Could Duane Brown be back on the field soon? Seahawks are trying to make that happen
Duane Brown is in the Seahawks’ facility on a daily basis. He is training. He is talking and hanging out with Russell Wilson and other teammates.
Could Brown be back on the field soon?
Mike Garafolo of NFL Network was on KJR-AM radio with me Thursday and said “there has been some engagement” by Seattle’s front office in recent days in an attempt to get Brown to end his “hold in.”
The 14th-year Pro Bowl veteran left tackle has been at the team facility but not practicing. He wants a new contract beyond his deal that ends this season.
Garafolo told me in describing what he’s been told the Seahawks are trying to do with Brown: “Maybe you sweeten the deal or offer some kind of incentives for the coming season...something creative.”
What’s that mean?
League sources have told The News Tribune that so far the Seahawks remain reluctant to give Brown a new deal beyond 2021. He turns 36 in four days. This will be the first NFL regular season to go 17 games. The team wants Brown finish the entire season, they hope deep into January and the playoffs, then see if he still wants to play past his 37th and perhaps 38th birthdays. They may entertain thoughts of a short-term deal with him after the season.
Brown, of course, wants a new deal now. He wants the security of knowing he will have a job and top left-tackle money for next year before he plays this one.
Can’t blame him for that.
Can’t blame the Seahawks for wanting to wait, either.
Unlike the massive extension they just gave All-Pro safety Jamal Adams, the Seahawks haven’t planned for costs dedicated to Brown for 2022 and ‘23. Entering this offseason, some with the team expected this to be Brown’s final season. The thought was he’d play through his contract and retire at age 36 having earned $94 million as a four-time Pro Bowl selection and one-time All-Pro for Houston (2008-17) and Seattle (‘17-’21). The Seahawks took Stone Forsythe from the University of Florida with one of their franchise record-low three selections in April’s draft, thinking he could learn this first year under Brown then potentially become his heir.
Instead, Brown surprised the Seahawks this spring by telling them he felt fantastic — he said last year that taking up yoga and stretching more in changed workouts have revitalized and renewed him — and that he wanted to play in 2022 and perhaps beyond.
Hence, the team’s idea to perhaps “sweeten,” to use Garafolo’s word, Brown’s $10 million base salary for 2021 with, say, a few million dollars more above that.
The Seahawks have $13.06 million in space under this year’s NFL salary cap, per overthecap.com. That doesn’t include the relatively miniscule, league-minimum contract Seattle gave 25-year-old tight end Ian Bunting in a minor signing for depth on Thursday. Bunting signed after Luke Willson quit football Wednesday, one day after he had signed back for a fourth go-round with the Seahawks.
News of the Seahawks engaging Brown in talks to get him back on the field has to make Wilson smile.
The $140 million franchise quarterback has twice this month publicly stated his desire to get Brown practicing and preparing to protect his blind side again beginning Sept. 12 in Seattle’s opener at Indianapolis.
”We’ve got to figure that out, because we need Duane Brown,” Wilson said Aug. 8.
“I mean, not having Duane Brown out there is a pretty significant deal,” Wilson said. “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.”
Brown’s only leverage with the Seahawks is now, before the season begins. He stands to lose $555,556, a proration of his $10 million base salary, in game checks per week if he takes his stand into missing regular-season games. That’s not something the Seahawks can drop or wipe away as one of their sweeteners for Brown. Missing game checks for missing games is mandatory, written into the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with its players.
Kam Chancellor stood firm on his principle of wanting a new contract through the Seahawks’ preseason and into the regular season of 2015. After giving up two game checks, he returned without a new deal while facing $1.39 million in fines and having forfeited $539,294 in salary.
So the question is: how soon before the opener will Brown return to the field?
Brown’s leverage increased somewhat this month when the team’s Plans B and C at left tackle both missed weeks with injuries. Jamarco Jones and Cedric Ogbuehi returned to practice this week after missing almost all of training camp. Forsythe started the first two preseason games.
That’s a reason Wilson has yet to play this preseason. Coaches weren’t about to risk Wilson behind a Plan D rookie left tackle, particularly against the starters the Denver Broncos played against Seattle last weekend.
Jones is the first-string left tackle this week. Now that the fourth-year veteran and Ogbuehi, a former first-round pick by Cincinnati, are back practicing, Wilson’s chances of playing the preseason finale Saturday night against the Los Angeles Chargers at Lumen Field go way up.
The team has 15 days from Saturday night’s dress rehearsal until the opener against the Colts. That’s plenty of time for Brown to get back on the field and well ready for the season.
Last week Wilson was asked if he felt Brown could stay off the field until the week of the Colts game and still be fully ready to play in this new offense?
“Yeah,” Wilson said. “I think Duane’s a guy...he’s probably the most physically fit guy on our team. He’s SO athletic. He used to play tight end in high school. ...He can really run.”
Wilson said in the team’s weight room, the 35-year-old Brown, at 6 feet 4 and 315 pounds, does 20 pull-ups.
“At his size, 20 pull-ups is crazy,” Wilson said. “And he’ll do three sets of them — with a weighted vest on, sometimes.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2021 at 12:44 PM.
