The Seahawks have a couple of high-profile hold-ins. And there’s no end in sight for either one.
Neither tackle Duane Brown nor safety Jamal Adams are participating in practice as they try to get new contracts. On Sunday, coach Pete Carroll was asked about the lingering absence of the player for whom the Seahawks gave up a pair of first-round picks one year ago.
“It isn’t different,” Carroll said, ‘It’s unique in the dynamic of it — it’s a big deal. We have been through a lot. We’ve had a lot of really high quality individuals in the program. Guys that we’ve loved, we’ve worked with for a long time. We’ve watched them go through the process of it, and we do have a lot of information about that and we have a lot of experience there, so we try to utilize it and help our guys as they go through it. But for the players going through it, it’s usually their first time, and they have to go through and get a sense of how its going, how they’re feeling about it, and figure it out. We have a little more background than the players do so we just have to go through it — we’ve worked very hard to make this work out and we’ll see what happens.”
What will happen isn’t known. What has happened is that the Seahawks surrendered the leverage to Adams by trading for him without getting a deal done. They’ve given up even more leverage by letting him show up and refuse to practice.
Carroll also was asked whether there’s a point at which he’ll be concerned over the amount of time Adams has missed.
“Why would I tell you that?” Carroll said.
That answer seems more than a little telling. The Seahawks are caught in a tough spot with this one. What options do they really have? They can give him what he wants, they can keep waiting for him to decide to practice and play, or they can play hardball. It seems too late to play hardball.
It also seems too late to give Adams anything less than what he wants. When giving up multiple first-round picks for a player who already wants a new deal, it makes plenty of sense to get that deal on the way through the door. Whatever it would cost then, it’s always going to cost more later.