One of the subplots of the Seahawks game Saturday at Kansas City — which will go a long way toward determining if Seattle makes the playoffs — is a reunion with defensive end Frank Clark.
Clark was still a Seahawk the last time the two teams met Dec. 23, 2018, making four tackles as Seattle beat Kansas City 38-31, a win that proved vital to getting the Seahawks into the playoffs that year.
Almost exactly four months later, Clark, who was Seattle’s first pick in the 2015 draft out of Michigan at 63rd overall, was traded to the Chiefs.
Seattle dealt Clark after deciding he would be too pricey to sign to a long-term deal.
Seattle had placed a franchise tag on Clark — who was coming off a career season having made 13 sacks — after the season for one year at $17.1 million, hoping to then work out a multiyear extension.
But when the edge rush market exploded and the cost to re-sign Clark became more than the Seahawks anticipated, they decided the wiser course was to trade Clark and load up on draft picks.
That was the year when Seattle was slated to have just four picks heading into the draft — in the first, third, fourth and fifth rounds.
The Clark trade, which netted the Seahawks a 2019 first- and third-round pick (the third-rounder being a swap) as well as a 2020 second-rounder, kicked off a flurry of deals that ultimately saw the Seahawks finish with 11 picks in 2019 — tied with 2017 and 2013 for the most in the Pete Carroll/John Schneider era.
The Chiefs promptly signed Clark to a five-year deal worth up to $104 million with $63.5 million guaranteed, exactly the kind of contract the Seahawks didn’t want to give him.
At an annual average of $20.8 million, that contract would still be the biggest Seattle would have ever given any player other than Russell Wilson.
The Chiefs ultimately had some second thoughts as well, redoing Clark’s contract last season after the third year, ripping up the final two seasons of the original contract to re-sign him to a smaller two-year deal worth $29 million. The Chiefs would likely have cut Clark otherwise.
So what did the Chiefs get out of it?
While Clark has made the Pro Bowl each of the last three years, he’s never really equaled the heights of 2018, when his 13 sacks were the second most of any Seahawk in the past 24 years (only Patrick Kerney, with 14.5 in 2007, has had more in that span).
His best season in Kansas City remains his first, when he had eight sacks in 2019.
He has 23.5 sacks overall in 55 regular-season games in Kansas City.
That includes five this year (he also had a forced fumble of Houston QB Davis Mills in overtime Sunday that led to the winning points for KC).
Clark, though, has been big in the postseason for the Chiefs, notably turning in five sacks in three games in 2019 when Kansas City won it all, including one in the Super Bowl win over the 49ers.
With the third-round pick the Chiefs got back from Seattle, Kansas City drafted defensive tackle Khalen Saunders at 84th overall.
Saunders has battled injuries much of his career but has become a key part of KC’s defensive line rotation this season and has 2.5 sacks.
What did the Seahawks get out of it?
As noted, the Seahawks didn’t have to pay Clark more than $20 million a year, a deal that included cap hits of $19.3 million in 2020 and $25.8 million in 2021, numbers that each year would have been the second highest on the team other than Wilson. He was due for a cap hit of $26.3 million in 2022 before the restructure reduced it to $13.7 million. Even that number would still be bigger than any Seahawk this year other than the $26 million in dead money for Wilson (Poona Ford has the highest cap hit for Seattle this year of any player still on the roster at $10.075 million).
It’s mostly a guess at what that added salary cap space led to, but the Seahawks have long talked of liking as much flexibility as possible to pursue things that come up unexpectedly, such as the Jamal Adams trade in July 2020.
As for picks, Seattle got three: Nos. 29 and 92 in 2019 and No. 64 in 2020.
But Seattle used only one of those in its original spot — the 29th, with which it selected defensive end L.J. Collier.
The others were used in trades to acquire more picks. Specifically, pick 92 was packaged with pick 159 and sent to Minnesota for picks 88 and 209. Those turned into linebacker Cody Barton and defensive tackle Demarcus Christmas.
And pick 64 in 2020 was sent to Carolina on draft day that year to get picks 69 and 148, which turned into guard Damien Lewis and defensive end Alton Robinson.
So you can consider it more accurate that what Seattle got is all that cap space and flexibility, which as noted can be hard to quantify, plus five players — Collier, Barton, Christmas, Lewis and Robinson — for Clark and Saunders.
All but Christmas, who never played in an NFL game, remain on the roster this year with Barton and Lewis each starters — Barton at weakside linebacker and Lewis at left guard.
Collier’s development is the obvious disappointment in that group. He has three tackles and no sacks in 100 snaps played in five games this year and has 39 tackles and three sacks in 42 career games, with 16 starts. He’ll be a free agent at the end of the season with a most uncertain future.
Robinson showed flashes of promise as a rookie in 2020 with four sacks but after making one sack last season he has missed all of this year due to a knee injury.
The Seahawks would also tell you that getting the picks in exchange for Clark made it easier to make all the other trades during the 2019 draft — Seattle made seven overall — and ultimately go from four picks going in to 11 picks coming out.
And recall that the Seahawks traded their own pick in the first round — No. 21 overall — to Green Bay for picks 30, 114 and 118, all of which they traded for even more picks, a decision likely made easier knowing they had added the 29th pick due to the Clark trade.
Pick 118 was packaged with pick 77 (which was acquired in a trade that involved pick 30) and sent to New England to move up to 64 and take a receiver from Ole Miss named DK Metcalf.
So, yes, one move left quite a paper trail to follow, and deciding who got the better of it might ultimately be an eye-of-the-beholder thing.
The one unquestioned winner might be Clark, who has made more than $65 million in Kansas City and earned a Super Bowl ring.