With Duane Brown in Final Year of Contract, Is Former Chiefs OT Eric Fisher an Option For Seahawks?
Veteran offensive tackle Duane Brown is coming off yet another stellar season in his 13th year in the NFL. Staying relatively healthy enough to appear in all 17 games last year, the Virginia Tech alum earned an overall grade of 87.3 from Pro Football Focus for his efforts—the highest mark he's received since 2012 (88.2), and the second-best of his career.
But as he turns the page to the age of 36 this summer, heading into the final year on his current contract with the Seahawks, Brown may very well play his last down in 2021. Having dealt with a biceps injury for most of 2019, as well as a knee issue that required minor surgery, his clean bill of health in 2020 was nothing short of remarkable. If that doesn't continue into this fall, however, it's hard not to wonder how another significant injury - or pileup of minor ailments - could impact his desire to keep playing at this stage in his career.
While the Seahawks' primary focus is the upcoming season, the possibility of having to replace one of the game's best left tackles in a year's time is something that cannot be completely ignored. It's especially concerning when looking at next year's slate of free offensive tackles, which only has less than a handful of quality names to offer.
I've recently pondered a scenario in which Seattle uses one of its few draft picks in 2021 to take a young tackle and redshirt them for a year behind Brown and Brandon Shell. Now, fans of the team are debating another potential route to insure an answer at the position in 2022: former Chiefs offensive tackle Eric Fisher.
The former No. 1 selection in the 2013 NFL Draft has taken a while to put it all together on the field. While he hasn't lived up to his draft status to this day - to be fair, many members of that class haven't - he's coming off the best season of his career for which PFF gave him an 80.0 overall grade.
However, his great season met a disappointing end, and at no worse of a time. In the later stages of the Chiefs' victory over the Bills in the AFC championship game, Fisher suffered a torn Achilles. Consequently, Kansas City would enter Super Bowl LV without both of its starting tackles and quarterback Patrick Mahomes paid dearly in the blowout loss to the Buccaneers.
Suffering such an injury that late into the year has put Fisher's 2021 in doubt, though general manager Brett Veach indicated he may be ready to return by mid August. Nevertheless, the Chiefs wound up cutting him last month in order to save $12 million in cap space, but didn't shut the door on an eventual reunion until they landed two-time Pro Bowl left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. in a recent trade with the Ravens.
Given the non-zero chance he may be available come Week 1, and with the Chiefs now officially off the table, Fisher's market has boomed over the last few days. 'Multiple teams' are reportedly in discussions with him, but I wouldn't expect the Seahawks to be one of them.
While the idea is understandable, there are a multitude of reasons signing Fisher makes little sense for Seattle and vice-versa.
Namely, OverTheCap.com has the Seahawks at just $6.9 million in effective salary cap space at the moment. It would seem unwise to dump a portion of that on a veteran tackle to sit behind two established starters for the whole year. Plus, why would Fisher want to do that when he's expected to be able to play at some point this season?
The Seahawks still have a plethora of needs to address at cornerback, receiver, center, and SAM linebacker. Even if they were able to push the majority of the money on a potential Fisher deal to future years, much like they've done with some of their recent acquisitions, this could spell the end of their chances to re-sign K.J. Wright, reunite with Richard Sherman, or make any other substantial move to increase their chances of success in 2021.
And with all due respect to Fisher, this isn't the type of player you do that for. They're not missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here. While Fisher's improved, his career has been inconsistent at best and there's no guarantee he'd be worth the wait and hassle this would take.
There's also no guarantee this is Brown's final season. And as long as he's healthy, there should be very little debate about which tackle the Seahawks would prefer between him and Fisher. Assuming they don't draft someone at the position next week, then it'd be best just to wait and see how this all plays out next offseason.
Sure, Seattle could be left hung out to dry doing that, but there are too many variables at this point to comfortably make such a commitment to a player like Fisher.
For a fan base that has heavily criticized this team for making poor, reactionary business decisions in the past, it's surprising to see many clamoring for this to happen. This move would be head-scratching at best, and a completely awful use of limited resources at worst. There are much better ways for them to build out this roster in 2021 and prepare for life without Duane Brown.
