Geno Smith didn’t want to stay. Not at the money the Seahawks wanted to pay him.
DK Metcalf wanted to leave, too. Now he and Smith are both gone.
Ernest Jones? How much did he want to stay in Seattle?
He is signing a contract that helps the Seahawks financially, and is likely below what he’s worth to the team and coach Mike Macdonald’s defense he revitalized upon arrival in October.
The agreement Seattle reached Sunday with the 25-year-old middle linebacker and defense’s signal caller is for three years. It has a base value of $28.5 million. Jones gets $15 million guaranteed including a $7 million signing bonus, in figures obtained by NFL reporter Aaron Wilson.
Jones’ first-year charge against the NFL salary cap in 2025 is just $5.33 million. That allows the Seahawks the cap room to shop for veteran offensive linemen and other needs in free agency that Jones’ new contract kept him from entering for the first time in his four-year career.
Jones’ average annual base value of $9.5 million ties him with 34-year-old Bobby Wagner — remember him? — for only the 14th-highest among inside linebackers in the NFL.
Jones’ salaries per season are $2.15M guaranteed for 2025, $7.15 million with $5 million guaranteed for injury if he is on Seattle’s roster the fifth day of the 2026 league year, and a non-guaranteed $9.65 million in 2027.
Jones also has in each season of the deal $50,000 per week in bonuses for being on the active roster for game days, $1 million for earning league performance awards and a $750,000 playtime base-salary escalator for each of the 2026 and ‘27 seasons.
The $4.5 million in incentives and bonuses bring the maximum value to the $33 million over three years reported Sunday when Jones agreed to the deal.
That $33 million maximum value, a max of $11 million per season, is 10th-highest among NFL inside linebackers.
The former Super Bowl-winning linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams the Seahawks acquired from Tennessee in a trade this past October announced his new deal with characteristic vigor online Sunday afternoon.
The agreement came the day before Jones could have started negotiating with other teams as an unrestricted free agent. His rookie contract from the Rams the Seahawks inherited in their trade with the Titans during last season had expired.
Monday began the NFL’s so-called “legal tampering” period, two days of free agents talking new contracts with teams. Those deals become official when the market opens Wednesday, the start of the new league year.
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