While Earl Thomas may not be happy to be back with the Seahawks without the new contract he had been seeking through a hold out, his teammates and coaches were very happy to have Thomas back in the building on Wednesday.
“Ecstatic,” wide receiver Doug Baldwin said of seeing Thomas was back. “When I saw him sitting down in the meeting room, I couldn’t help but (to) just go and give him a big hug. That’s my boy, I love him to death. ... It’s really hard to come by guys who think out of this stratosphere as Bobby would like to call it. So, it was really exciting to have him back. Can’t wait to spend more time with him.”
Thomas skipped all of Seattle’s offseason work and the entire preseason in trying to leverage a new contract - or a trade - from Seattle. He is set to enter the final year of his contract which is set to pay him $8.5 million in base salary this season.
“He’s one of the best players that plays the game,” head coach Pete Carroll said. “He’s been a marvelous part of our program for a long time. That’s why we never waived in the thought that he wasn’t going to be with us and it was just a matter of time to try to make sense or do what we could do and fortunately we’re back at it and we’d like him to be a Seahawk for the rest of his career. That’s how we’ve always thought about it, so the rest of it will take care of it when the time is right.”
If his hold out had continued, Thomas would have forfeited $500,000 for each week missed. Instead, Thomas reported to the team in time to get ready for the team’s Week One matchup with the Denver Broncos.
“It was pretty cool to see him walk into the meeting room,” linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “We need a guy like that back. I know he’s probably going through a lot. I feel like it was just important for us to embrace him and let him know that he was in our hearts even though he wasn’t here and just welcome him back.”
Added defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr: “Oh my goodness, really good to see Earl back. I became a better coach today. Really good to see him. You know how much he’s been a part of this program and how awesome he’s been since the day one he arrived here. He’s part of this family. It’s like having a family member back that hadn’t been around so everybody was really happy to see him.”
Wagner doesn’t doubt that Thomas can get up to speed pretty quickly. He had played in the same defense since joining Seattle as a first-round pick in 2010.
“I feel that he can get out there and see the looks that he needs and get back,” Wagner said. “I think I’d be very confident coming back and I think he should too.”