Saturday I took a look at the contracts that the Seattle Seahawks gave to defensive linemen Shamar Stephen and Tom Johnson, both signed away from the Minnesota Vikings as rotational replacements for Sheldon Richardson. Richardson and Stephen combined have cap hits of less than $4.2M, which means signing them rather than signing Richardson gives the team an additional $3.8M in cap space to work with compared to if they had matched the one-year, $8M contract that the Vikings gave to Richardson. Some of that extra cap space may have been used to retain the services of defensive end Marcus Smith.
Breakdown of the Marcus Smith contract
