Seattle Made the Right Call Cutting Akers, But This Roster Still Reeks of Desperation

Let me be direct about what just happened in Seattle. The Seahawks released Cam Akers, and everyone wants to act like this is some shocking indictment of the running back or some brilliant strategic move by the front office. It's neither. It's actually the most logical thing Seattle has done in months, and that's not saying much because the entire organization still looks like it's trying to build a playoff team with leftover parts from a yard sale.

Here's the reality that everyone keeps dancing around. Cam Akers was never going to be your answer in Seattle. He was signed as a depth piece, a veteran presence in a backfield that looked like it was auditioning for a high school JV team. The guy rushed for nearly 1,500 yards as recently as 2021 with the Los Angeles Rams. He was part of a Super Bowl winning team. But that was then, and this is now, and the running back we've seen over the last couple of years is not the same player. Father Time is undefeated in the National Football League, and Akers has been getting pushed back by it consistently since that magical 2021 season.

When you drafted Jadarian Price with the thirty-second overall pick, you made a statement. You said we believe in youth, we believe in athleticism, and we believe this young man can be part of our future in a way that Cam Akers simply cannot. That's the correct read of the situation. Price comes into the league with legitimate juice, with the kind of explosive potential that can change the way a backfield operates. He's not Akers, and he doesn't need to be. He just needs to be better than whatever Seattle was going to get from a thirty-year-old running back who has been trying to rediscover something he lost years ago.

Now here's where I'm going to separate myself from everyone wringing their hands about the Seahawks' running back situation. This wasn't a bold move. This wasn't some masterstroke of salary cap management or roster construction. This was basic logic. You cannot carry four legitimate running backs on your active roster in 2024. You have Kenneth Walker III, who is your guy, the future of the position in your system. You have your draft pick in Price. You have Tony Jones Jr. hanging around, and you've got other depth options in the pipeline. There literally isn't room for Akers, and Seattle finally acknowledged what should have been obvious from the moment they brought him in. They were shopping for a Band-Aid, and when the actual cure showed up in the draft, the Band-Aid had to go.

But let's talk about what this really tells us about the Seahawks organization, because that's where the real story lives. This team drafted a running back thirty-second overall. Do you understand what that means? That means they looked at every position group, every possible need, every potential trade up that they could have made, and they decided that running back, in 2024, when you've already got Kenneth Walker III on the roster, was their highest priority. That's not confidence in your quarterback. That's not belief in your wide receiver room. That's not saying we trust our defensive back situation. That's desperation masquerading as planning.

Geno Smith is going into his second season with this team. The offensive line is held together with prayers and duct tape. The wide receiver group has some potential but lacks a legitimate number-one presence. The secondary is soft in the middle. The linebacker position needs serious work. And the Seahawks went into the draft and said you know what we absolutely must have? A running back. A running back! In 2024!

Here's the uncomfortable truth that Seattle refuses to acknowledge. You cannot win in the modern National Football League by running the football significantly more than you throw it. It's not possible. The teams winning Super Bowls are doing it with elite quarterback play and modern passing offenses. The Seahawks made their bed with Geno Smith by trading away Russell Wilson, and now they're trying to convince themselves that they can win by committee with a vanilla offensive system and a backfield of young running backs that none of us are sure can actually carry the load at this level.

Kenneth Walker III is a fine player. He's not a world beater, but he's fine. He's the kind of running back who can get you three to four yards a carry and punch it in from short distance. That's valuable. That's what you need in a complement role. But the Seahawks are structuring their entire offense like he's Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith, and he's not. He's Kenneth Walker III, and that's okay, but you can't build your primary offensive philosophy around a complement player.

Releasing Akers doesn't change any of that. It doesn't fix the quarterback situation. It doesn't elevate the wide receiver room. It doesn't make the offensive line suddenly competent. It doesn't turn this Seahawks team from a 9-win playoff bubble team into something resembling an actual contender. It just clears out a roster spot and admits that mistake was made when they signed him in the first place. It's triage, not healing.

The consensus in Seattle is that this is smart roster management, that they're making tough decisions, that they're being proactive. The consensus is wrong. The consensus doesn't want to look in the mirror and acknowledge that this organization is still not built to compete with the real heavyweights in the NFC. The consensus would rather celebrate the small things, the incremental improvements, the marginal decisions that feel like progress. Releasing a thirty-year-old backup running back is not progress. It's acknowledging that a previous decision was a waste of time and resources, and then moving on to the next mistake.

I'm not saying the Seahawks are terrible. I'm saying they're mediocre, and they're trying to convince everyone that mediocrity is actually excellence in roster construction. They're hoping that Jadarian Price becomes something special so they can look back at this draft and feel smart. But what if he doesn't? What if he becomes just another running back in a league that increasingly doesn't care how great your running back is? Then Seattle made a massive mistake passing on offensive line help or a genuine offensive weapon.

VERDICT: The Seahawks made the correct decision cutting Cam Akers. It was obvious, it was necessary, and it was overdue. But that correctness should not be mistaken for competence. This is a franchise looking for lightning in a bottle because they're afraid to do the hard work of building a real contender. Price better work out, because if he doesn't, this pick becomes a symbol of everything wrong with Seattle's approach to roster construction. The Akers cut is right. Everything around it screams wrong.