Schneider talks Lynch, Graham, Kam, O-line

John Schneider (via Fresh Files)As his turn in the spotlight begins, Seattle GM John Schneider made the radio rounds Friday and talked about the personnel issues facing him and the team this offseason.

In his interviews with 710 ESPN and KJR, Schneider basically confirmed everything we thought: Marshawn Lynch is leaning toward retirement, Jimmy Graham will be back and the offensive line is an obvious priority.

Schneider also declined to address Kam Chancellor’s situation, telling 710 ESPN, “We’re going to take care of immediate issues.”

Asked about redoing deals, as Chancellor and Michael Bennett have proposed, the GM told 710 ESPN, “It’s all on an individual basis. We’re going to do whatever we can to keep this puzzle together, but we can’t get out of whack either.”

The Seahawks have 24 free agents — including 17 unrestricted — and Schneider knows they won’t be able to keep all of them.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us, but we’re real excited about it,” he told 710 ESPN. “We’re going to give it a great run and try to keep them.”

Of losing players, he said, “I’ll take that body blow when it comes, but we’re going to be swinging like crazy the whole way through the process.”

As for the offensive line, Schneider told KJR he would be lying if he didn’t admit it was a priority. But he also told both stations that the Seahawks are not going “go crazy” — i.e., overdraft or overspend — to fix it.

“Obviously we know what our deficiencies are, and we’re going to try to compensate for (them) as we go,” he told 710 ESPN. “But we’re not going to panic.”

Schneider shares the same opinion of the franchise as most of us: The future is bright.

He agreed that the team underachieved in 2015: “I feel like we should still be playing. … Our expectations are very high.”

Schneider felt like the team “had come together enough” to be the first team to reach three straight Super Bowls in the salary cap era.

The silver lining, as Schneider pointed out, is the early out from the playoffs offers a chance for the team to “reset” after a four-year run that had seen the Seahawks play more games than any team in the NFL.

He reminded everyone that the core players on the team have been signed to extensions over the last couple of years, and he repeated what Pete Carroll said: The club has young players people have not seen yet.

“We’re a darn good football team,” he told 710, “… and we’re excited for the challenge of keeping them together.”

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