Middle linebacker Ernest Jones IV transformed the Seattle Seahawks’ defense midway through the 2024 season. Now the team must pay to keep him around in 2025 and beyond.
The Seahawks acquired the 25-year-old Jones from the Tennessee Titans in Week 8 in exchange for linebacker Jerome Baker and a fourth-round pick. That’s not a steep price for a starting linebacker, but it’s the type of compensation Seattle wouldn’t want to give up for a half-year rental. At least not for someone who immediately meshed with teammates and coaches and was an obvious part of the team’s defensive turnaround.
On Friday, general manager John Schneider said Seattle would like to re-sign Jones.
“Obviously we want Ernest back,” Schneider said on his KIRO-AM radio show. “We’ve talked to his guys; we’ve had great communication with them, and we’re hoping we’re able to accomplish that. Some guys, at some point you can get too close to the end of the season where they want to see what free agency looks like. So, now they can go out and see what their market is, and understandably so.”
On Jan. 4, NFL Network reported Seattle and Jones’ agents paused their discussions regarding an extension. A day later, in the postgame locker room after the Seahawks defeated the Los Angeles Rams in the season finale, Jones expressed confidence a deal would be reached.
“I’m going to be a Seahawk,” Jones said. “I firmly believe that.”
When asked why the contract talks were paused, Jones said: “We’ve just got to get there. That’s it. That’s all it is.”
If Jones’ agents plan to test the market, next week’s scouting combine in Indianapolis will be an opportunity to get a feel for the inside linebacker landscape and, if necessary, adjust their asking price accordingly. When asked what will be important to him regarding a new contract, Jones said, “I don’t know how to answer that question.” He said his faith that a deal will be reached stems from his strong body of work.
“What I did for this team,” he said, “I deserve what I deserve.”
After trading a second-round pick to acquire Leonard Williams during the 2023 season, Seattle signed him to a three-year contract worth $64.5 million, which at the time was top-10 money for an interior defensive lineman (his deal ranks 11th now). Jones is five years younger and plays a different position, so this is not a perfect comparison, but for the sake of this exercise, let’s assume Jones’ floor is somewhere in that range.
Here are the 12 highest-paid linebackers by average annual salary (all contract data provided by Over the Cap unless stated otherwise):
Roquan Smith, BAL ($20 million)
Fred Warner, SF ($19 million)
Tremaine Edmunds, CHI ($18 million)
Matt Milano, BUF ($14.1 million)
Patrick Queen, PIT ($13.7 million)
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, CLE ($12.5 million)
Azeez Al-Shaair, HOU ($11.3 million)
Zaire Franklin, IND ($10.4 million)
Bobby Okereke, NYG ($10 million)
Foyesade Oluokun, JAX ($10 million)
Logan Wilson, CIN ($9 million)
Jordyn Brooks, MIA ($8.7 million)
Jones, a third-round pick of the Rams in 2021, is among several impending free-agent linebackers hoping to enter this list. The headliners in the class are Kansas City’s Nick Bolton (turns 25 in March), the New York Jets’ Jamien Sherwood (25), San Francisco’s Dre Greenlaw (28 in May) and Philadelphia’s Zack Baun (28), who is coming off an All-Pro season with the Super Bowl champs.
Bolton, a second-round pick in the 2021 draft, has been a multiyear starter on a championship-level defense, whereas Sherwood (2021 fifth-round pick) and Baun (2020 third-round pick) are coming off breakout campaigns in their first full seasons as starters. Greenlaw has been a fixture on San Francisco’s defense for years but was limited to just 34 snaps last season due to an Achilles injury in Super Bowl LVIII.
Queen signed the most recent deal among the players in the top five by average annual salary, and he was coming off a second-team All-Pro season on the best defense in the league in 2023. Baun just finished fifth in Defensive Player of the Year voting and is the most decorated of the upcoming free agents, but before this season, he was primarily a special teams player in New Orleans, which is why he signed a $3.5 million contract with the Eagles last offseason. Entering free agency with just one year of high-level production might make it harder to ink a market-setting contract like an All-Pro player in his 20s typically would.
With that in mind, Bolton seems the most likely out of the group to jump into the top five with a new deal. If that happens, I’d expect Jones and the rest of the free-agent class to come in at slightly lower numbers.
Jones played well in 10 games with the Seahawks but wasn’t statistically dominant relative to others at his position. On the season, he recorded four tackles for loss, a half-sack, one interception, six run stuffs (tackles for no gain), one forced fumble and four passes defensed (all stats provided by TruMedia unless stated otherwise). Jones produced either a tackle for loss or a run stuff at a below-average rate, and the same was true of his pressure rate. Jones didn’t deliver splash plays at a high clip, nor did he have a high rate of impact plays in coverage.
However, it would be unfair to simply stack Jones’ numbers up against his peers considering he was surprisingly traded from the Rams to the Titans on Aug. 27, then traded again less than two months later. His 2024 season was unlike any of his peers. Seattle must view Jones as the guy who came in and solidified its run defense, which unlocked the rest of the scheme, and assisted in developing rookie Tyrice Knight. Jones’ best football is likely ahead of him, and Seattle just spent several months getting a glimpse of what that’ll look like under coach Mike Macdonald.
The Seahawks have a new salary-cap guru in Joey Laine, who replaced longtime vice president of football administration Matt Thomas in April. Thomas was Seattle’s lead negotiator but has since retired and is now living in Spokane, according to Schneider. Switching negotiators might not have a major impact on Seattle’s contract structure, but it’s worth noting when trying to project a deal for Jones.
Under Schneider, Seattle doesn’t have much history with lucrative inside linebacker contracts for anyone other than Bobby Wagner, who was one of the top players at his position at the time of his two multiyear extensions. Jones is probably closer to KJ Wright, who in December 2014 signed a four-year, $27 million contract extension at age 25.
A similar contract adjusted for the increase in the salary cap would be in the range of Queen’s deal — and what I imagine Bolton will sign for — which feels a little rich in this instance. A step down from there would be in the range of the deal signed by Owusu-Koramoah, a 2021 second-round pick who was coming off a very productive breakout season in 2023 that resulted in a Pro Bowl nod (as an injury replacement) when he signed his extension in August.
An appropriate deal for Jones would be a tick below that in the $12 million range, which when adjusted for the cap increase would be on par with the Okereke and Al-Shaair contracts. That would also match the projected contract value Pro Football Focus has for Jones and come in just under Spotrac’s estimated market value of $13 million per year.
The nuts and bolts of the contract — fully guaranteed money, signing bonus, etc. — are just as important as the average annual salary, though the latter is what generates the initial headlines. Depending on how the contract is structured, Seattle could sign Jones to a three-year deal worth about $37 million and keep his Year 1 cap hit around $5-6 million or lower with the use of void years. His percentage of the 2025 salary cap in that scenario would be in the same ballpark as safety Julian Love and cornerback Riq Woolen.
This sort of deal would keep the team’s defensive signal caller in the mix for several seasons and compensate him like an ascending young player at his position — those salary rankings are likely to be fluid this offseason — all while leaving salary-cap room to improve the rest of the roster.
Jones has said he wants to remain with the Seahawks, and the team has expressed that the feeling is mutual. A contract that pays him like a very-good-but-not-elite player at his position can satisfy both parties.
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