The Seattle Seahawks have been their usual frugal selves during free agency, but perhaps they were willing to splurge a bit on one notable edge defender.

Bryce Huff, formerly of the New York Jets, signed a three-year deal worth $51.1 million ($34 million guaranteed) to join the Philadelphia Eagles. His AAV puts him just outside the top-15 among edge rushers, and about $2 million more over Uchenna Nwosu.

According to Huff, Seattle was among the potential suitors looking to sign him.

“The Jets, of course. The Giants were on the table. Commanders were on the table. Vikings, Seahawks. It was a good bit of teams,” Huff replied when asked who was chasing him in free agency.

Undrafted out of Memphis, Huff had a breakout 2023 season with 10 sacks and 21 quarterback hits. He’d only recorded 7.5 sacks his previous three years, although it’s worth noting that in 2022 he had 3.5 sacks and 10 QB hits on just 191 snaps. His 2022 was good enough for the Jets to slap a second-round tender on him as a restricted free agent. What stands out is his pressure rate, which was 2nd in the NFL behind Micah Parsons last season, and 2nd behind Josh Uche of the New England Patriots in 2022.

Why has Huff not played a whole lot of snaps? Run defense. He’s graded consistently poorly in PFF’s charting, but even without it, he only had 16 run defense snaps in 2022, so they actively avoided putting him in run situations.

Given his age (25) and his last two seasons of pressure and/or sack productivity, I can understand why Huff commanded a big contract, but I think I’m cool with the Seahawks being out of the running in this situation.