Seattle Seahawks

Running back Javonte Williams bet on himself last year, signing a one-year, $3 million deal. He delivered, with a career-high 1,200 rushing yards.

His reward was a three-year, $24 million deal to remain with the Cowboys.

Since the Williams deal was the first significant contract signed by a looming free agent, it’s important to remember a few things as we approach new-contract season. The initial reports routinely overstate the true value of the contract. For example, the reported $16 million in guarantees for Williams surely aren’t fully guaranteed at signing, and there’s little about the structure of the deal. There could be a little fudging at play to make the deal look better than it is, with the reporters who rush to Twitter with the early information rarely if ever insisting on full and accurate details. (If they do, someone else gets the scoop.)

For now, even the potentially inflated initial reporting reinforces an important point: The running back position continues to be undervalued.

The deal, if it’s truly worth $8 million per year, puts Williams at 16th among all current running backs. And while he took the offer before the annual tampering festival in Indianapolis, it’s believed that the offer the took was the best one he was going to get.

It’s also possible the Cowboys tried aggressively to get Williams signed before he could hit the market, perhaps by trotting out their CBA-violating practice of negotiating directly with the player. Or by making it clear that they’ll find another cheap veteran running back in the second or third wave of free agency, when players sign modest one-year deals.

Still, what would Williams have gotten on the open market? The absence of state income taxes in Texas are a factor. (Most players only care about APY, and that’s often a mistake.) Only the superstars at the position get market value. Eagles running back Saquon Barkley leads the way, at $20.6 million per year. 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey’s current deal has a new-money average of $19 million.

It happens for one very simple reason. The supply of capable running backs outweighs demand. Teams can resort to the draft for a younger, cheaper, and usually healthier player in lieu of paying a veteran who may not be able to duplicate his performance in a contract year.

Every year, college football generates plenty of running backs who can play at the NFL level, if they can be trusted to hold onto the ball and if they are able to pick up blitzers in pass protection. Most of them have their best years under slotted rookie contracts. When those expire, teams look for another young player to replace them.

The Williams contract gives other teams a data point that will become relevant to their negotiations with running backs. The other players who’ll be trying to get paid (Kenneth Walker III, Breece Hall, Travis Etienne, Rico Dowdle, Rachaad White, Isiah Pacheco, JK Dobbins) will have to deal with the argument that a guy who rushed for 1,200 yards in 2025 got only $8 million per year. (The counter would include that Williams isn’t much of a factor in the passing game, and that he lacks breakaway speed.)

Then there’s Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs. Currently eligible for a second deal, he has shown the kind of superstar ability that would justify a market-level contract.

And how about Falcons running back Bijan Robinson? Repeatedly called the best player in the entire league by his former head coach, Raheem Morris, Robinson will be in line for a superstar contract, too.

Will the Williams deal hold down what the Lions will offer Gibbs and what the Falcons will offer Robinson? It shouldn’t be a factor, at all. Gibbs and Robinson are far closer to Barkley and McCaffrey than the players who are hitting the market. Still, all running backs who are ready to become free agents will have to deal with the fact — as underscored by the Williams deal — that the running back market continues to be not what it could be, or perhaps what it should be.

After the Week 16 Thursday night overtime thriller between the Rams and Seahawks, L.A. coach Sean McVay was apoplectic about the manner in which replay review changed an incomplete pass into a successful two-point conversion.

The Rams plan to try to do something about it.

Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reports that the Rams plan to propose a rule change that would make the outcome of the play in question an unsuccessful two-point try.

No details have been provided as to what the change would be.

The play was fueled by the fluke deflection of a backward pass that caused it to go forward. And because it was a backward pass and not a fumble, it could be recovered beyond the spot of the backward pass by someone other than the person who threw it.

One possibility would entail applying the fumble rules to a backward pass that is touched by a member of the defense or, even more specifically, one that is touched by a member of the defense and ricochets forward.

Apart from the kooky outcome is the fact that it took 100 seconds to initiate a replay review. As PFT recently reported, a call from Prime Video rules analyst Terry McAulay to NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson sparked the process.

Given the outcome of that game and its impact on the NFC West crown and No. 1 seed in the conference, it was the call of the year. Whether it prompts a rule change remains to be seen.

The fact that it happens so infrequently could be the best argument against a change, with teams continuing to coach players to pick up any loose ball they see. Like Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet did in that key moment.

During the divisional-round win over the 49ers, Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet suffered a torn ACL. On Friday, nearly five weeks after the injury, Charbonnet underwent surgery to repair the ligament.

Charbonnet made the announcement on Instagram.

The timeline for Charbonnet’s return isn’t known.

Complicating the situation for the Seahawks is the looming free agency of Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker III. The Seahawks reportedly are “unlikely” to use the franchise tag to keep Walker in place for 2026. Absent a new deal in Seattle, he’ll be free to sign elsewhere in 18 days.

A second-round pick in 2023, Charbonnet rushed for 730 yards and 12 touchdowns during the 2025 regular season. He added 144 receiving yards. And he made arguably the play of the year, picking up a loose ball that turned out to be a key two-point conversion in a Week 16 overtime win against the Rams.

If Walker goes, the Seahawks will need to add a running back. The need becomes more pronounced if Charbonnet isn’t ready when Week 1 rolls around.

There’s one option with whom new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury is familiar. 49ers running back Brian Robinson is due to become a free agent. He rushed for 400 yards in 2025 as the understudy to Christian McCaffrey. Fleury was the run-game coordinator for the 49ers in 2025.

Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba has played three years of his rookie contract, which means he’s now eligible for his second contract. He wants it to be a big one.

Smith-Njigba said in an interview with Jonah Javad of WFAA that he expects a new deal for the right money at the right time, and he expects it to be the most lucrative deal any wide receiver has ever signed.

“I’m really not too pressed right now to get it done,” Smith-Njigba said. “I know my time is coming and when we get it done it’s gonna be a great deal. God’s timing is perfect timing, so whenever that may come we’ll be ready for it. I think I deserve to be the highest-paid at my position, just what I give to the game and the community, I give it my all. And I think that’s worth a lot, lot more. I would play this game for free, I love this game so much, but you don’t have to. I’m learning to be a good businessman, and we need that check at the end of the day.”

Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase currently has the biggest contract for a wide receiver in NFL history, the four-year, $161 million deal he signed 11 months ago. Smith-Njigba will be looking for a contract that averages more than $40.25 million per year.

Brian Fleury is getting his first chance to be an NFL offensive coordinator this season, but he isn’t planning to make radical changes to the Seahawks offense.

Fleury worked for the 49ers in 2025, so he got a chance to see the offense that Klint Kubiak built for the Super Bowl champs up close three times. Fleury and Kubiak also worked together with the 49ers in 2023, which gives them some common ground in how they see offensive football.

During a Thursday press conference, Fleury said that those things have made him want to keep a lot of what’s already installed in place while putting his own tweaks in to keep the offense moving forward.

“I do think one of the advantages of taking this job is there is going to be a lot of continuity,” Fleury said, via the team’s website. “I’ve already started to dive into everything Klint was doing last year, and the goal would be to maintain as much of that as possible. There’s also areas where we can supplement that and things that we’ve developed and done in San Francisco under Kyle that Klint wasn’t there for or maybe didn’t implement as much. So that’s going to be the goal, is to keep as much as we can the same, but I think there’s definitely areas where we can grow some different ways. We can challenge the players that they should be looking forward to when they get back too.”

Fleury said there are “not many things to fix” about the unit that he’s inheriting from Kubiak and his time with the 49ers means that he’s already worked with quarterback Sam Darnold. That should be another plus for keeping what’s worked in place as Seattle tries to repeat the success they had during the 2025 season.

Plenty of items have emerged in recent weeks about the value of the Seattle Seahawks. We’ve seen $6.7 billion. We’ve seen $6.59 billion.

What are they truly worth? We’re about to find out, in the most reliable way possible.

The Seahawks are worth what someone will pay for the team.

The value of NFL franchises constantly increases. The revenue they generate is always increasing. In 2022, the Broncos sold for a new record of $4.65 billion. In 2023, the Commanders sold for a new record of $6.05 billion. Last year, the 49ers sold a six-percent non-voting sliver of the team at a record valuation of $8.5 billion. After that, the Giants did a sale for a minority stake in the team at a $10 billion valuation.

The Paul Allen Trust has put a “for sale” sign on 100 percent of the Seahawks’ equity.

Controlling interests in NFL franchises don’t go on the market often. The defending Super Bowl champions are.

Book valuations won’t matter. External assessments won’t matter. The highest bidder will get the team.

Folks in the know expect the number to land between $9 billion and $11 billion. It’ll be surprising if it’s under $9 billion. It won’t be surprising at all if it exceeds $10 billion.

What will someone pay for it?

It’s a rare asset, one that always appreciates. It generates massive revenue solely from the money that comes from the league-wide TV deals, which are shared equally by all 32 teams. That’s without ticket sales and all of the other revenue streams.

Someone with a giant pile of money — possibly a currently anonymous multibillionaire — will show up with a huge bag of cash and buy the thing.

To the extent that multiple multibillionaires want membership in Club Oligarch, the price will go up. And up. And up.

It’ll essentially be an auction. Do I hear eight? Do I hear nine? Do I hear ten?

We’ll eventually hear a number that will surprise many. It shouldn’t. If a piece of the Giants with no power over the team values the franchise at $10 billion, the ability to buy all of the Seahawks should match that. If not top it.

So forget about book value. The Seahawks will be sold at their street value. And the more billionaires that step out onto the sidewalk, the higher the final number will go.

The Seahawks introduced new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury on Thursday. Fleury, who was the run game coordinator and tight ends coach with the 49ers, has never served as an offensive play caller.

That fact didn’t scare head coach Mike Macdonald, who had never called plays until Michigan made him defensive coordinator in 2021.

“Going into it, I do think it’s a bit overrated,” Macdonald said, via Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times. “At some point, all play callers have to be first-time play callers. You could tell how Brian thinks about the game. Look, you’re going to have to grow into any new role, but we have a lot of great people around here and a lot of great opportunities for him to get ready to go. I’m really confident he’s going to be off and running sooner than later.’’

Fleury called defensive plays as a defensive coordinator at Sacred Heart University from 2006-08 and ran the special teams at Towson from 2009-12. He moved to the offensive side of the ball in 2020 with the 49ers, became the team’s tight ends coach in 2022 and added run game coordinator duties under Kyle Shanahan last season.

Fleury said he has “always been preparing” to call the plays.

“The thing about offensive play-calling to me is the preparation is done ahead of time,” Fleury said. “You’re thinking through the situations and putting plays in a list format of when you get to second and one inside the 30-yard line, what are you going to call? So, the preparation aspect of it I’ve already done, now it’s just a matter of analyzing the information in real time and getting to the right play call on the sheet.”

The most important thing for Macdonald was keeping Klint Kubiak’s system in place. The Seahawks ranked eighth in yards per game and passing yards per game and finished third in points scored per game (28.4).

Fleury said the offense will look “very similar to the one that just won the Super Bowl.”

The Seahawks’ push to a Super Bowl title was helped by a midseason trade that brought wide receiver Rashid Shaheed to Seattle from New Orleans.

Shaheed returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns while picking up 15 catches for 188 yards and seven carries for 64 yards while the Seahawks went 8-1 with him in the lineup in the regular season. He then opened the team’s playoff win over the 49ers with a kickoff return for a touchdown and had a key 51-yard catch early in the next round’s win over the Rams.

During an appearance on NFL Network this week, Shaheed said he’s interested in signing a new deal with the team that would extend his run in Seattle.

“Absolutely, absolutely, yeah,” Shaheed said. “Conversations are definitely going to be heating up towards March. But you know, I would love to come back. I loved my experience here, I’m loving the Pacific Northwest, and obviously the organization is second to none. I kind of want to run it back. We just won the Super Bowl, so, you know, why not?”

Running back Kenneth Walker and three cornerbacks — Coby Bryant, Josh Jobe and Riq Woolen — are among the other notable Seahawks free agents, which means the team has to pivot quickly from winning the title to trying to keep key pieces of the team together for another run in 2026.

The Raiders have made it official with Rick Dennsion.

Las Vegas announced on Thursday that the club has hired Dennison to be its offensive line coach under new head coach Klint Kubiak.

Dennison, 67, was Seattle’s run game coordinator and senior offensive advisor in 2025, winning Super Bowl LX along with Kubiak.

Dennison has a long history with the Kubiak family, having played with Gary Kubiak — Klint’s father — in Denver. Dennison also coached with the elder Kubiak with the Broncos, Ravens, Texans and Vikings and worked with Klint Kubiak in Denver, Minnesota, New Orleans and Seattle.

Dennison won Super Bowl 50 as the Broncos offensive coordinator in 2015 under Gary Kubiak.

The dip in the ratings for Super Bowl LX wasn’t as big as initially believed.

Nielsen has revised the final viewership for the Patriots-Seahawks championship game across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+ from 124.9 million to 125.6 million. It’s an increase of 700,000 viewers.

“This update is due to the fact that a Big Data provider did not properly collect data from its devices on February 8, which impacted the Big Data + Panel count,” Nielsen said in a press release.

Super Bowl LIX averaged 127.7 million. That number didn’t include Nielsen’s new metric for measuring out-of-home viewership.

It’s still the second-biggest audience in U.S. TV history. The top 12 are Super Bowls; the final episode of M*A*S*H is the only top-20 show of all time that isn’t a Super Bowl.