Seahawks reportedly won't 'give up much' for Browns' Baker Mayfield

Whether or not those within the Seattle Seahawks are seriously interested in acquiring Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield this spring or summer remains largely unknown among a majority of outsiders. 

The facts remain that Mayfield is owed a fully guaranteed salary of $18.858 million for the 2022 season and is attached to an employer that traded for star signal-caller Deshaun Watson last month, while the Seahawks currently have unproven commodity Drew Lock atop their depth chart after they traded one-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos. 

Following a report that claimed Seattle "makes the most sense" as it pertains to Mayfield's future football home, the 2018 first overall draft pick said in the latest edition of the "YNK: you know what I mean?" podcast released Wednesday that the Seahawks are "the most likely option" for him. 

Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times isn't convinced a marriage between Mayfield and the Seahawks is inevitable. 

For starters, Condotta notes that the Seahawks currently have "$15.7 million remaining in cap space for the 2022 season," meaning the Browns likely would have to pay some of the 26-year-old's salary to ship him to Seattle ahead of the NFL Draft that opens on April 28. 

Additionally, Condotta wrote: 

"The Seahawks aren’t thought to want to give up much as they want to give Lock a legitimate shot at the starting job — meaning, they don’t want to invest so much in another QB that it basically makes him the starter ahead of Lock." 

It's been speculated for weeks teams such as the Seahawks, Pittsburgh Steelers and others are willing to wait past the draft and into the summer to essentially force Cleveland to either cut Mayfield or package him along with a valuable future draft asset in a trade just to get him off the books. 

"But the Browns might hope that maybe a QB-needy team would get more interested during the draft depending on how the draft itself unfolds," Condotta explained. 

For what it's worth, Seattle doesn't seem too "needy" at this point of the process.