Duane Brown says he’s returning for 2020 at age 35. Iffy Seahawks offensive line needs him
After the most painful of his dozen seasons in the NFL, Duane Brown is coming back for more.
The four-time Pro Bowl left tackle announced this week online following the Seahawks’ playoff loss at Green Bay that he gutted through that he will be back for Seattle’s 2020 season. The team’s best blocker turns 35 before next season begins.
“I love it, man. I love this atmosphere. I love this team,” Brown said after he played every one of Seattle’s 64 snaps on offense against the Packers despite not practicing in almost a month.
“I’m looking forward to it, man. ...We’ve got a lot to build on.”
Brown has two more seasons and $18.75 million in base salaries for 2020 and 2021 remaining on the contract extension he signed with the Seahawks in July 2018. At the time he did, Brown said he wanted to finish his career with Seattle.
Brown missed five games, including the Seahawks’ wild-card playoff win two weeks ago at Philadelphia, while battling knee and biceps injuries almost the entire 2019 season. He finally had knee surgery Dec. 23.
Impressive resolve
Saturday night in the team hotel in Green Bay, he told his Seahawks teammates in a team meeting he was playing Sunday against the Packers less than three weeks after operation on his knee.
Brown said it was “extremely important” to play that game with his guys.
“I’m not in the business of missing games, and I’ve missed quite a few this year. I’m just grateful,” he said.
“I haven’t done any movement, really any physical activity in almost the last month. I didn’t know how my body was going to hold up.
“A lot of muscle memory. And adrenaline.
“I’m just grateful. ...I respect and love everyone in this locker room.”
That feeling is mutual.
Brown’s teammates and coaches were wowed by Brown bulling through his right-knee surgery to play in Green Bay.
“Extraordinary,” coach Pete Carroll said.
“Since the moment he came in (via trade from Houston in the middle of the 2017 season), he’s provided a lot of leadership for this team,” All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “He’s definitely shared his experience that he’s played. You’ve got a lot of respect for him, everything that he’s done in his career, especially on this team.
“For him to have the surgery, I think like two weeks ago, and watching him in rehab, try to get back and being able to come out and play in this game, is inspiring. I definitely feel like for myself and the younger guys, you see the right way to do it.”
Status of the O-line
Brown’s return in 2020 is a big deal to Seattle’s offensive line. He’s the best pass blocker on a unit that must improve in pass protection for this team to get farther than the divisional round of the playoffs next season. The last two seasons it’s been Russell Wilson scrambling around pressured more than most quarterbacks in the NFL are, or should be.
Brown and right guard D.J. Fluker are the only starters on the offensive line who are under contract for next season and completed this season on the field, not in major rehabilitation from injury.
Carroll said he wants to maintain continuity on the offensive line. He likes the line’s ability to run block, to keep the running game the basis of Seattle’s offense as the head coach wants.
“It is important. I hope we can keep our guys connected. I don’t want to see a big change there,” Carroll said.
“We have made good progress. We have really good young guys, a couple guys got banged up this year that you haven’t seen a whole lot. Jordan Simmons, (Demetrius) Knox, those guys coming back, the competition will really be good. Jamarco (Jones) did well (starting at guard and tackle this season). To see Phil (Haynes) play like that too, that was really, really helpful for us going forward. I think the whole group could be a really solid group coming back.
“I would like to see the guys who have been playing for us to stay with us.”
That’s going to be tough to pull off.
Right tackle Germain Ifedi is poised to become a free agent in March. That’s because the Seahawks declined last spring to exercise the fifth-year option they had on him as their first-round draft choice in 2016. That would have cost them $10.35 million for 2020. That’s almost $9 million more than Ifedi’s $1.58 million salary for this past season. So Carroll and general manager John Schneider chose to try to perhaps keep Ifedi at a lower cost for next season and beyond.
But this is the 25-year-old Ifedi’s first chance at free agency. Offensive tackles who block edge rushers are increasingly well-paid in this passer-and-protect-the-passer league. If he gets to March without an offer from the Seahawks he likes, he will shop. And if shops, he will likely leave.
The Seahawks drafted Jones from Ohio State in 2018 to be a starting tackle. He started as an injury fill-in this season at right guard and left guard, and the playoff games against the Eagles and Packers at left guard for Mike Iupati.
Iupati missed those last two games with a nerve injury in his neck. He turns 33 in May. The 10-year veteran’s one-year contract is ending. With rookie Phil Haynes making his first career start Sunday after Seattle drafted him in the fourth round last spring, Iupati is likely not returning.
Britt’s situation
Center Justin Britt tore ligaments in his knee in Seattle’s win at Atlanta in October. A starter since he was Seattle’s second-round draft choice in 2014, Britt has a long road to recovery.
His three-year, $27 million contract extension he signed in August 2017 ends after the 2020 season, thanks to the team picking up his option for next season in the spring of 2018. Like most veteran extensions, the salary-cap charges for his extension years balloon in the final years, back-loaded to be more cap friendly up front at the start of the deal.
The Seahawks could save $8.75 million against their 2020 salary cap by releasing the 28-year-old who has been a Pro Bowl alternate for them at center after he failed at tackle then at guard his first two seasons with the team. Britt’s $11.67 million cap charge is scheduled to be the fourth-highest on the team in 2020. That’s behind only franchise pillars Wilson and Wagner then Brown, and ahead of top wide receiver Tyler Lockett.
That’s a hefty chunk of the team’s salary cap to a veteran who will be 29 and likely not on the field until late next summer or after next season begins. Recoveries from reconstructive knee surgeries generally take 9-12 months or so, and players usually don’t come back from it immediately as the same performers they were prior to the injury.
It’s the same situation the Seahawks had with Richard Sherman following his torn Achilles in Nov. 2017. Rather than absorb his $11 million salary-cap charge for 2018 as he returned for an injury as major as Britt’s, Seattle released its All-Pro cornerback and previous team cornerstone in the spring of ‘18, weeks before his 30th birthday.
Sherman is now preparing to play in Sunday’s NFC title game for the 49ers against the Packers.
It’s not entirely an all-or-nothing proposition for Britt. He could agree to renegotiate his 2020 salary to make it more cap friendly for the team. He could also reach an injury settlement of a cash payment if the team were to release him while still unfit to play.
On Monday, Carroll didn’t exactly give an ironclad promise about Britt’s future.
“I saw him the other day. He said he is making really good progress,” Carroll said. “He’s been around a lot. He’s very active in here, so we know that he’s working hard at it. He should be able to get back on normal schedule.
“After you get about five or six months into it, you have to kind of figure out what’s going on. So, I don’t know how that’s going to turn for him.”
Joey Hunt finished the season for Britt at center. Seattle’s sixth-round pick in 2016 knows the system. But he got overwhelmed and plain flattened at times by bigger defensive tackles. Hunt is due to be a restricted free agent when the 2020 league year begins in March. The Seahawks have a period in which they can tender to Hunt a qualifying offer to keep him. Another team can match that offer to sign him.
The deadline to tender restricted free agents is March 18. If the Seahawks don’t tender by then, such a player becomes an unrestricted free agent for the open market.
All of which makes Brown’s declaration he’s off “to get the body right then it’s back to the grind. Next year is ours!” even more important for the offensive line.
And the Seahawks’ 2020 season.
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 8:02 AM.
