SEATTLE – The Seahawks career of linebacker/edge rusher Darrell Taylor has ended as the team traded him to the Chicago Bears for a 2025 sixth-round pick Friday morning, the team announced.
The Seahawks filled the open spot on the roster by re-signing cornerback Willie Roberts, who was waived earlier this week. Roberts adds depth heading into the final preseason game Saturday against Cleveland at 7 p.m.
The move saves $3.116 million against the salary cap, the amount Taylor was due to make on his 2024 salary.
Taylor’s salary was not guaranteed, and there had been conjecture he might have to take a pay cut to stay with the team.
Instead, his trade answers that question and pares that money off the cap immediately.
The Seahawks entered the day with just over $8.4 million in cap space, according to OvertheCap.com.
Taylor was a second-round pick out of Tennessee in the 2020 draft by the Seahawks, taken with high hopes that he could have a Cliff Avril-like impact on the pass rush.
Taylor missed his rookie season in 2020 because of a pre-existing leg injury.
Finally healthy in 2021, he began to show some signs of the potential that compelled the Seahawks to take him by making 6.5 sacks.
He built on that in 2023 with 9.5 sacks in 16 games, tying Uchenna Nwosu with the most on the team.
Taylor struggled to maintain that consistency in 2023 when he had just 5.5 sacks and had some notable issues in run defense. He had a 45.2 run-defense grade last season from Pro Football Focus as part of a career-worst 50.9 grade overall.
That run defense caught up to him as the season wore on as he saw his playing time reduced – after playing 44% or more of snaps in eight of the first nine games he played 38% or less in six of the next seven.
Taylor was set to become a restricted rights free agent in 2024. He reached an agreement with the team before he hit free agency on a one-year deal that included a $20,000 signing bonus and the nonguaranteed $3.116 salary.
Taylor’s cap hit would have been the 21st highest on the Seahawks this season, which would have been a lot for a player who was projecting to be a situational and rotational pass-rusher, likely to be used mostly on passing downs.
Taylor was listed third at rush end behind Dre-Mont Jones and Boye Mafe. Nwosu and Derick Hall are listed as the starters at strongside linebacker, the team’s other primary rush end position.
Jones played mostly inside last season before the injury to Nwosu and the addition of Leonard Williams compelled the team to use him more as a rusher.
Jones was officially moved to rusher this offseason, with the team adding the Rush End designation on its depth chart as part of new coach Mike Macdonald’s defensive scheme.
Jones is listed at 285 pounds but said early in camp he had dropped some weight (he didn’t say how much) in anticipation of playing more this season as an edge rusher.
“I dropped a lot,” Jones said in July. “I definitely dropped, for sure.”
Shortly after he said that, Jones suffered a hamstring injury that has lingered and he did not play in the team’s mock game or in the joint practices in Tennessee or the two preseason games.
The trade of Taylor indicates the team expects Jones to be ready for the start of the regular season Sept. 8.
Hall has also been a preseason standout, possibly making the Seahawks feel more comfortable in trading Taylor. Hall, a second-round pick last season out of Auburn, has sacks in each of the first two preseason games.
Nwosu has shown he is healthy after missing the final 11 games of last season with a pec injury, while Mafe – a second-round pick in 2022 – is coming off a breakout season a year ago when he had 9.5 sacks.
The Seahawks could be content to go with those four as the primary edge rushers. But they could also be in the market for another pass rusher and would seem likely to scour waiver wires as players are released over the next week.
They also have undrafted rookie free agent Nelson Ceaser and rookie Jamie Sheriff at the rush end spot. Sheriff has stood out some with a sack and two tackles in 52 snaps in two preseason games.
It was the second trade the Seahawks have made in two days, dealing cornerback Michael Jackson to Carolina on Thursday for linebacker Michael Barrett.
The trade means that the Seahawks have no players left on their roster from their eight-man draft class in 2020.
Taylor, who was the 48th overall pick in a draft that occurred just weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, was the Seahawks’ second selection in that draft following linebacker Jordyn Brooks in the first round.
Brooks, the 27th overall pick, signed as a free agent in March with Miami.
Three other players in that class also all played for the Seahawks last year – guard Damien Lewis (69th pick), tight end Colby Parkinson (133) and running back DeeJay Dallas (144) – but all signed with other teams in the spring. Lewis signed with Carolina, Parkinson with the Rams and Dallas with Arizona.
Their other three picks in that draft were defensive end Alton Robinson (148, not on a roster), receiver Freddie Swain (214, not on a roster after being released by the Bears Friday) and tight end/defensive end Stephen Sullivan (not on a roster).
The trade of Taylor comes on the eve of Seattle’s final preseason game at Lumen Field.
All NFL teams will then begin making hard decisions to pare their rosters to 53 by Tuesday’s 1 p.m. deadline.