While the Seattle Seahawks are continuing to celebrate the Super Bowl championship they won less than a week ago, pretty soon, the pressure will be on them in earnest to repeat as world champions.
Repeat championships are quite rare in the NFL — in the last 20 years, only the Kansas City Chiefs have claimed Vince Lombardi Trophies in consecutive years. There are a number of factors that seem to conspire against the reigning champions each year and prevent them from going all the way again.
One of those obstacles is the league’s hard salary cap. The Seahawks will have a number of players who are about to become free agents, and Kristopher Knox of Bleacher Report warned that it could result in a “max exodus” of key players for them.
“Keeping a Super Bowl-caliber roster together is rarely an easy task, and that’s the challenge that Seahawks general manager Josh Schneider will face this offseason,” Knox wrote.
“Several key contributors, including cornerback Riq Woolen, receiver/returner Rashid Shaheed, cornerback Josh Jobe, safety Coby Bryant, and Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker III, are slated to be free agents next month. Other teams will be interested in them, looking to get a piece of that Super Bowl puzzle.”
Knox did note that the Seahawks will be projected to have $73.1 million of salary cap space once the new league year starts, and that will certainly help a lot. But that alone won’t be enough for them to keep enough of their core.
Of their players who are about to become available on the open market, Walker may be the most important for them to retain. He ran for 1,027 yards and five touchdowns during the regular season, and given that Seattle was third in rushing attempts in 2025, he’s one player the team cannot afford to lose.
The biggest part of Seattle’s championship puzzle was its defense, which was first in points allowed during its regular season, and therefore, losing even one of its free agents on that side of the football would hurt. Woolen, Jobe and Bryant combined for six interceptions and 31 passes defended during the regular season.
There are surely several teams around the NFL who would love to snatch one of those players in free agency next month, if for no other reason than to take Seattle down a peg. If that happens, the field could be fairly wide open throughout next season as far as who will end up winning Super Bowl LXI.
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