Field Gulls
In the offseason, John Schneider and the Seattle Seahawks lit $1.5M on fire added speedy received Marquez Valdes-Scantling in free agency, allowing him to continue the work he did with new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak.
Of course, that working relationship came to a screeching halt when the Seahawks opted to release MVS at final roster cuts due to the fact that he is old, expensive and not all that great at anything other than being fast.
However, MVS did not spend very much time unemployed, as he quickly signed to the practice squad of the NFC West rival San Francisco 49ers, setting up a potential elevation to the gameday roster for a Week 1 revenge game.
Things escalated even further Wednesday when the Niners opted to promote MVS to the 53-man roster.
MVS is unlikely to be the difference in the outcome of the game, but his move from the practice squad to the 53-man roster does impact the salary cap of the Seahawks.
Specifically, as Brady Henderson of ESPN noted at the time MVS was released, his Seattle contract included $1.5M of guaranteed salary, but that guaranteed salary was subject to offsets.
Offsets mean that if MVS earns all or a portion of that guaranteed salary from another team, the Seahawks would be off the hook for the amount MVS actually earns.
Some might jump to the conclusion that MVS is set to be on the 53-man roster for Week 1, which would fully guarantee his base salary with the 49ers. However, the full guarantees associated with being on the Week 1 roster for a team is based on the Termination Pay benefit of Article 30 of the collective bargaining agreement, and a player may only claim termination pay once during their career. Thus, it would not make sense for MVS to file a Termination Pay claim in a season in which his entire base salary with San Francisco is fully guaranteed by the Seahawks.
So, the long and short of it is that for every week of the regular season for which MVS is on the 53-man roster at 4:00pm New York time on Tuesday, the Seahawks will save $69,722 of cap space. It’s certainly not a huge amount, but it’s enough to cover the salary cap cost of almost a third of the players on the practice squad each week.
