Seahawks’ situation may clear up after Tuesday’s deadline for compensatory picks

Tuesday marks a subtle NFL deadline that could mean we begin to see a little more movement in signing veteran free agents while also clarifying a bit what the Seattle Seahawks can expect to have in the 2018 draft.

Specifically, any free agents signed from Tuesday forward will not factor into the formula for doling out compensatory picks.

Until Tuesday, any unrestricted free agent – players whose contracts expired when the new league year began on March 9 but not those who had been waived or released – could factor into the comp pick formula. Via that system, the NFL awards a combined 32 compensatory draft picks every year to teams that suffered a net loss of free agents.

Recall that the Seahawks got two extra third-rounders in the 2017 draft for free-agent losses of the year before (Bruce Irvin, Brandon Mebane, Russell Okung, for example).

Seattle, though, won’t get any comp picks in 2018 having lost only Stephen Hauschka and Bradley Sowell of qualifying UFAs while signing four – OL Luke Joeckel, RB Eddie Lacy, S Bradley McDougald and LB Michael Wilhoite.

So that means the Seahawks have seven picks for the 2018 draft – their own in each round other than swapping picks with the Raiders via the Marshawn Lynch deal to get Oakland’s fifth and giving the Raiders a sixth.

Potentially more meaningful for Seattle is that the remaining free-agent market could accelerate a little more now that teams won’t be worried about the impact a signing could make on the comp pick formula.

Some remaining players have possibly been waiting to get past this date to see if offers will get better, with teams waiting to get past this date to maybe get involved more.

The Seahawks are at the maximum 90 players, though, after the signing Monday of defensive end David Bass and the acquisition via waivers of running back Mike Davis.

And that number does not include the team’s expected eight to 10 or so undrafted free agents who will sign at some point before the start of rookie minicamp Friday. Seattle already has to do some shearing of its roster just to fit in the UDFAs, so it’s hardly about to go crazy signing outside free agents.

But general manager John Schneider also said in an interview on KJR-AM 950 last week that the team could explore outside options to compete at cornerback.

“Could be someone not on the team, sure,’’ he said when asked who will start at the right cornerback spot opposite Richard Sherman.

As might be expected, though, the list of remaining cornerbacks isn’t incredibly enticing. Among those are Shareece Wright (who played for Seahawks coach Pete Carroll at USC), Jason McCourty and Alterraun Verner.

Darrelle Revis is also available, but his contract situation – he gets $6 million this year for not playing so any team would presumably have to offer him more than that to make it worth it for him – would seem to rule him out.

The most intrigue could revolve around quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who remains controversially unsigned with many reasons bandied about as to why. It’s unclear what Kaepernick is asking for, but probably enough that it would have likely have factored into the comp pick formula, and that might have been a deterrent for a team that would view him as a backup quarterback.

Anything much above the minimum, though, may be too spendy for the Seahawks for any backup QB. Seattle at the moment seems content to again go into the season paying the minimum for that role – either to second-year vets Trevone Boykin and/or Jake Heaps (who is considered to have two accrued seasons for contract purposes) or rookie undrafted free agent Skyler Howard, who is expected to be among those announced as having signed later this week.