Richard Sherman likely to be released soon by Seahawks

Richard Sherman was in Las Vegas Thursday attending NFL Players Association meetings and also — according to a few pictures on social media, anyway — trying his luck at a craps table.

What he also figures to soon be is an ex-Seahawk with the team remaining expected to release him in the next 24 to 48 hours.

The Seahawks have explored trade options for Sherman but nothing appears to have materialized — at least as of Thursday morning — and Seattle is likely to instead release Sherman ahead of the beginning of the new league year on Wednesday. Sherman isn’t apparently attracting much of a trade market because teams know he is likely to be released and because of his $11 million salary and coming off an Achilles injury.

Because Sherman is a vested veteran his contract would officially be terminated and he would immediately become a free agent.

The Seahawks would be open to re-signing Sherman at a lower salary than the $11 million he is due in 2018. But how eager Sherman would be to return to Seattle at a lower salary is hard to tell. Conventional wisdom is Sherman would likely want to move on.

Releasing Sherman would save the Seahawks $11 million in salary cap room for 2018. And doing it by the weekend would give Sherman — who is acting as his own agent — a head start on finding a new team ahead of the beginning of the new league year on Wednesday, when players whose contracts run out will officially become free agents.

If Sherman were unable to play again, the Seahawks would also be on the hook for an additional $1.15 million in an injury protection payout, the same as will also be the case with Cliff Avril if the Seahawks also release him and he cannot play again.

But that’s unlikely in Sherman’s case meaning Seattle would save $11 million, while taking a $2.2 million dead cap hit.

Seattle is also expected to soon release cornerback Jeremy Lane, which would save $4.75 million against the cap.

Combined with the trade of Michael Bennett, which saves $2.2 million, Seattle would be creating roughly $18 million additional in cap room — Seattle is listed as having roughly $13 million as of Thursday morning.

What’s unclear is what the Seahawks plan to do with the money.

Seattle has had veteran linebacker Brian Cushing and running back Jonathan Stewart in for visits the past two days. But both would almost certainly be one-year contracts for at or close to the veteran minimum if they were to sign. There was no immediate thought on if either will.

The Seahawks could be saving up to try to re-sign defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson, who the team declined to place a franchise tag on at $13.9 million earlier this week, meaning he can become a free agent Wednesday.

But in what is a weak crop of free agent defensive linemen the general thought has been that Richardson wants to hit the open market before committing anywhere.

Seattle also could be creating space to extend left tackle Duane Brown, who was acquired last October and whose contract runs out following the 2018 season. Brown, 32, is due $9.75 million in 2018.

Former NFL agent Joel Corry, who now writes about salary cap issues for CBSSports.com, threw out another idea Thursday.

“What makes sense for them in the long run is to do Russell Wilson now,” Corry said.

Wilson’s contract runs through the 2019 season with salaries of $15.5 million and $17 million the next two years and cap hits of $23.7 and $25.2 million.

Wilson was the second-highest paid quarterback in terms of average per year at $21.9 million when he signed an extension prior to the 2015 season, behind only Aaron Rodgers, but has since dropped to ninth. He’ll almost certainly fall to 10th when free agent Kirk Cousins signs next week. Cousins generally expected to get a deal that would surpass the contract the 49ers recently gave Jimmy Garoppolo, which averages $27.5 million per year.

Drew Brees is also expected to soon re-sign with the Saints and Rodgers and Atlanta’s Matt Ryan could also soon get new deals, all possibly getting contracts approaching or exceeding $30 million a year.

Wilson would likely want something similar and would probably want to wait to see how the market plays out before re-signing with Seattle.

Otherwise, what exactly Seattle plans to do with its added cap room is hard to tell especially with the free-agent market this year not regarded as overly attractive.

“It’s not,” Corry said. “You are going to overpay, for lack of a better word, for mediocrity.”

Going big in free agency has also never been the Seattle way with coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider having preferred to build through the draft and then re-sign their own core players. And even getting up to $30 million or so in cap room by Wednesday would still leave the Seahawks in the bottom half of available cap space and fighting an uphill battle for the few really elite free agents available, such as guard Andrew Norwell, who everyone expects to sign with the Giants, anyway.

It had been thought the Seahawks were likely not to be big spenders this year, hoping to instead add compensatory picks in 2019 if free agents such as Sheldon Richardson and Jimmy Graham sign elsewhere — teams can make trades this year based on the expectation of comp picks in 2019 and Seattle could use expected picks to try add selections in the second and third round this year. Seattle at the moment has only its own pick in the first round at 18 but then nothing until 120 in the fourth due to the Sheldon Richardson and Brown trades.

Corry said of the Seahawks’ plan that “I’m trying to figure it out.”

If Seattle signs some significant free agents, then the plan to acquire comp picks may be going out the window and would indicate the Seahawks are still in win-now mode.

But if not, as Corry says, “then next year could be a real challenge” in an NFC West featuring a Los Angeles team that has been making its own aggressive moves to stay at the top and a 49ers team that won its last five games in 2017 behind Garoppolo.

About the only thing clear at the moment is that the Seahawks are going to look a lot different.

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