Carroll: Seahawks want Al Woods, Poona Ford back. It’s going to have to be at their price

This could be huge.

Truly, literally, 350-plus-pounds huge.

The Seahawks want to re-sign Al Woods, one month after they cut the massive defensive tackle and co-captain from 2022.

“I love Al Woods,” coach Pete Carroll said Saturday.

That was after the Seahawks selected only one true defensive tackle in the NFL draft: Cameron Young from Mississippi State, in the fourth round Saturday morning.

Seattle released Woods March 20. That saved $3.76 million against a salary cap for 2023 the team is now snug against, with the imminent need of adding about $10 million in cap room for 10 draft choices.

Woods had been scheduled to have a cap charge of $5.42 million on the contract the Seahawks cut. It was 10th-highest on the team for this year. The only players with higher cap numbers are Jamal Adams, Quandre Diggs, Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, Uchenna Nwosu, Smith, Jones, Will Dissly and Noah Fant. None of them are going anywhere. They are team bedrocks for this year.

Is it feasible the Seahawks will re-sign Woods at a more team-friendly cap number — which is to say, close to minimum?

Does the 36-year-old rancher and father of a toddler daughter even want to leave home again to play football this year? He remains a free agent, unsigned since the Seahawks released him in the second week of free agency last month.

Woods owns a large ranch outside Elton, Louisiana, between Lafayette and Lake Charles in the western part of his home state. He’s a third-generation rancher in his family.

“My house sits on, like, 40 acres,” Woods told The News Tribune in his Southern drawl during Seahawks training camp last summer. “So, I think the closest house to me is about a half a mile, each direction.”

With earnings of $24.8 million over a 12-year career with Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Indianapolis and Seattle, does Woods even want to play again?

Woods told the TNT in January he intended to finish his contract.

“Oh, yeah,” Woods said on locker-room clean-out day after Seattle lost in the first round of the playoffs at San Francisco. “I can’t go out like that. I’ve got to finish what I started.”

The Seahawks cut him two months later.

“We’ll see what happens,” Carroll said.

The Seahawks have four defensive tackles among 52 players on the roster after cutting Woods and Shelby Harris and letting Poona Ford’s contract expire from last season’s team that made the NFC playoffs despite often awful run defense. Two of those four tackles, March free-agent signings Dre’Mont Jones and Jarran Reed, did not play for the team last season. And Jones’ best years, with Denver, have been outside at end.

A third D-tackle, Bryan Mone, had surgery to repair the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee after his season-ending injury in December.

Drafting Young isn’t enough to have as many defensive tackles as Carroll wants and Seattle needs in its overhaul of the 3-4 defense. To that end, the Seahawks reportedly are signing defensive tackle Ifeanyi Maijeh from Rutgers to a contract as an undrafted rookie free agent.

So, yeah, the Seahawks could use Woods, at their price, though, not his.

Same with Ford. He became a popular mainstay for five seasons after signing with Seattle as an undrafted free agent nose tackle in 2018.

“Same thing,” general manager John Schneider said Saturday, seated next to Carroll.

“Love ‘Poo,’ too. He’s one are our guys, so we’d love to see those guys come back,” Carroll said.

(Saturday) to hit the nose tackle with Cam is a really big deal. We really needed a spot right there,” Carroll said.

“We’re not done. We got work to do and we’ll continue to work at it. We never stop. We got our eyes on some guys. We’re talking to some people to continue to make it as competitive as possible.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2023 at 6:47 PM with the headline "Carroll: Seahawks want Al Woods, Poona Ford back. It’s going to have to be at their price."

Gregg Bell

The News Tribune

Gregg Bell is the Seahawks and NFL writer for The News Tribune. He is a two-time Washington state sportswriter of the year, voted by the National Sports Media Association in January 2023 and January 2019. He started covering the NFL in 2002 as the Oakland Raiders beat writer for The Sacramento Bee. The Ohio native began covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season of 2005. In a prior life he graduated from West Point and served as a tactical intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, so he may ask you to drop and give him 10. Support my work with a digital subscription