THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Seahawks experience the price of success in free agency

Rashid Shaheed wasn’t kidding.

When the rocket-quick receiver and kick returner landed with Seattle via trade with the Saints on Nov. 4, he said: “I’m here to stay.”

Forgive most Seahawks fans for thinking that Shaheed meant he’d stay long enough to return a few kicks for touchdowns, win the Super Bowl and then hit the road as a free agent.

He wouldn’t be quite as fast on his way out of town, what with hauling that sack of cash handed out by another team in a booming free agent market.

Turns out, we should have taken Shaheed at his word.

On Monday, the first day that players could lock in deals across the league (I love that the NFL calls it “legal tampering”), Shaheed said yes to a new deal with the Seahawks.

He didn’t stick around for pennies, mind you.

The Seahawks have a lot more work on offense in mind for the gifted Shaheed, and they proved it by giving him a deal with $51 million over three years – with $34 million guaranteed.

Expect new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury to pair Shaheed with another speed merchant, Tory Horton, to create havoc on the end of cross-country throws from Sam Darnold.

MONDAY was chaos for the Hawks, which is more or less what you’d expect for a Super Bowl champion.

The league assumes you won because you had a lot of good players, and teams lined up for the privilege of snatching them.

For a few, that’s how the first day of business played out.

Seattle GM John Schneider knew which free agents he’d pay to hang around (the Seahawks had north of $50 million in cap space, fourth-most in the league), and which he’d let go if the market got ridiculous.

The grand prize was running back Kenneth Walker III, MVP of the Super Bowl, who cut a deal with the Chiefs.

No surprise there.

Kansas City has been desperate for a running back, and was willing to gamble on the gifted Walker despite his series of injuries.

Walker was spectacular over the second half of the 2025 season, and then through the playoffs, so the deal made sense.

Letting Walker, ah, walk was Schneider’s biggest risk among all the free agent traffic.

Backup Zach Charbonnet, a solid running back himself, is still recovering from a serious knee injury – so the Hawks will have to find another running back as cover.

Hopefully, the new addition will be RB1, so Charbonnet can recover at a decent pace, and then ease back into the offense.

This situation will bear watching.

The Seahawks’ other new gaps shouldn’t be cause for nerves, since they’re on defense – which means Macdonald has had replacement plans in mind all along.

SAFETY Coby Bryant is a heck of a player, and his departure to the Bears was not a shock.

The Seahawks covered the hole in their secondary by cutting a deal with Josh Jobe, who won the starting corner job early in the season.

Jobe was one of the free agents they worked hard to keep, and got it done.

Meanwhile, Bryant was a starter alongside Julian Love, and the Seahawks would loved to have kept him – all things being equal.

But they’re not equal, since Schneider eventually will need money to pay combo safety-linebacker Nick Emmanwori, who was the surprise star of this latest draft class.

The Hawks’ final personnel loss – at least on Day One – was edge rusher Boye Mafe.

This one will present Schneider something of a puzzle, since Mafe shared snaps with veteran Uchenna Nwosu.

The plan going forward involved releasing Nwosu (who had an excellent 2025) as a cap casualty.

Now, with Mafe gone, the Hawks may choose to eat Nwosu’s $19 million cap hit as a cost of doing business and letting him have the majority of snaps.

He DID put the cap on the Super Bowl by trotting in for a touchdown, a nice finale while acquiring the Lombardi Trophy.

Wrapping up this first go-round – the opening day of legal tampering – the Seahawks lost some talent.

They hung on to pieces that really matter, though.

And…

Who’s favored to win the next Super Bowl?

Yep, that was a trick question.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On."