Seahawks release Clint Gresham, their long snapper on kicks for six seasons

After a week of re-signing veterans and signing free agents, the Seahawks let go of one of their own.

The league’s official transactions from Wednesday showed Seattle released Clint Gresham, its long snapper since 2010. He was one season into a three-year, $2.7 million contract.

The move saves the team $660,000 against its salary cap for 2016. That isn’t much, but the fact the Seahawks did it hints at how up against the cap they are. Seattle was in the bottom third of the league in cap space before the NFL’s free-agent market opened last week. Then the team re-signed cornerback Jeremy Lane (to a $21 million deal), wide receiver Jermaine Kearse ($13.5 million), defensive tackle Ahtyba Rubin ($12 million), punter Jon Ryan ($10 million) and signed free-agent offensive lineman J’Marcus Webb ($6.25 million), guard Bradley Sowell ($1.5 million) and defensive tackle Sealver Siliga ($1.4 million)

One of Gresham’s last plays as a Seahawk was the snap he skipped back to Jon Ryan early in the wild-card playoff at Minnesota in January. That forced the punter to take off on a fateful run that ended with Ryan breaking his nose on a leap and fall into the frozen turf.

As for life after Gresham ... in January the Seahawks signed long snapper Andrew East to a futures contract for the upcoming preseason. East played at Vanderbilt then was an undrafted free agent Kansas City signed last spring. He lasted into the preseason in August with the Chiefs before his release.

East, incidentally, is engaged to gold-medal gymnast Shawn Johnson. The Chicago Cubs and all of Wrigley Field saw that happen last summer.

This story was originally published March 17, 2016 at 10:26 AM with the headline "Seahawks release Clint Gresham, their long snapper on kicks for six seasons."