Seattle Seahawks restructure the contract of Dee Eskridge, open up a little cap space for free

what's going on everybody good afternoon we've got some Seattle Seahawks news it's several hours old at this point this uh came down this morning I didn't have a chance to make a video on it until now but uh let's talk about the latest and greatest regarding D ESD and some of you were probably waiting for this video for weeks maybe even months now expecting that we'd be talking about the release of dsgd not yet we have not yet released dsgd in fact we have taken a alternative path that will likely likely not not guaranteed or anything but likely going to create a situation where we don't release him and I'm surprised I am certainly surprised but uh let Let's uh take a look at what we have done here what we have done is restructured his contract to make it cheaper for us to keep him while still keeping our options open for releasing him later on so field goals has the article here breaking it all down they've got the tweet from Kota here breaking down the exact finances but basically what they have done is reduced dsd's salary by about $415,000 uh a few hundred th000 in Saving by reducing his base salary from about 1.5 million to 1.05 million approximate you you guys can see the exact numbers on screen uh it it basically amounts to about $415,000 in savings against the cap so that's enough for nothing right like what are you going to do with $415,000 in the NFL against the cap you're you're not going to do much of anything you're going to tand you're going to put that in tandem with another minor move that you make and that'll clear up enough cap space to sign one of your rookies maybe but it is cap space nevertheless now one thing that is worth noting is that you can still release him later so releasing dsage at any point going forward would still cost the Seahawks the same amount of dead money as it did before so now the cap savings on a release would be just over a million because of the money you already saved on the restructure so basically there's no risk involved whatsoever it's just additional flexibility here and presumably this was a sacrifice that ESD had to make to stay on the team for the time being now he gets the chance to impress in Camp or preseason to stick around so there's no downside here for the Seahawks it's only benefit basically esage is paying the price for his lack of production so far in the NFL he is being forced essentially to give up part of his base salary even if it's only like $400,000 that's still a significant amount in order to buy his way to training camp and mini camp and pre-season to to impress somebody be it this team or another team to latch on so it's certainly not a bad thing to do this right there's there's nothing wrong with it there's no downside we could still release him right now and still get the exact same savings we were going to get before it looks like now that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people myself included wanted esgd off this team and we're going to have to wait on that decision for at least a little bit longer now here's the thing thing a release of DS gridge would have saved about um 1.47 basically this amount releasing esgd would have saved this amount of money call it 1.5 million this restructure saves about $415,000 and the cost to replace es gridge would have been probably if it's a if it's like a udfa it's going to be a little bit less than a million if it was going to be a draft pick like a late round pick it was going to be probably a right around um I'd say 800 900,000 depends on where the pick is and if it was going to be a veteran it was going to be a few million so you weren't really saving money on an esage release right because you were GNA have to go get somebody else that was going to cost part of esri's um previous salary so the savings would have been very minimal even if it was a udfa so by doing this they're basically saying we're going to save the money that we would have saved on releasing ESG gridge when you factor in the fact that we were going to have to replace him so this basically creates the same effect and now you don't need to go out and get another receiver now you don't need to go out and get another returner escd can hopefully hopefully occupy those roles in a way that allows us to not have to worry about it this off season so monetarily it doesn't really make a difference right because we all understand that when you let a player go you do have to pay something to replace that player on the roster and even if you're saving like let's say it's 1.5 million on a release you're really only saving like 500,000 if you're spending a million to replace the player so we got the Savings in effect it's basically the exact same thing but would you have rather moved on I I kind of feel like I would have admittedly right because esgd is a player that has done everything wrong since he's gotten here he he he showed up as a second round pick in 2021 now getting hurt was not his fault but he immediately gets hurt on that devastating dirty hit he took in Indianapolis and then he proceeded to not do anything for like two months got on the field had a pretty good game against I think it was the ners then he disappeared again then he kept getting hurt kept getting hurt kept getting hurt kept getting hurt then he got involved in a domestic dispute that cost him the first six games of 2020 I think it was 2023 where he got into some kind of physical altercation with his wife which you know we don't like that we certainly don't like that right and then he gets back on the field after his suspension is up gets hurt again gets hurt again gets hurt again again has one game where he makes a couple plays against the ners he returns a kick returns a punt uh for good yardage and then I think he had like one end around for 10 yards and then we don't see him again so you cannot do worse over your first three years in the NFL and it's really really hard to believe that ESD is going to suddenly find himself in year four remember this guy was old coming into the NFL this guy was not some 20y old when he got drafted where we all knew it was going to take time no he was supposed to be ready to go he was an older player coming out of Western Michigan so the fact that we've seen nothing from him it it it feels like it's the story's already been written on Eskridge right if if he had something to give we would have seen it by now and I know we've got this new OC with Ryan grub maybe Ryan grub looks at him a little bit differently maybe we're just looking at him as a Return Man somebody who can return kicks and punts well maybe but then you have the injury problems then you have the fact that he got involved in the domestic dispute and maybe we shouldn't be attached to something like that any longer than we have to and maybe the million dollars you spend to replace esgd getting some super low draft pick or maybe even a little bit less than a million on a udfa maybe that guy is actually a significant asset in the way that Jake Bobo was last year so you're missing out on that and I understand that esage has abilities far beyond the typical udfa player like his speed his elusiveness in the open field is definitely something that merits attention as a player and you're not going to find that in udfa but it's meant nothing so far in his career outside of like two games how's it going to matter now so I don't know I don't know why we're clinging on to it but it looks like we are for at least the rest of the off season again I think basically what this move amounts to is an opportunity for Eskridge to show something in Camp basically he needed to do this to buy his way onto the 90-man roster and if he shows out in Camp or the preseason maybe he sticks in Seattle maybe the Seahawks um release him and then he gets to go to another team because they look at what he did in Camp in the preseason and they go oh let let's get that guy if he gets released I I don't think we're going to be able to trade him by the way there he could he could be Jerry Rice in the preseason I don't know if we'd be able to trade him but the point is this is basically the price he pays to at least get an opportunity to try to make the Seahawks in in July and August that's my read into it so we do clear a little bit of cap space on its own it's going to do very very little but if you tandem it with maybe one or two other things like we still have Nick balour on the roster we could do a Nick balour release and save like 2.8 something like that uh you do something like that then you're talking but obviously $415,000 is not exactly going to feed families around here not not in the uh NFL sense anyway it might feed the families in real life but it's not really going to make anything happen on this roster but uh every little bit matters every little bit counts and we've now basically put ourselves in a situation where gidge is either going to make the absolute minimum in 2024 or he's not going to be here and we've adopted no additional risks so I can't be upset about it I just don't know what we're Clinging On to at this point I I I just have to wonder like okay okay what what do you need to see from esgd to know he doesn't have it he he just doesn't have the ability to stay on the field he doesn't really have the ability to be an impact player on the field most of the time when he's on the field there there's there's nothing going on here all right let me know what you guys think down below if you think anything I know it's very insignificant but on the other hand I feel like it's not that insignificant I like when when you purge the old coaching staff the way that we did you would think that you'd be purging some of the old mistakes and esrage was maybe one of the biggest mistakes we made so I don't know why you wouldn't Purge it but I understand that he has talent I understand that I just don't believe we're ever going to see it at this Point all right see you guys later gohawks more videos coming later today but uh yeah that's what's going on with Mr D esgd