listed as a fullback and linebacker, but his primary job is on special teams where he has been the captain the last two seasons as voted on by teammates. He has three straight seasons with 14 or more tackles on coverage units. His 14 last year were six more than anyone else on the team and tied for seventh in the NFL. His 352 snaps on special teams were also the most on the team.
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