Besides wet Junes, parched Augusts, Seafair, and every major road and freeway under repair, one of the great traditions of summer in Seattle is a major Seahawks player holding out of practice, seeking more dollars.
Hall of Famer Walter Jones was so consistently excellent at malingering, he was nearly nicknamed for an unlimited hydroplane: Slo-Mo-Shun.
This year’s ritual is shaping up to have SS Jamal Adams as the drama king. He’s in the final year year of his deal the Seahawks inherited from the Jets, is 25 and has the Seahawks over a barrel the size of Babe The Blue Ox.
This week anyway, the Seahawks aren’t playing along with the tradition.
Adams isn’t at the three-day mini-camp this week that is supposedly mandatory. But he has a hall pass that says “excused” to deal with an undisclosed family matter.
That’s no fun for him, nor for those of us steeped in tradition.
And the excuse has backup.
Because Adams underwent three surgeries — two fingers and a shoulder, injuries the Rams knew all about when they ousted the Seahawks from the playoffs in January — coach Pete Carroll said Tuesday that even if Adams had showed up, he wouldn’t have been a full participant.
“We would be very careful with (the recovery) at this time, so he he wouldn’t be involved,” he said. “He’d be in the walk-through kind of stuff, but he couldn’t get the the full-speed work yet.”
So we can’t call it a holdout. Not until the first day of training camp July 31. Too bad.
I miss the days when Marshawn Lynch, a master of the ju-jitsu of negotiation and a sometime-holdout of practice, would do things like showing up one day wearing jersey No. 31, which belonged to FS Kam Chancellor, who was holding out and needed some support against management.
Besides being a blunt-force player, Lynch was also sublime at passive-aggressive protest.
Instead, we had a spontaneous moment Tuesday when Russell Wilson, subject of a months-long controversy he instigated over his future with the Seahawks, intruded on Carroll’s Zoom call with media. Reaching his right arm around Carroll’s shoulders for a hug while mugging into the camera, he smiled and said: “We’re still friends!”
Carroll laughed his way out of the embrace.
Way too much tra-la for my taste.
Still friends ✌️ pic.twitter.com/ayFmDCs3HF
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) June 15, 2021
Carroll sounded as if were expecting a similar giggly outcome with the Adams negotiations.
“It’s been amicable throughout,” he said. “It’s a big contract process. He knows he’s been treated with a lot of respect and he’s been very respectful towards the club as well. It just hasn’t been able to get settled at this point. But it’s coming. We expect him for camp.”
Adams is owed a guaranteed $9.8 million this year, but he’s expecting to be extended with a new deal that reflects his status as one of the NFL’s premier defenders, a point he underscored last season by setting an NFL record, 9.5, for sacks by a defensive back.
The NFL’s highest paid safety is Denver’s Justin Simmons ($15.25 million), but Adams likely thinks his penchant for sacks puts him him in an elevated category of around $18 million-plus.
Since the Seahawks are currently $8.3 million below the salary cap, Adams will have to take a cut for 2021 but reap the benefits down the road, conditions he’s is not guaranteed to accept.
“I don’t know that,” Carroll said of his seeming certainty about Adams’ presence for the start of training camp. “But I know that we’re counting on him being back. It can happen and he wants to be at camp too. We’re gonna do everything to make that happen.
“The intricacy of your fingers . . . that’s that’s something we got to make sure that he gets right. There’s a lot going on there. But his shoulder should be in great shape. I’m not concerned at all that he won’t be ready.”
Also Tuesday, another Seahawks star, LT Duane Brown, cleared his contractual throat.
The Seahawks’ best offensive lineman since he pulled on the jersey for the last half of 2017, Brown, a bit surprisingly, was reported by the NFL Network to want an extension, now that he’s in the final year of a $32.5 million, three-year deal, in which he’s owed $10 million.
He turns 36 in August. A popular assumption was that he will have had enough after 14 seasons. Apparently not, in light of his quality play. Pro Football Focus had him 11th in its rankings of the top 32 offensive linemen entering 2021.
Carroll was certainly open to the idea.
“He’s a remarkable player, a remarkable athlete and takes great care of himself,” he said. “It has given him an extended career beyond where most guys can make it. We love him. He’s big part of what we’re doing, and we’re counting on him being with us.
“He’s been a great part of our program. His leadership, his toughness, what he stands for as a man . . . he’s just a remarkable guy. We would love for him to be with us if he wants to keep playing.”
A re-done deal that reduces his current salary would be a help in signing Adams. But the hope is that he or Adams kick up a fuss this summer. We need simmering tension, awkward pauses, fans complaining about greedy athletes and inept front-office maneuvers.
If we have no traditions, who are we?
24 Comments
Yes! Love simmering tension. ‘Intricate’. A new one from Pete. I’ve never thought of fingers that way. Negotiations? Yes. John Schneider’s intricate fingers, scrabbling down at the bottom of the salary cap cookie jar, will be challenged by finding only $8 mill. Simmering tension.
Proud to have inspired your literary curiosity.
Extend them both with big signing bonuses and more money kicked down the road. Could free up enough cap space this year to grab Gilmore from the Pats. The definition of ‘all-in’ for 2021 might be broader than we thought.
Signed: MM Jr.
“All in” is the coin of the NFL realm. Might have something to do with life lessons from the pandemic. Glad you’re in, Mitch.
Pete is a young 71, but still 71. Push the chips in.
He’s 69 and will be 70 in September.
Thanks for helping WCB79 throttle back. Pete appreciates you.
As someone Pete’s age, I don’t want to be a day older than I am.
The worst thing about Thiel’s comments…
(re: “…But the hope is that he or Adams kick up a fuss this summer. We need simmering tension, awkward pauses, fans complaining about greedy athletes and inept front-office maneuvers.
If we have no traditions, who are we?”
…is that this seems to be the go-to, “default mode” of most all Seattle sports reporters “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” playbook, and after a decade of more victories than we had in the entire first 3+ decades of the team’s existence,…that is just sad.
Go ‘Hawks!
I believe Art is employing a form of humor that is commonly referred to as satire.
If so, his “satire” seems all too “hammer meeting nail head” dead-on depiction of reality within his profession, at the least, within the PNW.
All readers of your post have sighed a collective WTF.
Dunno whose reality you’ve been adrift in. Advise that you get to shore.
I was worried for a moment that I had been obtuse.
You don’t want to see me in a cheerleader’s outfit.
I look at Adams as the Seahawks’ #1 draft pick in 2021 and 2022 and ready to sign his contract.
That’s what he is. I also think he wants to break the bank. He’ll never be in this spot again.
When in doubt about player’s worth, go to the Patriots salary site. No one negotiates players salaries better the BB and he pays only 3 more than $10mm, no one more than $11mm+. JS may need to work at the knee of BB and learn how he pulls it off, and what’s remarkable is it’s every year!
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-england-patriots/cap/
There’s something there, but a lot of the sustained success is based on adapting his game strategies to the talent on hand, which is more about coaching than salary cap management. BB does better with what he has than any NFL coach.
Slo-Mo-Shun is not to be confused with No-Mo (short for No-Mo-Shun), Stan Boreson’s dog, a sleepy basset hound that rarely moved.
I get the reference. Bet no one else does.
Personally, I think too much is made of Jamal’s sacks. How many times did they have to send him to get those sacks? What is his success percentage on the blitz? How does it compare to other safeties? What is the sack success percentage of the defense as a whole when they send Jamal? How does that compare with other teams?
DB blitzes are gambles in that they expose the secondary by reducing the numbers of players in coverage. Great payoff if they work. Much less great payoff if nobody gets home in time.
Fair point. Obviously, the DC compensates coverage for a DB blitz, but it is higher risk. I don’t have the comparatives, but the OC and QB also have to account to avoid a free-running SS.
As it stands in June, the Seahawks have one CB, Reed, that they mostly know and trust in all circumstances. That is a vulnerability, because Adams is sometimes not in coverage. My guess is with Dunlap, Hyder and Taylor, all healthy and fully engaged, they will be expected to deliver more pressure, and rely less on the Adams rush.