Now it’s Quandre Diggs ‘holding in,’ skipping Seahawks practices wanting a new deal
Now it’s Quandre Diggs’ turn to sit out of practice to show how much he wants a new Seahawks contract.
Coach Pete Carroll said Friday the reason his Pro Bowl safety has been on the sidelines watching practices all this week instead of participating in them in because he wants a new deal for 2022 and beyond.
“He’s making a bit of a statement now,” Carroll said following Seattle’s final preseason practice Friday, the day before their exhibition finale at home against the Los Angeles Chargers.
“But I have nothing for you to update.
“You know, he deserves to do that.”
The 28-year-old Diggs is entering the final year of his contract, with a base salary of $5.95 million. It’s from the extension he signed with Detroit in 2018. The Seahawks inherited that contract when they traded with the Lions to get Detroit’s co-captain in the middle of the 2019 season.
Diggs’ absence has put usual primary nickel defensive back Marquise Blair as the starting free safety, too, with Ugo Amadi as nickel this week.
Diggs is the third Seahawks player to “hold in” this preseason.
All-Pro Jamal Adams, Diggs’ partner at safety, reported to training camp on time July 28 then watched every camp practice while refusing to participate in one until he got his new contract. That impasse ended Aug. 17 when the Seahawks made Adams the NFL’s richest safety with a four-year, $70 million extension.
In June’s mandatory minicamp, Duane Brown began watching but otherwise skipping practices. The 14th-year Pro Bowl veteran left tackle still hasn’t practiced this summer, though he’s regularly been in the team facility, training, lifting weights and talking with Russell Wilson and other teammates. He wants a new contract beyond his current $10 million deal, which ends after this season. He turns 36 on Monday.
Wilson has twice this month publicly stated the Seahawks need settle the situation with Brown to get his best offensive lineman back on the field.
“We’ve got to figure that out, because we need Duane Brown,” Wilson said Aug. 8.
In the last week the team has approached Brown about potentially “sweetening” his pay for this year. Mike Garofolo of NFL Network told me that on KJR-AM radio Thursday. The Seahawks remain reluctant to give Brown a new deal for 2022 or beyond.
The day Adams signed his new contract he stated it was time for Diggs to get a new deal from Seattle, too.
“Oh, absolutely. He deserves it. He deserves it,” Adams said two weeks ago, “and hopefully we can get that done.
“I’m not the GM, so I don’t know when. His time is going to come. They’re going to do right by him.”
“Holding in” is different than the traditional holding out in which a player stays away from training camp and the team facility to protest his contract situation. Hold outs are subject to mandatory fines of $50,000 per day, per Article 42 of the league’s collective bargaining agreement.
Hold ins are new. They are undefined by the league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players. Nothing in the CBA states players must or can be fined for showing up to training camp but then refusing to practice. Any discipline for coming to the facility but refusing to practice would be up to the team, and punishing players for that would likely but a team at odds not only with its locker room but with the NFL players’ union. Plus, with Adams and Brown, Carroll has already set the precedent of publicly supporting these hold-in “statements” and letting them go on, knowing no game checks are yet at stake.
Because of that, being present but refusing to practice is the one bargaining chip these players have. That leverage has a finite shelf life. In Diggs’ case, it’s 16 days.
That’s how long until the Seahawks’ season opener, Sept. 12 at Indianapolis. If Diggs, and Brown, decide to stick to their “statement” through that game, each will lose a game check. That is non-negotiable and not up to the team to waive. That is a mandatory loss, per the NFL CBA.
Diggs would lose $330,556 per game by refusing to play in one. That’s the 18-week proration (17 games plus one bye week) over the season on his $5.95 million base salary.
Brown stands to lose $555,556 per game if he doesn’t play.
Players in this league where almost nothing but the present season is guaranteed are not in the business of giving that kind of money away.
Asked what’s changed with the modern NFL player where hold-ins are now in vogue, at least this summer in Seattle, the 69-year-old Carroll said: “I think the guys are ahead of...I can’t remember what all the rules were in the past as far as guys not showing up and coming, in the past past. But I think it is an opportunity for players, in all sports, to communicate where they are coming from. This is a way to do it.
“Quandre’s been great all through camp. He’s had a fantastic camp, and he’s in great shape, and he’s ready to go.”
Asked what’s going on with Brown, Carroll said Friday: “I’ve got no updates for you.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2021 at 12:33 PM.
