Entering their first season without Pete Carroll leading the charge since 2009, there is plenty of intrigue surrounding the Seattle Seahawks and their new head coach, Mike Macdonald.
Before he was hired by the Seahawks, Macdonald was a member of the Baltimore Ravens coaching staff for eight of the last nine seasons, with his lone year away from the franchise happening back in 2021, when he spent the season as the defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan.
Typically, new NFL head coaches like to have players on their roster who they have worked with in the past, and for Macdonald, an opportunity to add a familiar face to Seattle's roster before the start of the 2024 season might have just been created.
On Tuesday, Bleacher Report's Jordan Schultz reported that veteran safety Tony Jefferson is looking to return to the league after retiring a year ago. Jefferson spent time with the Ravens, Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants, including the 2017 season in Baltimore when Macdonald was his defensive backs coach.
Jefferson turned 32 in January, so he's no spring chicken. But the experience he's had in the league and with Macdonald can still be valuable to a team like the Seahawks.
Considering Jefferson has only started one game since tearing his ACL in Week 5 of the 2019 season, he's likely going to have to be okay with being a backup if he wants to land a spot on an NFL roster for the 2024 campaign.
Luckily for the veteran defender, Seattle's safety group could use another member with some meaningful experience in the league, as six of the team's seven current safeties are 26-years-old or younger. If the Seahawks were to sign Jefferson, he could help with the development of some of the team's young defensive backs and also quickly step in as a starter if needed at some point in the 2024 season.
Since entering the league as an undrafted free agent out of Oklahoma in 2013, Jefferson has started a total of 67 games, including 35 starts when he and Macdonald were both with the Ravens from 2017-19.
In 2018, with Macdonald on staff, the veteran safety finished with 74 tackles (six for a loss), six pass breakups, one interception, one sack, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery. For his performance that season, Jefferson's defensive grade from PFF ranked 36th out of 99 qualifying safeties in the NFL.
Given his lack of starts during the last few years and his current age, there probably aren't going to be a ton of teams interested in signing him this offseason, so it's not like Seattle would have to get into any sort of bidding war to add him to their roster.
Still, signing Jefferson is something the team should consider, as it would be a low-risk move for Macdonald and the Seahawks, but it could be a decision that benefits the development of their defensive backfield for the 2024 season and beyond.
