Seahawks 2026 Free Agency: How Much It Cost To Keep Lb Drake Thomas

The Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks will have their work cut out this week as they look to restock and reload a roster with the talent, skill and depth to compete for another Lombardi in 2026.

It’s no secret that teams across the league have been working to recruit talent and add to their own rosters in recent weeks, the pace of activity picked up late last week as teams made final moves to keep their own players ahead of the official start of the legal tampering period Monday and the official start of free agency on Wednesday.

To that end, one of the moves John Schneider and Mike Macdonald made to keep the top scoring defense in the NFL in 2025 together was to retain linebacker Drake Thomas. Thomas had been slated to be a restricted free agent, which meant the team could likely have prevented his departure by applying restricted free agent tender. A second round tender would have come with a $5.767M price tag, while the right of first refusal tender would have carried a cap hit of $3.52M.

One of the complaints about RFA tenders is that they do not include any guaranteed money, which means after signing the tender it’s not uncommon for teams to use their negotiating leverage to demand a player take a pay cut. As such, it has become increasingly common in recent seasons for players to reach agreement on short contract extensions that keep a player off the market and around for more than the single season of one of the RFA tenders.

Thus, it came as little surprise when reports emerged that Seattle had agreed to a two-year, $8M contract extension with Thomas. Obviously, the amount the Seahawks would pay Thomas were known with those reports, but the exact structure of the deal is now known, thanks to OverTheCap.com. Thomas’ pay is as follows:

• Signing bonus: $1.5M
• 2026 base salary: $2.545M
• 2027 base salary: $3.445M
• Per game roster bonuses in each season: $255k

Putting those together, the cap hits for the contract work out as follows:

• 2026: $3.55M ($2.545M base salary + $750k signing bonus proration + $255k per game roster bonuses)
• 2027: $4.445M ($3.445M base salary + $750k signing bonus proration + $255k per game roster bonuses)

Thus, the Seahawks will bring back both of their starting linebackers in 2026, with Thomas again paired up with Ernest Jones in the middle of Mike Macdonald’s defense.