RENTON — In a move designed to create salary-cap space with the free-agent signing period beginning next week, the Seahawks terminated the contract of veteran starting guard Gabe Jackson on Thursday.
They also terminated the contract of backup linebacker and former UW standout Ben Burr-Kirven, who has not played the last two seasons because of a knee injury.
The moves were reported on the official NFL transactions listing for Thursday.
Releasing Jackson saves $6.5 million against the cap, while Burr-Kirven will save $940,000. NFL teams can begin negotiating with free agents Monday and can sign free agents Wednesday.
It was no coincidence that the move to release Jackson came on the day the Seahawks re-signed quarterback Geno Smith to a new three-year deal that could be worth as much as $105 million and has a base value of $75 million.
The cap hits for Smith’s contract had yet to be revealed as of Thursday afternoon, but his 2023 number — while likely to not be anywhere near his per-year average — is still likely to be relatively significant.
The Seahawks entered the day with just over $23 million in cap space for 2023, according to OvertheCap.com, but with an effective cap space of about $12.6 million when accounting for the cap hits of the team’s 10 draft picks.
Jackson’s release had been anticipated since the Seahawks re-signed guard Phil Haynes last month to a one-year deal that could be worth as much as $4 million.
Haynes and Jackson split time at right guard last season, with Jackson playing 61% and Haynes — who also saw some time at left guard — playing 44% of offensive snaps.
Haynes, a fourth-round pick in 2019 out of Wake Forest, started three games last year — two at left guard and one at right — and enters the offseason as the prospective starter at right guard, with Damien Lewis remaining on the left side.
Jackson, who turns 32 in July, started 29 games the last two years at right guard after being acquired in a trade in 2021 from the Raiders in exchange for a fifth-round pick.
The Seahawks reworked his contract, giving him a three-year deal worth just over $22 million. They restructured his contract last October to push back $1.7 million of his cap hit from 2022 to 2023 to create some cap space to get through the rest of the season.
That means Jackson will account for just over $4.7 million in dead cap space for 2023 (meaning space devoted to a player no longer on the team).
Still, the $6.5 million in savings is significant, and the move had been expected since Haynes was re-signed.
Burr-Kirven didn’t play the last two seasons after suffering a knee injury in a preseason game against Denver in 2021.
Burr-Kirven, a fourth-round pick in 2019 out of the University of Washington, was listed as a prospective free agent heading into the 2023 offseason since 2022 marked the last year of his original rookie deal. But because he did not play last year, his contract tolled, and he remained under contract.
The team was unclear on a timeline for when — or even whether — he would be able to play again.
Asked about Burr-Kirven following the season, coach Pete Carroll said: “He’s in a little bit of an experimental mode, the surgeries that he’s had and the process that he’s going through. He is making progress; he’s always in the weight room with us; he’s always here working, really with a tremendous mentality. The nerve issues, there’s really intricate stuff going on, so he’s had to have a really good attitude to stay in the fight, and he is, he’s in the fight, and he’s planning on getting back out there.
“We’re going to give him every chance, if he can do it, this is going to be the place he does it. So we’ll see what happens, but he’s upbeat, he’s positive, and he’s made improvements in an area that sometimes you don’t make any.”
Asked about Burr-Kirven at the combine last week, general manager John Schneider said: “We’ll connect with him. Yeah, I had a good talk with him. We’ll connect with him sometime in the summer, see where we’re at, see how he’s doing.”
Burr-Kirven was the Pat Tillman Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year as a senior at UW in 2018 when he led the nation with 176 tackles.
He played in 16 games as a reserve and on special teams for the Seahawks in 2019 and 2020, making three tackles on defense and 13 on special teams.