Seahawks get Quandre Diggs to practice the way Duane Brown returned: a void contract year
The Seahawks got Duane Brown and Quandre Diggs to end their “hold ins” and return to practicing this week.
We’d already learned how they got Brown, their 14th-year Pro Bowl veteran left tackle, back on the field to prepare for Seattle’s opener Sunday at Indianapolis.
How did they get Diggs, their Pro Bowl free safety, back practicing?
Same way.
The Seahawks converted per-game bonuses in 2021, the final year of Diggs’ contract, into up-front pay and added a void year next year with financial protections for Diggs in case he gets injured this season. ESPN’s Field Yates was the first to report that Thursday morning.
Diggs had been scheduled to earn $5.95 million in base salary for 2021. He, like Brown, wants a new contract for 2022 and beyond.
He, like Brown, didn’t get that from the Seahawks. They both got, as Brown called it Wednesday, “a compromise.”
Diggs’ $100,000 in per-game roster bonuses that had been scheduled to be paid by the week are now salary that will become guaranteed after Sunday’s game. Vested NFL veterans get their entire season’s salary guaranteed if they are on active rosters through week one.
Yates reported the Seahawks “accelerated” $5.05M of his salary into a signing bonus while adding a void year, per a league source.
That means guaranteed cash now, up front. It also means the team saves $2,525,000 in space under its salary cap this year. Seattle takes on a new $2,525,000 cap charge for Diggs in 2022, whether he’s still playing for the team or not.
The Seahawks’ are risking Brown, 36, and Diggs, 28, leaving in free agency in March.
The team’s thinking is, if each has another productive season and stays healthy, the Seahawks likely will approach each about a new deal after this season — that the team’s winning and the players’ familiarity with Seattle will be sway them to stay.
The player’s thinking is: You denied me a chance at longer-term financial security I was seeking beyond this season. If you want to revisit re-signing me after 2021 and I have the season I think I will, my price will be higher then for 2022 and beyond.
The Seahawks will be more equipped to pay higher costs next year and beyond. The NFL salary cap decreased this year, from $198.2 million in 2020 to $182.5 million, because of the coronavirus pandemic. It was only the second time since the cap began in 1994 it went down year over year. The other time was because of the league’s four-month lockout in the 2011 labor dispute.
With fans back in stadiums at full capacity this season, the cap is expected to rise from $182.5 million now to around $200 million or more next year. In 2023, when the league’s new multimedia right worth $10 billion annually kick in, the salary cap could be $220 million or more.
That’s about $20-40 million more for the Seahawks to pay these void years and sunk future costs they’ve added since last year to the contracts of Brown, Diggs, lead running back Chris Carson, defensive ends Carlos Dunlap and Kerry Hyder, and other veterans.
