SEATTLE — Seahawks coach Pete Carroll always says a team can never have enough pass rushers.
So, while Seattle may seem in good shape with rushers after re-signing Carlos Dunlap and Benson Mayowa and adding free agent Kerry Hyder, the Seahawks on Wednesday are reported to be getting a visit from one of the bigger-name rushers still available — Aldon Smith.
Smith's visit to Seattle was first reported by Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network.
Smith was once one of Seattle's biggest headaches on the field, recording 42 sacks for the 49ers from 2011-13 when the two teams were battling it out for supremacy of the NFC West (he was a first-team All-Pro in 2012 when he had a career-high 19.5 sacks as the 49ers advanced to the Super Bowl).
But then Smith's career began to be derailed by off-field issues and he did not play from 2016-19. He was reinstated from what was referred to at the time as an indefinite suspension for substance abuse-related issues last year and spent the 2020 season with the Dallas Cowboys.
Smith, a 2011 first-round pick out of Missouri who is now 31, turned in just five sacks for the Cowboys in playing and starting all 16 games — in fact, he played 61% of the snaps or more in every contest.
But he had three sacks in the third game of the year against the Seahawks, and it may well be that game has piqued the interest of Carroll and general manager John Schneider (Smith had just one sack the rest of the season).
As the NFL Network noted, Smith would undoubtedly come at a bargain price and would be the quintessential low-risk, potentially high-reward signee at this point.
Pro Football Focus offered this scouting report of Smith prior to the opening of the free agent signing period in March:
"It briefly seemed as though Aldon Smith's return to the NFL was going to be genuinely spectacular. Through five weeks of the season, he had 25 total pressures, two more than T.J. Watt, and was coming off a nine-pressure game against the Giants. The rest of his season paled in comparison, and he heads into free agency without much hype or fanfare. We shouldn't let the change in perception change his potential future, however. Smith played his first football since the 2015 season, and to come out of that with an above-average overall PFF grade (66.3) is an impressive achievement in and of itself. That he is still just 31 years old — and now with a year of football under his belt, as well as a year of staying out of trouble — makes him an interesting option for a team needing reinforcements on the defensive line. There were several teams in 2020 for whom Aldon Smith would have been a welcome addition, and those squads may want to look to secure him for a bargain price as contingency for 2021."
Along with re-signing Dunlap and Mayowa, the Seahawks also have second-year players Alton Robinson and Darrell Taylor as edge rushers, though Taylor has yet to play, with the second-round pick missing all of last season while recovering from surgery to repair a stress fracture.
Hyder is expected to play the team's five-technique defensive end spot, where Seattle also has Rasheem Green and L.J. Collier.
The Seahawks have 63 players under contract — teams can have up to 90 when training camp begins. Seattle is listed with $7.9 million in available cap space as of Wednesday morning by OvertheCap.com, which includes the contract for cornerback Damarious Randall, who the team announced it had re-signed on Friday. Randall's contract Wednesday was revealed to be a veteran minimum deal, including a base salary of $990,000 for the 2021 season with a cap hit of $987,500.
