The traditional awkward dance between the Seahawks and a star player seeking a third contract is underway again. This time, LB Bobby Wagner seems be going out of his way not to step on toes.

After the unpleasantness with Earl Thomas a year ago, and Richard Sherman before that, and Kam Chancellor before that, Wagner decided to show up for practice. But not actually practice, until a deal for an extension is struck.

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Mid-May is a poor time for forecasting an outcome for the pending NFL season. Then again, so is mid-December. The chance for looking foolish, however, at least is reduced.

The notion of looking foolish came up in the NFL Wednesday because the New York Jets fired their general manager after Mike Maccagnan chose a new coach, spent $120 million in the free agent market and chose the players he wanted in the college draft.

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It would be harsh to say the Seahawks are becoming a home for high-promise, low-delivery young quarterbacks. But, well . . . Geno Smith.

A second-round pick (39th overall) of the New York Jets in 2013, Smith, 28, joins Paxton Lynch, 25, a first-round pick (26th overall) of the Denver Broncos in 2015, to compete for the understudy job behind QB Russell Wilson, who seems as hard to bring down as Marvel films villain Thanos.

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Two stalwarts of the Seahawks era at the NFL pinnacle officially became ex-Seahawks Thursday. WR Doug Baldwin, 30, and SS Kam Chancellor, 31, failed physical exams and were released. Chancellor's cut was a formality after not playing last season following a neck injury; Baldwin's multiple surgeries after his most injury-riddled season made him unable to return.

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An underappreciated feat of the Seahawks' 2018 season was twice putting up 31 points on a heralded Los Angeles Rams defense that subsequently held New England to 13 points in the Super Bowl. While Seattle lost both games -- 33-31 at the Clink and 36-31 at the Coliseum -- it wasn't the fault of a made-over offense that produced a combined 787 yards.

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In terms of substantive football developments, a three-day NFL rookie camp in May is a Hostess Twinkie. Fluff, empty calories, probably slightly toxic. Then you look over both shoulders to make sure no one is there, and wolf it down.

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The Seahawks weren't the only local football team that was made better over the weekend. The NFL draft also helped the Washington Huskies. Their loss of eight players to the pros -- only Alabama (10) and Ohio State (nine) contributed more -- was a net gain for the program. There's nothing more impressive to top-tier recruits than for a school to be known as a pipeline to Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick,  and . . . well, the Arizona Cardinals.

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From a standpoint of player profile and psychology, if ever there was a sublime collegiate fit for a specific pro football team, Ben Burr-Kirven and the Seattle Seahawks would seal like the back door of a Brinks armored truck.

Burr-Kirven was part-way inside the team already, before he was called in the fifth round of the NFL draft Saturday.

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Improving from four draft picks Monday, fewest in the NFL, to 11 Saturday, second-most, was a monumental lift for the Seahawks. It even blew away Pete Carroll.

"I was hoping we'd get to six or seven, but we leap-frogged it," he said Saturday afternoon after the third and final day of the NFL draft. "It really surpassed expectations I had for the week, to be like we are.

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D.K. Metcalf recalled meeting Pete Carroll at the NFL combine in Indianapolis.

"He was surprised at how big I was," he told a reporter. Indeed, Carroll was startled by the shirtless incredible hulk before him.

"Kinda pissed me off," Carroll said, smiling. "So I took my shirt off. Not for long, though."

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One after another, the big-deal pass rushers the Seahawks sought to replace the traded Frank Clark fell off the draft board. As the first round Thursday night moved toward the their turn at No. 21, tension grew at team headquarters in Renton.

"Body blows," said general manger John Schneider.

"It went the way it was supposed to go, and we didn't like that," said coach Pete Carroll.

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From the standpoint of grabbing the NFL's attention, the Seahawks have been on a roll lately.

First there was the drama attendant to making Russell Wilson the highest paid player in NFL history. Then there was his tweeted announcement of the deal's success from the pillow on his bed, wife all snuggly next to him, and three gold chains around his neck.

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Much remains to be played out, but Tuesday may be the day the Seahawks began proving wrong the skeptics who believed that Russell Wilson's mammoth contract extension wrote them off the list of serious Super Bowl contenders.

If the club's plan works, and you're a 12, don't forget to tip your bird helmet to Andy Reid.

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The first round is hardly everything. But it is the single biggest thing in the NFL draft. And it's one thing the Seahawks haven't done very well during the otherwise highly successful tenures of coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider.

The Seahawks are scheduled to pick 21st in the first round Thursday. Even the shyest snow leopard at the Woodland Park Zoo is aware that Seattle wants to trade down to acquire more picks, because at the moment they have four, fewest in the NFL and in club history. It's a result of borrowing against the future, a draft principle Schneider was loathe to violate, but did so anyway.

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The Seahawks had better be good, because late next season, they're in for a long-term national closeup. Four games in a row, wrapped around a Week 11 bye, will be in prime-time. Since the Seahawks have a league-best 26-5-1 in the big shows, the pressure figures to be manageable.

At least now they have the game's leading man, the handsomely compensated Russell Wilson.

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John Schneider was on the phone with owner Paul Allen in April 2012, just after the Seahawks in the third round of the NFL draft selected Russell Wilson, a highly successful but vertically challenged college quarterback.

"So you took the little guy, huh?" Schneider recalled Allen saying.

"‘Yeah, I did. I did, Paul. We did. We did. Uh, yeah."

Allen hung up. Schneider handed the phone to coach Pete Carroll.

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From the perspective of successful football business, here's the best thing about the Russell Wilson contract extension:  He's the main reason the Seahawks have a +269 point differential in the fourth quarter since 2012, best in the NFL.

Best thing about the deal from fans' perspective: They are spared from the specter of Wilson playing on what amounts to a series of three consecutive one-year contracts (this season plus two via franchise tags) that would have kept 12s in tinfoil hats, speculating conspiratorially whether Wilson's play choices or decisions to avoid contact were "business decisions" to save himself or to improve his personal stats at the expense of the team's best interests.

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Sweep your eyes across the Seattle spring sports landscape, and prepare to have them spinning spirals. Not long after the Washington Huskies won a game in the NCAA men's basketball tourney for the first time since the Great Permian Die-Off, the Mariners and Sounders started seasons nearly spotlessly, while the Seahawks in their off-season are running scared.

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Finally, we can officially engage in the the biggest Seattle sports story of 2019 -- the football future of Russell Wilson.

Perhaps you thought the biggest story was the Huskies making the NCAA men's basketball tournament for what seems like the first time since Marv Harshman had dark hair. Or what the KeyArena roof will do floating above Seattle Center in a windstorm. Or the Mariners becoming the most accidental good team in MLB history.

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The Seahawks' latest free-agent signings include a couple of relative old-schoolers who combined to play only 15 games last season. Brought back was LB K.J. Wright and brought in was LG Mike Iupati, both of whom had injuries sufficient to have their hires bear question marks.

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