At the close of the 2022 season, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said the Seahawks needed to “become more dynamic up front” on their defensive line.
Seattle took a big step toward doing that Monday night, reaching agreement with one of the top defensive linemen on the free agent market — Denver’s Dre’Mont Jones.
A league source confirmed that the move is expected, while Jones himself tweeted that he was headed to Seattle, stating in part that he is now “a Hawk! Let’s Go!!”
The NFL Network reported Jones agreed to a three-year deal worth up to $51.5 million with $18 million guaranteed.
It’s a contract that marks a significant departure from Seattle’s usual cautious approach to the opening phase of free agency, but seemed to illustrated just how desperate — or eager — the Seahawks are to try to fix their defense.
“We needed to be better up front,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said at the NFL scouting combine in February after a season in which Seattle finished 25th in points allowed and 26th in yards allowed. “I think it was pretty evident. We were on the field a lot. We didn’t defend the run real well. We had some games in there, we did a really nice job and then we had several games that didn’t go so well. We know what the issues are and we’re ready to attack them and fix them.”
The 26-year-old Jones was considered among the best defensive linemen available — Pro Football Focus rated him the third-best interior defensive lineman available and the 22nd overall.
A 6-3, 281-pounder, Jones is considered an especially versatile player, able to line up just about anywhere on the defensive line but considered especially disruptive as a pass rusher, something Carroll has often pointed to as an area where Seattle needed improvement.
“Jones still has room to round out his game, but the value of an interior pass rusher was never more apparent than during the 2022 season, and that’s exactly where Jones wins,” PFF wrote. “Since he entered the league in 2019, Jones’ 138 quarterback pressures are tied for the 19th most among interior defenders, with his 14.5% pass-rush win rate ranking 11th best over the span. Jones set career highs in snaps played, quarterback pressures and stops this past season. Players with his skill set don’t hit free agency too often, so teams looking for a 3-4 defensive end will be very interested in bringing him aboard this March.”
That scouting report sounds like exactly the kind of player the Seahawks said they needed to not only improve what was an inconsistent pass rush but also a run defense that allowed 4.9 yards per carry, 26th in the NFL.
Jones, who played at Ohio State, was the 71st overall pick in the draft in 2019. He has started 29 games in his career, including 13 in 2022 when he had a career-high 47 tackles and tied a career-high with 6.5 sacks.
The Seahawks entered the day with just over $20 million in cap space, according to OvertheCap.com, but are expected to release Shelby Harris — a former teammate of Jones’ with Denver before he came to Seattle in the Russell Wilson trade a year ago — to create another $9 million more.
Seattle’s largest contact handed to an outside free agent in the last decade came a year ago when the Seahawks signed end Uchenna Nwosu to a two-year deal worth up to $19 million.
Asked why he picked the Seahawks, Jones told NFL reporter Josina Anderson of CBSSports: “I feel like they have the biggest belief in me. They have a really promising team, and I am looking forward to transitioning to that city.”
Jones, a native of Cleveland, became just the defensive lineman in Ohio State history to 10 or more games as a defensive lineman in 2016 and went on to be a first team All-American by College Football News in 2018. He graduated with his degree in sociology that year and then declared for the draft with a season of eligibility remaining.
The news that Jones would sign came more than nine hours after teams were allowed to begin negotiating with free agents — teams can officially sign free agents from other teams on Wednesday at 1 p.m.
Until the news about Jones broke, Seattle had not added anyone, leading to the idea that the Seahawks were keeping with what has been their usual custom in the Carroll/Schneider era of mostly staying out of the opening wave of free agency. And when Seattle has signed free agents it has usually been to contracts of just one or two years.
But getting quarterback Geno Smith to agree to a heavily incentive-laden deal last week that meant a cap hit for 2023 of just $10.1 million helped give the Seahawks the flexibility to make a run at Jones.
This story will be updated.