Russell Wilson praises Earl Thomas, says of his Seahawks holdout “this is our livelihoods”

He’s nowhere near here. He’s not wheezing the Pacific Northwest’s smoke, nor sweating through training camp with his teammates. His coach responds to questions about contacting him with terse, one-word answers.

Those begin with “n” and end in “o.”

Yet Earl Thomas’ teammates are thinking of and missing their All-Pro free safety at the end of his third week holding out for a new Seahawks contract, a deal that is nowhere in sight.

“We have to be focused on the next opportunity and practicing the next day. But, of course, we love Earl. He’s a brother to us,” quarterback Russell Wilson, the face and voice of the franchise, said Thursday following the 15th practice since the start of training camp.

It was the 15th consecutive practice Thomas has skipped since July 26.

“He’s a guy that’s put so much blood, sweat and tears into our organization here for the Seahawks,” Wilson said. “He’s a great friend, too. I get to see Earl once in a while. The kids get to hang out a bunch, just to see him, just to be around him.

“I think also, too, is that anytime in sports there’s business to it. I think a lot of people forget that. This is our livelihoods, and everything else. This isn’t just...it is fun, and it is games. But it’s not just fun and games, if that makes sense. It’s real life.

“I think that Earl’s working his way through that, whatever that may be. Hopefully we can get him back out here.”

Sunday, coach Pete Carroll was asked if the Seahawks have had any recent conversations with Thomas.

“No,” Carroll said flatly, without elaboration.

The inference was clear. Carroll hasn’t been asked about Thomas since.

Thomas’ teammates elaborate much more when asked about him.

“I’m still in touch with Earl,” said starter Bradley McDougald.

He has been the strong safety with second-year man Tedric Thompson at Thomas’ free safety spot most of this month, including again Thursday.

“I spoke to him. Social media,” McDougald said. “I really haven’t had too many texts; I really haven’t had time to text anyone, you know.

“But I’ve kept him in my prayers. Hope he’s doing well. I want him back.”

The best-case scenario for the team in this impasse that hasn’t had a best case happen yet is for Thomas to come back in time for the third preseason game. That’s next Friday, Aug. 24 at Minnesota. The third exhibition is the final rehearsal for starters for the regular season. Carroll likes to play them into the third quarter of that game, to make halftime adjustments and then rev it up again for the start of the second half at least once before the games get real. The fourth preseason game, Aug. 30 against Oakland, starters will barely play. Some may not even be in uniform.

But, again, there are zero signs Thomas will be back for either that third or fourth preseason game, and assuredly not before Seattle leaves Friday afternoon for Saturday’s exhibition at the Los Angeles Chargers.

Through Thursday, the Seahawks could fine Thomas up to $1,239,000, per the league’s collective bargaining agreement. That includes $680,000 in daily fines of $40,000 each, plus the maximum 25 percent of his prorated signing bonus of $1.9 million for this year ($475,000) and $84,000 for missing the team’s mandatory minicamp in June.

If he’s not back with the team by month’s end, those fines would reach $1,639,000.

Then pride, as one reader put it, really starts getting expensive. Thomas would lose another $500,000 per regular-season game missed. Each game check is 1/17th of his $8.5 million base salary for 2018, the final year of his $40 million, four-year extension with Seattle. At the time he signed it in 2014 it made him the richest safety in the NFL.

Here is why precedent from Kam Chancellor’s holdout through the first two games of the 2015 regular season says the Seahawks will collect the fines from Thomas, too.

There is a quiet sense around the Seahawks, at least among some players, Thomas will rejoin them in time to play in the real games. Seattle’s first one is Sept. 9 at Denver.

Wilson said he thinks Thomas could step onto the practice field within a couple days of that opener, or any regular-season game and be fit and ready to start as he has for the last eight seasons at the back of the Seahawks’ defense.

“The one thing about Earl Thomas: He’s, in my opinion, the best safety to ever step on the field, arguably,” Wilson said. “And I believe that he’ll be ready to play when he decides to, if he decides to, come back and be ready to roll.”

“If he decides to...”

That’s a change from the “when he comes back” the Seahawks were saying at the start of this month.

Last month, just before training camp, Thomas posted on his Instagram account, referring to the Seahawks: “Extend.....if you don’t want me let’s make a trade happen I understand it’s a bizz”

The prospect of Seattle trading its starring safety for the last eight years intensified around the draft in April. Thomas’ home state Dallas Cowboys, the team whose locker room Thomas went to following a Seahawks win there Christmas Eve and said “come get me,” were among the teams interested. But the Seahawks’ price tag of multiple top-round draft choices, believed to be at least a first- and a third-round pick for Thomas, kept those trade talks from becoming substantive.

The Seahawks would be foolish to ask for anything less than at least a second-round pick plus a starting-capable player for Thomas, since doing nothing and letting him leave in free agency next spring would net them a third-round pick in compensation.

The complicating factor for any team wanting to trade for Thomas: the immediate need to meet his salary demands now, on a multiyear deal that would likely last until Thomas was at least 33.

The most likely scenario remains an unhappy Thomas returning, eventually, to the Seahawks to play out the final year of his contract.

If Thomas were to hold out past the 10th week the regular season, the NFL players’ union believes (based on precedent of a far-from-completely-clear arbitrator’s ruling in the 1999 holdout by Seahawks wide receiver Joey Galloway), Thomas’ contract would “toll.” That means this year on his contract would not count and he would not be eligible for the free-agent way to riches next spring.

That’s not going to happen.

So unless the Seahawks up their offer, to the top of the NFL’s pay scale for safeties, unless Thomas lowers his price for 2019 and beyond, or unless another team offers far more than it has yet to trade for Thomas, he will be playing for the Seahawks in 2018. Eventually. And unhappily. The team that has him under its contract still has the ultimate leverage here.

This story was originally published August 16, 2018 at 2:06 PM.