As Seahawks try to finish Jamal Adams’ deal, Russell Wilson wants Duane Brown taken care of
Russell Wilson just upped the urgency on the Seahawks to get Duane Brown a new contract.
At the start of training camp last month, Brown wasn’t practicing because he didn’t have to. This is his 14th NFL training camp. He is the oldest Seahawk. He’s also Seattle’s best offensive lineman—by a lot. He’s been an All-Pro (in 2012). He’s been a four-time Pro Bowl selection (2012, ‘13, ‘14 and ‘17).
Five weeks before the games get real—far more real than Seattle’s mock-game scrimmage Sunday before 15,758 fans at Lumen Field—Brown remains a mere spectator. He’s watched every one the 10 practices of training camp, instead of participating in them.
On the eve of his 36th birthday this month, Brown wants a new contract beyond his current deal that ends with $10 million for this 2021 season. This weekend, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Brown “isn’t pleased he hasn’t gotten” a new Seahawks contract, per an NFL source.
Sunday, Seattle coach Pete Carroll was asked if Brown, one of the team’s most respected leaders in deed and action, wasn’t pleased he hasn’t gotten a new Seahawks contract.
“Duane and I are doing great. Our conversations about stuff have been great,” Carroll said
“He’s making a statement. He’s making a statement on what he feels he needs to have happen.”
Asked whether Brown’s “statement” will lead to him missing any games when they get real beginning Sept. 12 at Indianapolis, five weeks from Sunday, Pete Carroll says: “I don’t know. I don’t know that.”
Wilson knows what must happen.
Soon.
The Seahawks’ $140 million franchise quarterback doesn’t want to think about beginning the season without Brown being where he’s been since Seattle traded with Houston for Brown in the middle of the 2017 season: protecting Wilson’s blindside from NFL pass rushers who get paid to pressure and pummel him.
Wilson said Sunday of Brown not yet having a deal and thus not practicing: ”We’ve got to figure that out, because we need Duane Brown.”
“I mean, not having Duane Brown out there is a pretty significant deal,” Wilson said, after he completed seven of his first 10 passes Sunday scrimmaging against the second-team defense. “He’s one of the best left tackles in the game. The guy’s—there’s no argument—is as good as it gets. There is nobody more athletic, more talented, than he is.
“Age is just a number. It looks like he’s 28, 30 out there. He’s really exceptional. So smart, physical. Understands the game. And I think people fear him, to be honest with you, when they are rushing him, playing against him.
“We definitely want to get him back out there.”
Wilson was asked when it will become a major issue for him personally that Brown isn’t signed and on the field again.
“We need him game one, that’s for sure,” Wilson said.
“We need to figure that out. Because he’s really special, obviously. I know he’s one of the best left tackles in the game, and he’s got several years left to do it. ...
“He’s also a leader. He’s a guy who leads the offensive line. He’s just, he commands the offensive line, and really sets the tone.”
Thing is, it’s not just as easy as the Seahawks signing Brown tomorrow because Wilson said so.
They have to get Jamal Adams’ new contract done first.
That’s going to pay the 25-year-old All-Pro the richest deal for a safety in league history, likely between $16 million and $18 million per season.
Carroll keeps calling the contract talks between the Seahawks and Adams “amicable.” Yet Adams remains like Brown, in camp in spectator mode only, not practicing until he gets his new deal.
Sunday, there was nothing new on any further progress toward Adams re-signing.
When would it become a concern that Adams wasn’t re-signed and practicing?
“Why would I tell you that?” Carroll said.
So it may already be one.
On top of that, Carroll, general manager John Schneider and salary-cap executive Matt Thomas didn’t necessarily plan for this situation with Brown.
It had been widely thought, even by some around the Seahawks, this offseason that Brown would play out his deal then likely retire from a career that began when George W. Bush was president.
“I was in the NFL when there were two-a-days,” Brown said.
But this spring, Brown told Carroll, general manager John Schneider and the Seahawks he wants to play beyond 2021, past his 37th and perhaps 38th birthdays.
Brown is scheduled to earn $10 million in base pay plus $1.35 million in per-game and other bonuses in this final year of the $34.5 million extension he signed with Seattle in 2018. His $13.3 million salary-cap charge for this year is the team’s third-highest, behind Wilson ($32 million) and Bobby Wagner ($17.1 million).
Yet as usually happens in the NFL, a top veteran contract signed three years ago is outdated. Few in football would try to argue Brown is not one of the 10 best left tackles in the league. He’s been that for a decade. Yet he is only 16th among NFL left tackles in average value per year entering 2021.
Taylor Decker ($15 million), Dion Dawkins ($14,575,000), Jake Matthews ($14.5 million) all average well more than Brown. Arizona’s D.J. Humphries is 10th in the league in average earned per year at $14.58 million. Humphries is eight years younger than Brown. He signed his three-year deal with the Cardinals in 2020, two years after Brown re-signed with the Seahawks.
Good for Brown’s prospects of a new payday in Seattle: the NFL salary cap, which dipped for only the second time ever this year because of the pandemic, is expected to go from $182.5 million this year to around $200 million next year and perhaps $220 million or more in 2023, when the league’s new media-rights deals begin.
But first, the Seahawks need to know how much of future salary caps will be going to Adams. Oh, and record-setting wide receiver DK Metcalf’s rookie contract he’s ridiculously outperformed suddenly ends after next season. So does All-Pro Bobby Wagner’s, as the league’s top-paid middle linebacker. Wilson’s ends after 2023, when he will seek to get the richest deal in NFL history from Seattle for the third time in as many extensions with the only pro team he’s known.
So, no, just giving Brown what he wants isn’t as easy as willing it to reality.
No matter how much Wilson publicly wills it to get done.
Five weeks remain to match those wills with a way, for the Seahawks to get Brown on the field for the opener and show Wilson they are listening to him.
“He’s not going to play in preseason. He wasn’t going to,” Carroll said of Brown and the team’s three exhibition games that begin Saturday at Las Vegas.
“So it’s not going to make a difference right now.”
This story was originally published August 8, 2021 at 4:38 PM.
