The franchise tag period runs today through March 1, and the Seahawks will skip it for the sixth straight year.
They have not used the tag since 2010 — the first year of the Pete Carroll/John Schneider regime — when they used it on Olindo Mare.
Schneider has stayed ahead of the curve, avoiding any need for the tag by getting early extensions done with potential franchise players Marshawn Lynch (2012), Kam Chancellor (2013), Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman (2014) and Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner (2015).
They gambled on Michael Bennett in 2014 and ended up re-signing him a day before free agency started — a week after the tag deadline.
The NFL year — i.e., free agency and the trading period — begins in four weeks, but the business of rebuilding teams already has begun as clubs re-sign and release players.
The best center in franchise history says the Seahawks need veteran linemen, and he should know: He was the pivot on the best line in team history — the 2001-05 group that also included All-Pros Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson and savvy vet Chris Gray, a quartet that started 65 games together during that stretch (Hutch missed 12 in 2002, and Jones sat out three in holdouts).
When Russell Okung suffered a dislocated shoulder in the playoff loss to Carolina, it seemed a sad but fitting end to his injury-filled Seahawks career.
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 