By Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
The Seahawks are getting help they desperately need for their pass rush.
They are trading with Cincinnati to acquire two-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Carlos Dunlap, according to multiple reports Wednesday morning.
The price: reserve center B.J. Finney and a late-round draft choice, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
That choice is believed to be a seventh-round pick.
That, if true, is a heist for Seattle in trade compensation. Dunlap arriving and Finney leaving results in a net increase of $3.12 million in prorated salary over the final 10 weeks of this season onto the Seahawks’ salary cap.
Since becoming a starter with Cincinnati in 2013, Carlos Dunlap hasn’t had fewer than 7 1/2 sacks in a season.
The Seahawks’ sack co-leaders this season, Benson Mayowa and Jamal Adams, have two. Last year, it was Rasheem Green with four
Dunlap can’t help the Seahawks (5-1) immediately, as in, for Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers (4-3). He has to go through a six-day entry protocol for COVID-19 testing before being allowed into Seahawks headquarters and to practice.
His Seattle debut could come Nov. 8 at Buffalo.
The team might not announce the trade officially until next week after Dunlap completes the testing protocol.
Finney was owed a guaranteed $4.5 million in the contract the Seahawks signed him to in free agency from Pittsburgh this spring. His has a guaranteed $1.47 million remaining on his $2.5 million salary for 2020. The Seahawks eat a $2 million cap charge for him this year and $1 million in 2021, so it’s not as though their miss on him in free agency hasn’t cost them anything.
He was supposed to be Seattle’s new starting center this season. But he failed to grasp the offense quickly enough in training camp. Ethan Pocic won the job instead. Finney has played as many snaps with the Seahawks’ offense this season as you have.
But trading him and getting the veteran who is already the team’s best pass rusher is a win for Seattle.
Dunlap has $4.59 million left on his $7.8 million salary for this season, according to overthecap.com.
He is due $10.25 million in 2021, the final year of his contract. But next year is not guaranteed. The Seahawks could release him after this season without a salary-cap charge in 2021.
He is the Bengals’ career sack leader with 82-1/2 in his 11 seasons. He has been scheduled for salary-cap charges of $10.99 million this year and $13.5 million in 2021, the final year of his contract.
He apparently brings with him a sense of humor and duty. He took his parking-spot sign with him out of Cincinnati Wednesday.
The 31-year-old Dunlap has one sack this season. He’s been in a rift with the Bengals, who reduced him to more of a situational pass rusher on third downs this month. He had been a starter for them for seven consecutive seasons, and he didn’t take the demotion quietly. The Bengals told him to stay home from practice this week while they worked out trading him.
He had 46 sacks from 2015-19, including 13-1/2 in 2015. That was the first of his consecutive Pro Bowl seasons with the Bengals.
Seattle’s defense is last in the league in yards allowed and passing yards allowed. The Seahawks have surrendered more yards through six games than any team in NFL history. Their pass rush has just nine sacks — seven by defensive linemen — in six games.
They are on pace to have 24 sacks this season, four fewer than when they were next to last in the league in sacks last season.
The Seahawks entered last weekend’s game at Arizona having chosen to do what they had in wins against Miami and Minnesota: blitz far less than they had in the first three games, with Adams, and drop deeper into coverage to prevent big plays behind them.
But Kyler Murray, last year’s first-overall pick in the draft, was far more lethal attacking that soft, play-back defense than Ryan Fitzpatrick and Kirk Cousins were in Seattle’s two previous wins before Arizona.
The Seahawks not only failed to sack Murray, they didn’t register a hit on his in the quarterback’s 48 drops back to pass Sunday night.
That’s how much they need Dunlap. Or anybody who can at least make the QB uncomfortable.
“We have to keep working to put our players in the best positions to be aggressive … we need to help them more in our pressure,” coach Pete Carroll said. “We did not try to get after them much (in Arizona). That was not part of the plan going in. And when we needed it, we needed to adjust.”
This is only the second in-season trade by Cincinnati in 35 years. The Bengals sent Carson Palmer to Oakland during the 2011 season. They traded tight end Dan Ross in 1985 to … the Seahawks.
