The Seattle Seahawks have turned 2026 into a year to remember. After rolling through the playoffs and capturing Super Bowl LX in February, Seattle enters its title defense with much of its championship foundation still intact. The roster did take some offseason hits, most notably the departure of Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker to the Kansas City Chiefs, but the Seahawks remain positioned to chase back-to-back Lombardi Trophies.
Seattle is now making sure one of the biggest pieces of that core is not going anywhere.
The Seahawks have reached agreement with standout cornerback Devon Witherspoon on a four-year, $132 million contract extension that includes more than $101 million in guaranteed money. With an average annual value of $33 million, the deal makes Witherspoon the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history.
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Witherspoon had been set to earn about $5.1 million in 2026 before playing on a fully guaranteed fifth-year option worth roughly $21.2 million in 2027. Rather than wait, Seattle moved aggressively to secure him long term and reset a cornerback market that has climbed rapidly across the league.
The speed of Witherspoon’s rise makes the extension even more remarkable. Drafted fifth overall by Seattle in 2023, he has earned a Pro Bowl selection in each of his first three NFL seasons. That puts him in rare company as only the fifth player in Seahawks history to open his career with three straight Pro Bowl nods.
Witherspoon also played a central role in the defense that powered Seattle’s championship season. The Seahawks allowed the fewest points in the NFL during the 2025 regular season, and Witherspoon made his presence felt again in Super Bowl LX, recording a sack and later pressuring New England quarterback Drake Maye on a play that led to Uchenna Nwosu returning a turnover for a touchdown.
There’s also a satisfying bit of history behind the deal.
Seattle acquired the draft pick used to select Witherspoon as part of the blockbuster trade that sent Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos in 2022. At the time, moving a franchise quarterback who had won a Super Bowl and spent a decade in Seattle represented a massive gamble. Three years after using one of the resulting picks on Witherspoon, the Seahawks have turned that asset into a three-time Pro Bowler, Super Bowl champion, and now the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history.
And Witherspoon isn’t the only member of Seattle’s 2023 draft class to land a record-setting payday.
The Seahawks used their other first-round selection that year, the 20th overall pick, on wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Earlier this offseason, Smith-Njigba signed the largest contract for a receiver in NFL history, a four-year extension worth $168.6 million.
That means Seattle now employs both the highest-paid cornerback and highest-paid wide receiver in NFL history, and both players came from the Seahawks’ two first-round picks in the same 2023 draft.
Smith-Njigba’s extension averages roughly $42.15 million per season. Witherspoon’s new deal averages $33 million.
That’s an extremely expensive draft class. Three years later, with a Super Bowl trophy already in hand, it’s also difficult to argue with the results.
