AUGUST 18: Witherspoon will collect a fully guaranteed $59.26MM over the next two years, as noted by Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. That cashflow comfortably tops the cornerback market. A $26MM signing bonus is included in the deal along with an option bonus (worth $24MM) in 2027, per Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio.
The injury guarantees present in the pact will not vest one year early, as is common in many other monster extensions. Instead, Witherspoon’s salary, roster and workout bonuses for 2028 and ’29 will lock in on the fifth day of the waiver period in both of those years. The final two seasons of the pact contain nonguaranteed base salaries.
AUGUST 15: The Seahawks made Jaxon Smith-Njigba the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL in March, and now, they have agreed to a new contract with Devon Witherspoon that will top the cornerback market.
The two sides have agreed to a four-year, $132MM extension, ending a “heated” final round of negotiations, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The deal includes more than $101MM in guaranteed money, also a record for an NFL cornerback.
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Witherspoon, 25, has certainly earned that status. The No. 5 pick in the 2023 draft earned three straight Pro Bowls to start his NFL career with a second-team All-Pro and Super Bowl victory to cap off his 2025 season. Once the Seahawks paid fellow 2023 first-rounder Smith-Njigba, an extension for Witherspoon simply became a matter of time.
But Witherspoon held firm through the spring and much of the summer, holding out not just for the biggest cornerback contract in league history, but a true top-of-the-market deal. His $33MM AAV is not just $2MM more than the deals signed by Trent McDuffie and Denzel Ward earlier this year. It is also worth 10.95% of the 2026 salary cap, eclipsing the extensions signed by 2022 first-rounders Derek Stingley Jr. and Sauce Gardner last year.
Witherspoon’s contract also represents a remarkable 37.5% increase at the top of the cornerback market in the last two years. For comparison, the highest wide receiver AAV has increased by just 20.4% in the same period. Next to benefit from this jump will be Christian Gonzalez, who is being represented by the same agency as Witherspoon amid his negotiations with the Patriots.
The No. 17 overall pick in 2023, Gonzalez has been connected to seeking a deal that tops Witherspoon’s by “a lot.” That report emerged before Witherspoon’s numbers came out. The Patriots, who saw the Seahawks move first here after the NFC West team had taken the early lead on the CB negotiation front, will undoubtedly see this Seattle contract directly influence their Gonzalez talks.
Gonzalez, 24, is also seen as an ascending talent and one of the league’s best cornerbacks, but he has just one Pro Bowl and one first-team All-Pro nod to his name. Gonzalez’s coverage statistics, though, have been just as good, if not better, than Witherspoon’s. Gonzalez now has a firm standing to demand the same per-year salary, if not a small, symbolic bump to place him atop the market as Gardner received last year after Stingley’s deal.
The Seahawks now have Smith-Njigba and Witherspoon locked down through 2031. The team also signed left tackle Charles Cross, right tackle Abraham Lucas, and edge rusher Derick Hall to extensions in the last year, solidifying the long-term core that carried them to their Super Bowl victory in February.
Defensive tackles Byron Murphy and Leonard Williams could be up next. The former, the No. 16 overall pick in 2024, will be extension-eligible in January, while Williams is set to hit free agency and could be signed sooner. And then there’s Sam Darnold, who will be a free agent in 2028 and has already played himself into a raise over the $33.5MM AAV deal he signed last offseason.
Seattle made great use of the 2022 Russell Wilson trade, adding Cross (No. 9, 2022), Boye Mafe (No. 40, 2022), Witherspoon and Hall (No. 37, 2023) with the first- and second-round picks obtained in that blockbuster Broncos swap. That trade changed the franchise’s trajectory (and its balance sheet).
An Illinois product, Witherspoon landed on the top tier for 2023 fifth-year options due to his three original-ballot Pro Bowl nods (only two are necessary to push a player onto the top rung of the option ladder). Smith-Njigba, a one-time original-ballot Pro Bowler, checked in on tier two. This played into Witherspoon’s hands, though with the earnings gap between wide receivers and corners still substantial, Smith-Njigba is the highest-paid non-QB in Seahawks history by a wide margin.
With Witherspoon logging more slot snaps (1,189) than on the perimeter (1,104), according to Pro Football Focus, other players who rove between these duties will be set to benefit in future contract talks. The NFL has placed a low cap on slot-only corners, with Kyler Gordon‘s $13.33MM-per-year Bears deal still topping that market, but this is the latest accord to display the difference between that niche skillset and a player viewed as a versatile difference-maker at the position.
GM John Schneider has done extraordinarily well to build a new core after dealing Wilson, with the 2022 and ’23 draft classes playing essential roles in Seattle’s dominant 2025 season. The team has engaged in talks with Williams, and based on the above-referenced agreements for Cross, Lucas, Smith-Njigba and Hall, Murphy appears likely to be prioritized when he becomes eligible for a second contract next year.
